Pizza Monday

March 23, 2009

I got two things in the mail today. The first was letters from the kids that I write to in the U.S. I always smile when I get those. They repeat a lot of questions that I’ve already answered, though. The second thing that I got was a package with two CDs and card from a really good friend in the city. I’m always looking for Mongolian music that I might like, but never know what is what or if I’ll like it. She sent me some music that she thought I might like. It’s not bad.

Walking around today, it was a little bit warm. There was a strong wind, but it wasn’t too bad. Or so I’d thought. I went down the road a little way and played footbag in the street. Some of the people in the cars looked at me crazy when they drove by. I gave them a wide-berth when I saw them coming then started playing again when they went by me. The wind turned out to be a little colder than I’d anticipated. Next time I’ll take a pair of gloves with me. It took a lot of jumping and kicking to get my blood pumping to all my extremities and get warmed up. Considering the wind, and how long it’s been since I’ve been able to seriously practice, I didn’t do too badly.

March 24, 2009

I came to UB to hang out with James and Evan today. They were still in the bed when I got there and they laid there talking to me for a long time before they got up. When they finally did, we went to eat Korean. I really like that stuff. Before the end of the day, other friends came to the guesthouse and we took it over with PCVs. Out of eight single beds and a double-person room, we filled all but one bed. That evening, we all went to Ikh Mongol and watched a really cool band. That is, everyone except James. His excuse was that he was going to play a video game so he could “beat the dragon.” As you might imagine, we all teased him real good about that. The band is a really popular one here. They play traditional instruments and have throat singing, but they’ve electrified the instruments and added drums. They sound really good. Whenever I can remember their name, I’ll find them on YouTube and send you the link.

March 25, 2009

For lunch, I met with a friend at Coffee Empire. I was surprised how much it looked just like any coffee shop you might find in the U.S. When I left there, I went walking around town to check out Skymall and Mercury Mart. Both of those tend to have lots of stuff that is hard to find at other places. I’m still on a search for my pizza ingredients and those are the places that I’ve been told have them. Later, a couple of us guys went to a cheap guanz (diner) for my tsuivan fix. It seems like I never have that anymore until I order it at a place in UB. It was good.

Tonight, I’ve hung out with lots of people at the guesthouse, having a good time enjoying American guy humour. Somehow or another, we got to playing rummy today. Evan and I were the only ones there who knew how to play, so we taught everyone else. They picked it up pretty quickly and went with it. At first, it was just me and James playing. Then, more and more people joined in. At some point, someone introduced alcohol into the mix and, after every new person that joined, we changed the rules appropriately. Ah, leave it to some ex-fraternity boys to make it interesting in some way. At the end, there were just four of us guys and I think that it one of the absolute funnest times I’ve had since being in Mongolia. We sat around and made fun of and laughed at each other for a couple hours, never getting to take more than a few breaths before something else funny was said or done. (By the way, MS Word is telling me that “funnest” is not a word. Anyone know what I should use in its place? Maybe it’s just a brain-fart, but I can’t think of anything.)

March 26, 2009

I hung out for a while before slowly walking toward the meeker. I always get shin splints when I go to the city. I think the biggest reason is that I walk several kilometres throughout my day when in the city, whereas I walk nowhere near that distance at my site. I tried to stretch my shins out well but they’re still sore tonight. I was lucky at the market and caught the early meeker, right before it left. I was glad that I didn’t have to wait very long. That’s unusual for me.

When I got home, my power was off and meat blood had thawed and dripped out of the fridge, into the floor of my kitchen. Dang it!!! When I checked, someone had turned off the breaker to my apartment. That really makes me mad. I really need to see about getting some kind of lock on that thing.

March 27, 2009

When I was walking around town today, I saw an advertisement on the side of the Culture Centre. There was to be a movie tonight, and it only costed 2,000tg to watch. I had forgotten about it when I started watching a movie at home, and then remembered right before the second showing was to start. I quickly got dressed and went. There were about six people there when they started the movie only 15 minutes late. I counted 20 people by the time everyone got there, 30 minutes into the movie. It was definitely not a good movie experience. The movie itself was a little bit less than good and almost every person in there talked to their self, their friend sitting next to them, their friend across the room, or to someone on their phone. I have problems paying attention anyway, so that exacerbated things immensely. I was quite perturbed, to say the least.

Tonight, I found part of my blog quoted online. This is from a site that has all kinds of stuff about the Peace Corps, but it’s not the Peace Corps, so keep that in mind. Here’s the link to my blog quote:

http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/467/3213958.html

March 28, 2009

I just want to say hi to Alex’s mom. What do I do at work, you ask? Let’s just say that I can make it looks really good on paper. Thanks for reading. Haha.

I came back to UB today. My first stop was at a shop that is near the black market. I got a new spring/fall jacket. I’d stopped by that store a couple of times, and the last time, I found a cool Adidas jacket that is perfect. I had thought that I was going to buy a jacket at another store for 80,000tg. I prefer the Adidas brand, and the price was only 45,000tg. I talked the lady down to 42,500.

From there, I went and hung out with Mendee. I had planned to go with him to his work for the day and maybe help him out. When I asked him what time we’d leave, he told me the sports competition that they were supposed to have had been canceled. The sports complex had caught fire that morning and it was way too smoky to have it. So, he took me to a place close to his place and I got a hair cut. I was lucky this time because the guy that was sitting in the chair before me had his hair cut just like I wanted mine. I told the lady and she gave me the best haircut that I’ve had since being in Mongolia. All the Mongolians kept telling me that my hair looked good long, but I just couldn’t stand it. After that, he showed me a nice market where I’ll do most of my grocery shopping tomorrow. At the front of the store, there was a little movie selling counter. When I asked for real Mongolian movies, the guy showed me a DVD with about eight or nine movies. I bought it for 4,000tg. That’s a much better deal than the two VCDs I bought before, for 5,000tg.

This evening, I met some Mongolian friends and went to see Othello the opera. It was my first opera ever so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it was alright. The only thing that I saw that might not be equal to something on Broadway (or whatever famous place in America that has operas) is that Othello kept watching the maestro for his cue. No matter where he was standing, or which way he was facing, he would position himself in such a way to be able to see the maestro. It was a little bit funny. The singing, though, was awesome. I’ve already talked about how much Mongolians love singing. It was easy to tell tonight. Afterwards, I met some friends at the Chinggis Brewery. There were 11 of us there. Some had been there for a couple hours before I got there. After a certain point, they made us pay our tab before they would serve us more. They didn’t think we’d be able to pay for what we had, so they wanted to be safe. I thought that was kind of funny.

March 29, 2009

This morning, I woke up early and went shopping at the store Mendee showed me yesterday. I only had to get three other things at another store. I got yeast, veggies, cheese, and tomato sauce for future pizzas. The yeast was much easier to find than I thought it was going to be. For my lunch, I met Shuree for lunch at Broadway Pizza. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, and she wanted pizza. I think that place is supposed to be the best place in the city to get pizza, but some of the okay pizza in the U.S. is better than it is there. They don’t put tomato sauce on their pizzas!!! It just doesn’t taste right to me.

I hung out at the Peace Corps office with a couple of PCVs for a while and then made my way to the market where I waited an hour and a half for the meeker to leave. I barely missed the one that left right as I got there. At home, I washed dishes and watched one of the Mongolian movies called “Stain.” It was pretty good.

March 30, 2009

10 Facts about Mongolia, from the VSO website:

http://www.vso.org.uk/about/cprofiles/10_facts_mongolia.asp

Today, during my lunch break, I made pizza dough. It was cool to play with the yeast. I’ve never made pizza dough from scratch before. The recipe was really easy, only needing water, oil, sugar, salt, yeast, and flour. After mixing and kneading, I let it set for about 45 minutes, then kneaded it some more. I let it set until I got off work, then kneaded it and let it set a bit more. I cut it in half and put half in the fridge for later, then rolled the rest out into a small, shallow pan that I have. I added lots of tomato sauce, cheese, tomatoes, peppers, pepperonis, and a little kimchi on one piece. The pizza took less than 20 minutes to make. It was hard to wait long enough for it to cool down, but I persevered. When I finally took that first bite, it was nothing but yum-yum in my tum-tum. I ate every bit of it. Oh, and of course, I had a beer with it. The two yeasts just go so well together that it’s hard to separate them.

I hope none of you have been holding your breath for this. If so, you can let it out now. I hope you’re good. Tell everyone that you know that I know that I say hi. Write when you can. Talk to you later. See ya.