Week 8: Mongolia, Night 0.5 and Day 1

The saga of my trip with Romany to not-Russia, almost-Far-East Asia begins. To sum it up, and in honor of Asia, I’ll even compose a little haiku (with full knowledge that the haiku is, in fact, not a Mongolian poetry form). Train across the steppe. UB. Camels. Really far. Russia seems better. Publishable almost, right? [...]

Week 4: Buryatia (Part 2 of 3)

And the saga continues (from Part 1). It might not be your ever-encapsulating expedition through Paris or African safari, but I can’t imagine you’ve read too many blog posts about this place. Monday, Sep 28: Through the Barguzin Valley Orientation: To give you a visual, think of Lake Baikal as being shaped like a crescent [...]

Week 4: Buryatia (Part 1 of 3)

My task here is to shrink down the 18 handwritten pages of everything I saw, experienced, etc. over the course of the past week into an equally exciting (well. . .), yet decidedly less lengthy update. So ready, set, read! Friday, Sep 25: Train Station I met my two Middlebury cohorts and our coordinator, Elizabeth, [...]

Week 3: Settling in, and other observations

 I’d had two weeks of classes to figure out the work ethic, attention, layout of the building, teachers’ names and patronymics, and so on, here at the university; two weeks to make some friends; two weeks to start missing home and to get a steady Internet connection to stay on top of the news, social [...]