Oh man, I’m tired. It’s 7:40am right now and we are waiting to board our plane to Korea. I slept pretty fitfully last night and I pretty much woke up at 3am because of a mixture of excitement and nervousness. We arranged transportation to the airport through our guesthouse and it was actually one of the nicest – and cheapest – such rides we have had.
Driving to the airport I realized that over the past 16 months I have been to the UB airport more frequently than all other airports put together. The ride without our winter coasts wasn’t too bad – in fact, sitting here now in the warm flight lounge, I wish I had left more stuff behind. Now I have to cart my fleece, beanie, scarf, and mittens all over Thailand.
There is a pretty odd mixture of people in the airport. There are outgoing flights to Beijing, Seoul, and Moscow. There are lots of really fancy Mongolians, plenty of Russians, and quite a few English-speaking westerners whom I am having a really hard time approaching and asking “What are YOU doing in Mongolia in winter?” Of all these people, we are definitely the most raggedy of the bunch. Oh, the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer.
We are both keeping ourselves awake and entertained by people-watching. We selected a couple of flight lounge seats right on a walkway with lots of foot traffic. Ashlee is a little delirious and she is noisily giving nicknames to the passersby. My favorites include “Man With a Purse,” “Jaunty,” and “Oh My God, Woman in a Form-Fitting Cashmere Pantsuit, Cashmere!” I had to remind Ashlee that the further we get from our lives in Olgii, the more English-speakers we will encounter. Usually I’m the one with that problem.
Our flight to Korea should be about 3 hours. That means in a little over 4 hours I’ll be sipping a cappuccino and chowing down on a nice sub sandwich. I can’t wait – I just ate a rather unappetizing and extra mayo-filled sandwich roll from the flight café. What was I thinking?
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