Christmas recap

This has been a great Christmas. If I couldn’t be home with my family the people I spent it with were the next best choice. We had a southern meal including: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, mac and cheese, and meat balls. I made eggnog and we have been drinking that all weekend. I think the greatest part of this whole weekend though, was that I got to go skiing. It cost me about $40 for the ride up there and back, rentals, the lift ticket (there were 3 decent lifts), and food… a steak. What a deal!! We had a blast skiing and enjoying the views.
Yesterday after came home from skiing I made chicken potpie pockets. They were so good. My friend Heather made the pie crust and we put eggs and milk in the dough and it was the flakiest crust I have ever eaten. If I were to have made these in the America they would have been delicious, so making them here after being forced to drink the boiled sheep liquid was even more incredible. There is rumor that tonight we are going to make lasagna. I am in heaven. That makes it more like a normal Christmas for me too because my dad usually makes a Christmas lasagna.
Getting to Karakol (the city we are visiting now) was quite the experience though. My mom has told me that I should start writing my travel experiences down and write a book when I come home, and I’m starting to agree with her. I was going to go to travel with my friend Heather and we had to meet up in Naryn City and leave from there. I got into town pretty quickly but Heather has to stand on the side of the road for a car to drive by. She was lucky to catch the first taxi to go by after standing there 45 minutes. I just asked her how long the wait was and she said it was ONLY 45 minutes… at times it is up to 2 hours in temperature that are in the teens or lower. Anyway, she got into town and we waited in the taxi for about an hour for two more people to show up and ride with us. Once we got into the next town we had to find another taxi or mini bus to take us to our final destination. Well as soon as we walked up there was a mini bus leaving within 15 minutes and we were very excited. We set down our bags and went to find food. We were standing in a small store near by and were talking to a woman about how she thought it was amazing that we knew Kyrgyz because even Kyrgyz people don’t know the language very well. We looked out the window and we could no longer see our mini bus or our bags. I ran out and found out that there was a different mini bus that we were going to take and our bags were in that one… phew. We got in… got seats (not everyone did) and took off. Oh crap… we were going the wrong direction. Well we ended up taking the south shore mini bus that took a little longer. The good part is that that way is more scenic, but the bad part is it was so cold that the windows were frosted over and it was dark within an hour into our ride. We got into town about 10.5 hours after we started our trip but we got greeted by other volunteers who had made cookies and sushi. It was a good trip!
New Years will be with my host family and I’m sure pictures with come with that too. Stay warm and be jolly!
Brooke