Flipping My World Upside Down

So in the next couple weeks I will - quite literally - flip my world upside down. Really. I'll be left standing on the soles of Chris's feet...with a great big world between us.

It has been a while since my last post...partially due to lack of internet at home these days, partially because my life here just feels normal now, and partially because a whole lot of scheming has materialized itself into a new job for me...on the other side of the world.

Right. So the bottom line is that I will now depart from Mongolia on September 28. That's nine days from now. NINE DAYS. Which is no time at all, but it's especially no time when it means that in nine days I will leave Chris behind in Mongolia to finish up his contract at Orchlon. He will stay here at least through October, maybe through November, and potentially not arrive home to me until some time in December. DECEMBER?! Yeah.

As I said, nine days is no time at all.

In my final nine days, I'll be doing a lot of the usual: hanging around on the orange couch with my favorite man, going to work, writing reports, wandering about UB, eating at our favorite Korean restaurant, heading to the hills for a hike...the usual. But somehow now that it is whittled down to nine days, it seems so urgent, so rushed. Everything becomes a last, a final, a memory to be made.

And it all seems so quick.

I suppose it's human nature to become nostalgic with any big change, and I've sure fallen right into line in that regard. I mean, it's Mongolia. It's this foreign land where so few foreigners venture once in their life, let alone live there for a year. It's the daily frustrations, the language barrier, the feeling out of place and oh so different, the crappy food, the stumbling upon something delightful in a shop when you least expect it (ravioli in a can?! oh the wonder of it all!). It's this crazy, crazy land that I have loved, hated, fought with and embraced for the past year of my life, and it's damn near time to leave. And that leaves me...nostalgic for the past, excited for the future.

The logistics are fairly simple: I leave here on September 28th to begin my journey home. The new job starts on October 11, so I'll have some time to enjoy with friends, family, and lettuce before I start the next adventure. Chris will hold down the Mongolian fort for a while, then join me in Boston for our next adventure as a dynamic duo. And that's that...a new job, a new city, a new adventure. Unfortunately it will be a solo adventure in the beginning, but at the end of that solo time will be a reunion with my favorite man, and I do like having things to look forward to...so all in all it's not a bad spot to be in.

But how could I not miss this?



As an aside, he's eating a pine cone. Well, technically not the whole cone, but the nuts inside of it. Who knew pine nuts came from pine cones? Certainly not I. But it turns out they do, and it also turns out that Mongolians love them. The whole city is dotted with people selling the cones or nuts taken out of the cones, and the sidewalks are sprinkled with pine nut shells. It's like living in a land of chipmunks. And Chris has become one of them. Again, how could I not miss him?