EAGLES HUNTING WOLVES

Next weekend will likely be the highlight of my time here thus far. There is an eagle-hunting festival by Lake Issyk-Kul on Saturday Oct 18, and Josh, an American here who's studying Russian, is going to organize the trip for us since he knows one of the hunters. We'll leave late next Friday night and get to Issyk-Kul around 2 am. There will be giant eagles that will hunt rabbits and wolves. It will be horrible and bloody but at the same time of course interesting because it's Kyrgyzstan, and eagles, and wolves! On Sunday there's a private hunt, where you go into the mountains on horseback and hunt for wild animals, rather than wolves and rabbits that were raised specifically to be hunted and killed. We all have to be back for classes on Monday, so I'm not sure how much hunting we'll be able to fit in, but we'll see!

Today is my first payday :)

My Russian schedule will change for the next two weeks and I have to go to class on Wednesdays, even though it's mini-weekend. There's no time during the regular school week to fit me in, there are too many Russian learners this month. But it means I'll have my teaching days much more open, and so I can spend more time lesson planning... or procrastinating and playing computer games.

There's a great new English-language magazine/newspaper in Bishkek that has restaurant reviews and current event listings. We've decided to try to frequent as many of the different restaurants as possible, since we're getting sick of the 3 or 4 places we usually go on our block. Taxis are cheap here (about a dollar a person), so getting to places farther away from the school isn't too difficult.

We went to a German restaurant Wednesday night- Steinbraeu. It's owned by a German-Kyrgyz guy, and they brew their own beer. They served lots of different sausages, and I didn't eat them, but the other teachers said they were great. I did have a "beer cocktail"- half beer, half Sprite. It tasted like a Radler and it reminded me so much of Austria!

My class was observed on Tuesday and the feedback I got was mostly positive with some constructive criticism. I'm starting to feel really confident in class and I have a lot of fun with my students- I'm learning SO much from them!

That's all. I uploaded a video of the Kyrgyz beatboxer to facebook, and I've finally gotten around to adding more pictures, so you should check them out.