Winter vacation plans

In 3.5 weeks winter vacation begins, and I haven't started planning! Mike was denied days off from work, so he, Ben, and Evan aren't going to Iran anymore, which is wonderful (for me)! It means that Mike will come with me. We decided we are going to do Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan- 4 days in KZ: Almaty, Turkistan, and Shymkent, and then going to Uzbekistan and doing Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara. We have to get our visas sorted out SOON... tomorrow we'll probably go to an agency and get it done there, it's hard and time-consuming to do it directly with the embassy. I think we'll do land travel for most of it: buses, trains, shared taxis, and marshrutkas, but we might fly back from Tashkent, depending on timing. We finish work Dec 19, and start teaching again Jan 5. It will be wonderful, no matter where we end up going!

This coming weekend, the school is taking the "new" teachers to a village at Issyk-Kul. It will be great to have a paid-for weekend away! I'm not sure what there is to do there in the winter, but it will be great fun no matter what. Then, the weekend after, we will go to Cholpon-Ata on the north side of Issyk-Kul, and Kochkor, where the best shyrdaks (Kyrgyz rugs) are for sale. We have a 3-day weekend because Dec 8 is a national holiday here, so we'll spend a night in Cholpon-Ata and check out petroglyphs there, and then head to Kochkor to shyrdak-shop and wander around.

Weather has been AMAZING this week- I checked weather.com and then next week should be in the 60s! Hopefully it will be as nice for weekends away.

My new Russian teacher is HORRENDOUS. I'll give her one more lesson to redeem herself, otherwise I'll get a new teacher. Absolutely horrible. :(

Last night we had absinthe night, but we were all too tired to drink enough to feel it. We have enough left for next time, when hopefully we'll all be more in the mood.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and Josh arranged for the Kyrgyz restaurant around the corner to make 2 turkeys for us. Not sure if I'm interested in that- I might rather eat something completely different, than eat turkey that doesn't live up to American Thanksgiving. It will be about 300 som per person, and that is just for the turkey- no sides included. We'll see.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Eat extra for me :)