Last post before a MUCH needed vacation!

One more day of teaching and I'm off to Uzbekistan!! Mike and Evan and I are getting a taxi Saturday morning to Osh in Southern KG, and then we'll overnight twice there. We'll explore on Sunday and go to the bazaar, and then Monday morning get a taxi across the border and to Tashkent. Beyond that, we have NO plans. At all. We'll wing it and see how it goes! We're going to try to get a Kazakh visa in Tashkent, and we might try to venture all the way to the Aral Sea (or what's left of it). We'll see.

We had our first real winter snow last night! It was beautiful to wake up to, but now the sidewalks are frozen and walking is dangerous. All day it was slushy and horrible and brown, but the trees look pretty.

I got one package from home, a St. Nicklaus envelope, but I guess 6 parcels are somewhere between America and here, or more than likely lost forever.

Nothing else is new. I'm power-knitting a scarf for my friend Ben, and I really have to be done by tomorrow, because he's going home to England before Mike and I get back from Uzbekistan... but I have a long way to go still.

On Saturday all the teachers went to Ala-Archa National Park to frolick in the snow. It was great fun just wandering around, climbing on an old metal bridge, watching the river, and looking at the snow-covered mountains. Pictures will come, at some point.

Mike and I went to Osh Bazaar, my favorite place in Bishkek, on Sunday. I bought some amazingly warm and cozy winter lined jeans, and Mike and I got a backpack to take with us to Uzbekistan.

Tomorrow I'm going to call Conti and test of the IP-telephones for the first time. It's her birthday on the 23rd! I'll do some sort of Xmas lesson and then it's VACATION! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!