so far...

Well, I'm in Kyrgyzstan... finally! When I first arrived in Philadelphia I was able to spot other trainees in the airport because they all had the heavy sicker attached to their luggage, they looked desheveled, and like they just needed someone to tell them wehre to go. I was able to ride over to the airport with two other trainees Chris and Brandon. Everyone in the group is so accomplished people have traveled to amazing places and done some amazing stuff. The staging part in Philadelphia was mostly meetings and them telling us we need to be culturally sensitve and what not. It was two straight days of traveling from Philadelphia to Kyrgyzstan. Everyone eventually lost track of what day and time it was. ONe guy accidently didn't have a ticket to Bishkek so we eneded up leaving him in London! He is here now but is a whole day behind which at this point is a lot.

When we got here they put us into two busses. They were awesome. They were total left overs from the Soviet Era. I loved them they had a T.V. on them with turn knobs and beige curtains and were painted red. And then the seats looked like the couches that everyone's Grandma's had. You knwo the orange ones they bought in the 70's and still have!

Kyrgyzstan is so beautiful. Snow capped mountains and tons of Burch trees. But then there are tons of run down factories and eveything too. The mark of a former soviet country abandoned factories and tall ugly concrete buildings. One of the othr Trainees had the perfect way of describing it. Kyrgyzstan is a National Park meets an Industrial Park.

I haven't eaten much because... well I'm going to have to suck it up and eat it once I get hungry enough. For our first breakfast they had this stuff that looks like Cottage Cheese but tastes and smells like bread. Also, there was frmented Mare's milk. I don't like Milk to begin with so that was challenging. Every meal includes about 5 coarses for lunch yesterday I was fine after soup and"salad"(The salad was 2 pieces of old lettuce any vegtable they could find and lots of meat fat). I figure there will come a point that I get so hungry I will eat anything.

We have already had one language class. I got put into the russian group. It is cool because when I'm done I can travel to 15 countries without troubles if I can speak Russian, but it will be hardr to fit into the country because forgieners always speak Russian and they respect people who learn Kyrgyz more. I will be getting picked up by my Host Family soon. I have been desperately trying to remember the formal way of say hello so they don't think I'm stupid. But I pronounce it differently every time.
strast-voo-tyah
zdraz-tvoo-tyah
zdrazt-voot-yah
I need to learn... I am desperately trying!!!
Hopefully they will like me and really help me learn the language.
I did learn how to spell my name in Russian.
кэрол
So one step at a time!
Well, I gotta go buy some flowers for my Mama.