The Temporary Metamorphosis of Craft Buff into Mongol Buff

And... we're off! This is my final blog before we head off on our 48 day sojourn to Mongolia via China. I've got tons of work to do while we're there because I'll be collecting data on Mongolian higher education for my PhD dissertation (the proposal defense I blogged about the other day was step #1, the fieldwork is step #2, and then coming back and writing the darn thing is steps #3 through #1,000. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but the writing will take a while!)

Nonetheless, I expect that my husband John and I will have fun adventures back in the place we initially met as Peace Corps Volunteers. We're looking forward to it, for sure. Although I do think I may have a mild form of travel OCD; I've written a 26-point memo for my friend who will be house- and cat-sitting for us! I didn't expect home ownership (or cat ownership, for that matter) to make it so much more difficult to up and leave, but it has. Oh well, the mortgage and utilities are pre-paid, and we're off!

If you'd like to read a little bit of background information on Mongolia, check here or here.

We depart this morning (Saturday) at 11:30 AM, stopping in NYC before boarding a flight to Beijing. We'll arrive in Beijing at 6PM local time on Sunday, Sept. 23 and my dear friend Sandra has graciously agreed to pick us up at the airport and host us for two nights in Beijing. We'll leave on Tuesday, Sept. 25 in the morning, taking the Trans-Siberian railroad up to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The train ride is a looooong one- we'll arrive in Ulaanbaatar (hereafter UB) the next day, Wednesday, Sept. 26, in the mid-afternoon.

So, all of this is to say that it's unlikely that I'll get much of a chance to blog between now and Wednesday, but please check back by mid-week (9/26 or 9/27). Once we get settled in UB, I'll find a little internet cafe and news and pictures of our travels will pour forth, I'm sure!