I fly to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia this Wednesday (today, since I’m writing this at 2:20 in the morning). I don't know exactly how long my flight time is -- I avoid looking, since I will try to sleep most of the flight time ... horrendousness of cramped legs for 15, 20, or however many hours. I do know that from my house to my friends’ house it will be right around 24 hours, including getting to the San Francisco Airport, and going through customs in Ulaan Baatar. I have a 5-hour layover in Seoul, S. Korea to change airlines and transfer my luggage both coming and going. I hope I can do this quickly enough, and understand the airport signs. At worst, I'll use my technique of standing in a crowd and saying "English? Do you know English?" in a loud enough voice that some business traveler or more experienced tourist will see my desperation and offer assistance. As dumb as I feel doing that, it always does the trick of getting me where I need to be. :-) This part is really stressing me out, since I get lost everywhere, whether or not I have a map or Google maps on my phone-- Don't ask how I manage that—I know, I’m amazing!
Why Mongolia and why Mongolia for a month? Actually, the only reason I ended up in Hjørring, Denmark as a high school exchange student all those years ago, was because Mongolia wasn't an option. A few years ago I met Dolgormaa, a Mongolian woman, at university and we've been Facebook friends ever since. I have told her repeatedly that I'd visit her in Mongolia one day, and now I finally am! We're both very excited! Our Facebook messages at 6am and 11pm, California timezone, are full of plans and ideas. For me, it's the first time that I'm super excited to see a specific country, versus just excited to see a specific sight or animal, or to just roam around somewhere I've never been before. I'll be in Mongolia for a full month, which is a normal amount of time for me to spend traveling. Last years' Europe trip hitting 6 countries in 5 weeks was not normal, and of course I ended up getting sick with a terrible headcold and couldn’t stop coughing. Luckily my fantastic Couchsurfing host, Jenya, took me on a bike ride to a village where a family sold homemade honey. I drank so much hot tea, that I finished the jar of honey in about a week in an attempt to cure the headcold. Anyway, I just don't believe that you can know a country in even a couple of years, so I can't grasp how some people do the Europe tour with 2 days in one country and 3 days in another. You can't even try all the cakes in a country in a week! Yes, I have photos of cakes and other sweet things from a lot of countries. Vietnam & Laos has the best! Asian with French influence can't be beat... Except maybe by German cakes, which are so big you can have a piece of cake for lunch, which I did.