Monday, April 2, 2012

The day we didn't get our boxes

I never intended to blog everyday, but the first week or so went quite well.

Saturday: We went out with Naraa, "the Mongolian Concierge" as I call him. He can get pretty much anything done/organised. So we went and bought tiles and tiling cement and a sink and so on for our apartment. That part was easy. Then we tried to go and look at appliances and furniture. Mistake #1 Not carrying oodles more cash, mistake #2 forgetting to carry a credit card, Problem #3 deciding what to buy. After a trip to three major centres (State Department Store, a furniture superstore(s), and the Black Market), we ended up getting nothing. But at least we knew what we might want to get. In the evening we went back to Hazaras for dinner with David and Wendy (since Wendy missed out last time). I feel a little spoiled eating this delicious Indian food, but that's okay.

Sunday: Mongolian church where the sermon was translated for us again (yay!). Rachel made a contact with a girl who wants to practise English (I think this is true). In the afternoon we went to International church and heard a sermon that had some problems. I talked to some Mongolians who wanted to meet up (this apparently is common, but whether they get in touch is another question. We will see). There is going to be a 6:00 outside service on Easter Sunday. Won't that be warm!

Monday: Another day of class, just one this week as it is Spring Break. It didn't go so well for Rachel. Question particles are tricky. Anyway, after class we came home, and managed to establish that our boxes had arrived. Great. So Naraa came around and I went out with him to the airport. First we found someone to give us the right set of papers, that went fine. Then we went down to the cargo/customs area, but they decided they wanted some paperwork we didn't have - a letter from our school. So Naraa and I got back into the car and drove back into the city. This is an hour each way (more to do with the bad traffic in UB than raw distance). So we went to our school, and Naraa chatted in Mongolian to one of our teachers. Alas, our director is on holidays in Beijing, and the other teacher wasn't sure she knew where the official stamp was, which is the key ingredient in getting this mysterious letter. So, no boxes today.

Oh well. We have Naraa and his brother-in-law coming by this evening to measure up the apartment kitchen for cupboards and the like, so that is progress.

Ikea, Ulaanbaatar

1 comment:

  1. I like the regular updates. Really, I just like knowing what's going on with you guys from day to day; makes the distance feel less far.

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