Hello...well.. from Mongolia / Sain-Bai-No

Hello all,
So we have a lot to catch you up on. We arrived yesterday after two (calender) days of traveling and a lot has happened. First our flight in Montreal was delayed 2 and a half hours. We eventually arrived in Vancouver, the most boring airport ever (to be fair we were there at 3 am), but also the most Canadian airport (in terms of decor) that we have ever seen. We then got on a 12 hour flight to Beijing via Air China (not the best airline). When we arrived in Beijing we went through security where my luggage was checked by a stern looking security guard who had Britney Spears as his ringtone. The Beijing airport was odd. It was completely deserted and ginormous. It was also extremely expensive. We ate at a place called Flavour Tang which served that was ironically flavourless. It was at this point on our journey when Mathilda's bags were safely making their way to the plane to Mongolia... we don't know where mine was. So we got on our third and last flight, on which we craned our necks over the annoyed man in the window seat to get our first view of the Gobi sand dunes and snow capped Altai mountains. Upon arrival, as I predicted, my bags never showed up. Though I was slightly cheered by the German Shephard on the conveyer belt sniffi9ng our bags and continuously being moved along with the bags. We tried to explain to the Mongolian airport people about my lost bags with no luck, however, the Projects Abroad staff (Tsene) helped us out soon after. We then had the most insane drive to our appartment with this girl (Haniah) from England, Tsene and indie looking Mongolian driver. What is weird is that they drive on the right side of the road here, but the driver is on the left side in some cars and right side in others. What is weirder, is that when there is traffic (which is always) people just drive on the sidewalks (or dusty/sandy/rocky side of the road). They drive crazy fast and cut eachother off every 5 seconds. The best part of our drive was when Lady Gaga came on the radio. We like Lady Gaga. However, during Poker Face, the driver changed the station to Mongolian rap. Eventually (like and hour later) we got to our appartment where we met our host family. After about a day and a half we figured out their relationship to eachother. There is Ali, who is in her mid 20s,speaks good english, goes to university in Singapore, loves clubbing and did an exchange in Alabama. Ingu, a 15 year old teenager who speaks some english, but is a little shy in front of us; she is also a major social butterfly who loves internet communication and taking pictures of herself. Then there is Ingu's mother/Ali's sister, who is about 40 and does laundry on my balcony (we will back to you with more details). There is a random older man who has come by on 2 occasions... we dont really kniow who he is. Ingu always lives here and so does her mother and Ali keeps her clothes here, eats here and hangs out here. We really like Ali, she is really funny.Yesterday evening we went out with Tsene and Haniah for our induction; she took us to Sukhbaatar square where the parliament is and then up a giant mountain where we (despite our exaustion from being awake for 72 hour) climbed 1000 steps to get to this really nice russian monument. There was a giant gold Buda at the bottom. Then we had mutton dumplings.... EW. Mutton is grossssssss. Today we got phone cards, money and then went to the maternity hospital, where we are doing our first placement. On the way, we heard Taylor Swift playing on speakers in one of the main squares. At the hospital, we were shown around by Kelly, another volunteer, who is about 30 and has been here for a month. She told us some crazy stories about how she got here by taking trains through China. The layout of the hospital is super confusing and you are not allowed to walk in the halls unless you are wearing scrubs and crocs. PS, we have awesome scrubs, even Kelly was jealous (the ones they gave her didnt match... but she brought some from home). We didn't get to see much cause we only got there at the end of the day and Kelly had english class to teach. But we are apparently going to be seeing a lot of C-sections, natural births, abortions and do some prenatal care with pre-eclamtic mothers. Kelly doesnt like little babies, so she is going to get someone else to show us the neonatal ward. Mongolian babies are really cute, Mathilda even admits it on occasion. After getting lost, we finally got changed and got picked up by Tsene who told us we could go to a traditional Mongilian concert with some other volunteers. Obviously we went. We went by bus with her to a supermarket before, where she left us. We then got slightly lost trying to find the concert. However, we were really just supposed to stay where we were and wait for the other volunteers. We eventually figured it out when we saw a bunch of white people congregated. There were about 20 volunteers there (among the 50 who are weird like us and chose to come to Mongolia!) We made friends with a lot of them, mainly Patrick and Amy, who are from London and are working in the Law program (to Alex: they are doing intellectual property law). They invited us to come with them tomorrow to the Great Khan, an Irish pub where they usually go with other volunteers and watch Soccer. It is apparently a great place and has a nice environemnt and there are usually about 200 people there. There is a really hot guy from Switzerland who speaks only French, so we are the only volunteers (except for this snobby British girl) who can speak to him. We dont mind. The concert was really cool. There was this crazy contortionist and intense traditional dancing and music. We just got back, my bag has finally arrived and we are exhausted and need to go shower and resrt since we have a busy day of baby deliveries and beer drinking ahead of us. We will update you all soon!

-Jess and 'Thilde