Mongolia? You know its freezing there, right?

So, this is our first attempt at a blog. We'll see how it goes. Hmmm... i feel a little bit of pressure to say profound and insightful things, but for starters i'll just give some facts and ongoings with us right now.

Someone is coming to look at our apartment tonight in an hour and a half. So, naturally, i'm slacking a little when i should be cleaning out the cat box or something. Our apartment is so empty right now. I'll have to post before and after photos for you. We had a yard sale on saturday, and departed with many random items we have accumulated over the 5 years we've lived in this area. It feels weird and still doesn't seem real that in 29 days from now we're going to be on an airplane on our way to Mongolia.

BEFORE:


AFTER:



So, for the sake of those who didn't hear the whole story and just to recap, lets start at the beginning. Clayton and I want to join the Peace Corps. Once you are nominated for an assignment in a specific country, it usually takes about a year before you leave to begin your service. So, clayt and i decided that we should try to do something in that year. Nominations happen every three months, and the most recent nomination cycle is happening right now. This means if we are nominated this time, we would head somewhere else in about a year. If we are not nominated (they say only 40% of couples are nominated the first time) then it will be even longer before we go.

Clayt and i applied to teach English in a few different schools, in Turkey, Japan, China and Mongolia. We actually got in touch with this school through one of our friends Salih, who sent an email out to some turkish schools in various places, asking if they needed english teachers. then salih gave us the school director's email, and told us to send our resumes.

So, things progressed from there. We had to do some negotiating about the length of the contract, but in the end we agreed to something that satisfied everyone. Our contract is for one year. They will pay for our airfare, they will pay us a monthly salary, and they will also pay for our furnished apartment. Not bad!

We got our tickets in the mail yesterday -- we fly from DC to NY to Moscow to Ulaanbataar. Its only a total of 17.5 hours of flying, but we also have 10 hours of layover time. We leave november 29 at 2:30 pm and arrive December 1 at 6:30 a.m.

ok, thats all for now. I'll have clayt do the next posting and hopefully he will have something more exciting to say.
-- jessica