Sitting outside in Assisi

We have had a wonderful time in Italy. We arrived in Rome from Finland early Sunday morning...and noticed at once the change in temperature! Booking a small car we made our way (Michael driving!) across Italy from west to east (Fumicino Airport to Pescara) where we stayed with old friends who live in the hills overlooking this seaside city. We ate well, going for a country meal of arrosticini  in Villa Celiara, enjoying meals in the terrace  garden of our friends and visiting the hilltop towns of Chieti and Atri. Cristiana and Guiseppe plied us with every kind of local food and drink and we spent lots of time chatting and joking our way through days and nights. Andy, their son, who of course was a small boy when I was in Hanoi, is now tall and going on 21! He is also a delight. Tomorrow we hope to go to Florence and then to Sam Gimignano before heading for Rome on Fridy and home on Sunday. Holidays finish too quickly!


Driving across the Appenines



in Villa Celiara

A baby Fiat in Pescara

Guiseppe and Michael buying cheese in the Pescara market

Dinner in the Orsini-Restivo garden

Elaine & Cris



Cris, Elaine & Michael with Emperor Hadrian in Atri



The garden at Hotel Tre Esse Assisi



St Francis Church Assisi



Tallinn and Helsinki

On Thursday we travelled with our friends Marjatta and Juhani to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, by a huge Baltic Sea ferry. Tallinn was an interesting medieval city, once part of Russia but now an independent territiory. We enjoyed a wonderful meal at Mannerheim Restaurant http://www.mannerheim.ee/eng/about  and also a tour of the city. We stayed overnight and travelled back to Helsinki on Friday, again by ferry, http://www.tallinksilja.com/en/shipsAndTerminals/balticPrincess/
and have spent the past two days exploring Helsinki, including a lovely afternoon with Marjatta's brother and sister-in-law, Martti and Riita, lunching and comparing prices on beef and bananas. Not  lot of parallels with Aiustralian prices on either front!



Marjatta and Juhani on board



Martti, Riita and Michael in Stockmanns Deli  in Helsinki (like DJ's food court)

Bananas at E1.29 per kg



Beef at E 67.50 per kg



Railway Stn Helsinki

Town Hall, Tallinn

Michael, Helsinki Harbour market

Elaine on board the ferry

Mathildedal, Southern Finland

Ulaanbaatar to Moscow to Berlin and then to Dusseldorf! It was good to spend time wth friends in Velbert and attend their 125th birthday celebrations along with Michael who arrived the morning of the party.

Ulrich, Dietgard and Michael at the 125th birthday party

Now we are in Finland with more old friends in their home by the Baltic Sea in the Gulf of Finland at Mathildedal/

The Baltic sea from their verandah

Elaine & Michael in Naantalie



Outdoor drama theatre Mathidledal



Morning walk Mathildedal

Morning walk Mathildedal

Marjatta and Juahni's house on th Baltic Sea in Mathildedal, Southern Finland

With a one pointed mind



On the way to Terelj NP. See the Ger Camp by the river and the flock of cashmere goats!

 This is the end of a wonderful weekend spent not working in Mongolia! Saturday 4 of us hired a car and driver and went about 80km north into the Terelj National Park, walked up a hill to a Buddhist Meditation Centre and walked back. When we got up to the top of the stairs of the furthest building an officious young lad told us we couldn't go on as their company had hired out the centre for the weekend.



At the top!

 

 It turned out to be a lunch for people from the World Economic Forum and all these locals had carried the first class five star lunch and furniture up the hill and were awaiting their important guests. But, it is very difficult to keep people from a public place in a national park, so we continued up and enjoyed the view. The VIPs had not arrived as we departed the spot and then had a picnic lunch by the river. Just wonderful.

Three guys in Sakhbattar Square, UB

New.old and not yet finished, UB

  

 Sunday I think I may have walked about 10km around town to shop, to sight see and to visit several monasteries. I think my favourite place was a craft shop called Mary & Martha set up as a series of Fair Trade microenterprise projects for women and men in difficult circumstances. Interestingly the staff also liked my button necklace and took copious photographs. I guess that next time I'm here, if ever, I may see my necklace Mongolianised and for sale! I also had a quick lesson in what happens in Tibetan Buddhist practice from the saleswoman at the last monastery where I ran out of puff and had a big rest.

Circling the urn with incense, Ganden Monastery

Ganden Monastery

another day, another walk from the National University of Mongolia!

It's 9.30 pm and I'm sitting up in bed with my leather jacket on to keep warm.The temperature is coolish and the sky at dusk  covered with  thick cloud.
Downstairs, a group of French tourists has arrived off the TransMongolian railway from Irkutsk and tomorrow are going on to Beijing. It's exciting they say but the train seats are small and uncomfortable. Still it's a trip I'd love to go on!
The city is one huge construction site with buildings coming up and coming down all over the place. This is one boom town!

This image is taken from the building in which I'm working, looking down towards the city centre. The National University of Mongolia where I'm having daily meetings is also undergoing renovation so there's dust and building teams everywhere (even in the women's loo I discovered!).
Five years ago UB had 500,000 people. Today there's about 1.3m people. And around 9am they are all on the roads! I got a lift on a car from work to the university this morning and when I arrived late the team said..you are becoming very Mongolian! Ah, it's the traffic I exclaimed. Ah, you ARE becoming very Mongolian they replied!
I'm also trying to figure out the Cyrillic script.  Улаанбаатар..this means Ulaanbaator, or so they say. UB means Red Hero....and Baator means hero...I've also started reading an interesting book about the daughters of Ghengis Khan and how they administered his captured states. 
So, in this place that seems at the ends of the earth....I'm having a good time working and getting to know a few folk. Tomorrow I'm going with a couple of people from work for a Mongolian opera session complete with folk dancing and throat singing...(i'll keep you posted!!)
Must get some rest before braving the traffic and the sidewalk again tomorrow.

Learning the lingo in UB, Mongolia.

Hello from Ulaanbaator, capital of Mongolia, or UB for short. I arrived yesterday via Singapore and Beijing. We landed amid rolling hills on a grassy windy plain in 22C heat. It felt just like Acheron back home. The travel company that collected me from the airport took the 'mountain road' into town along a windy potholed dusty road  past groups of gers and bus stops with young people in western dress and old people in traditional Mongolian garb. Then we reached the city and the traffic jam the driver was avoiding. It took us about 30mins to go about 2km. It seems that in September as summer is ending, the whole of Mongolia descends on UB, and maybe they were all on the road yesterday!
The Hotel Edelweiss (how Mongolian is that!) is small and only a couple of minutes walk from the UN building at Orient Plaza. It was good to meet up with UNICEF rep  and Australian, Rana Flowers and her team (we worked in NY at the same time) and then to get to work. At least knowing what you have to do and having a workspace organised means you can hit the ground running!
Last night electricity was cut at about 7.30 and came back on about midnight so I slept long and late.
Today, (with a drop in temperature to 11 C)  I met with the research team that will undertake the survey we are planning, and all of them had long names with short nicknames...seems that's how it is in UB!
I'd just had a UN security briefing telling me not to walk alone on  the streets (apparently a UN consultant lost everything a fortnight ago) and to be aware of street crime and also the possibility of an earthquake (they had one last week 5.8 on the Richter scale 400 km away and are expecting one in UB sometime). So when, at the conclusion of our meeting at the university, there was no transport, my Mongolian colleague Sode (for short), suggested we walk, I was feeling somewhat ambivalent. But we made it back to the office. I've found a lockable space for my purse, passport and credit card and now feel that I'm set to get on with life here in Mongolia.
One of the researchers in the team has just returned from completing a masters degree at Melbourne Uni and living in Flemington, so she has been very welcoming and we will get together at some stage. Another UN consultant staying at the same hotel has suggested the Mongolian opera (she goes to it every time she comes to work in UB) and I guess I'm up for it.
At lunch I tried seabuckthorn juice..a weird aroma but a good taste from a Mongolian fruit.
I've also just finished reading Peter Fitzsimons'book Batavia (after visiting the VOC -Dutch East India Company HQ in Jakarta). What an amazing story! And I'm on the lookout for a good Mongolian novel.