Naadam Sunday

Hello all!!!
This weekend has been BusY! This Sunday my family and I went to Ulaanbaatar for the opening ceremony of Naadam. To begin UB I believe has NO version of parking lots. We ended up parking in a mess of cars that were on top of each other. There were a lot of people everywhere! The most since I have gotten here! When walking up the arena I saw a good amount of foreigners. I was surprisingly excited to see these people even thought I had no idea who they were or where they were from. Just seeing people in general I guess was exciting. Walking up to the arena doors it was crazy. People were everywhere trying to get inside. My mom told me that it was packed and they weren’t letting everyone in. While trying to get inside I found someone I knew!!!!!!! Crazy to think that! I ran into a fellow PCT, Katie, and she was trying to get in as well. Thankfully my uncle is a police officer and he knew the guys at the gate and they let us in. I think it was because I was an American because they were not letting anyone in. Once inside I realized why this was. IT WAS PACKED!!! For those of you VOL fans think game day with a MUCH smaller stadium. (Anna you would not of made it….thinking back to freshman year) Anywho we forced our way through the crowd and some how ended up at the front row.
Once there I happened to be standing next to a foreigner who I spoke to. I asked her if she spoke English, which she did. She was from England. I found out she was visiting her daughter-in-laws family. It was nice to be able to talk to someone for more then a minute. Meanwhile, Sunday was a HOT day. It wasn’t helping that there was so many people crammed into that small arena, but I really didn’t mind because I am storing all these warm memories to help me get through the winter. (which is just around the corner) So the opening ceremonies consisted of music, speeches, dancing, marching, parading, balloons, and skydiving. On the note, skydivers here are crazy. Marissa you should have seen them landing! They landed like they were standing up!!! I was surprised no one didn’t break their legs! (For those of you who don’t know Marissa and I went skydiving a couple years ago)
So after watching all that we ended up getting to go down into the arena, thanks to my uncle! Yet it was really brief, I think it was just a faster way out. But I got to see behind the scenes wrestlers! So basically wrestleing is huge here in Mongolia. They love it! I can’t wait for y’all to see what they wear! It is basically girl style underwear, bikini style, with a vest-ish that consisted of fabric and rope, and boots. Really cool looking! After we left there my Mom bought us all popcorn!!!!!!!!!! I about fainted when she bought it! It was the best popcorn I have ever had!!!!!! After the popcorn we went over to see some of the archery, but we didn’t stay very long. Then we went back to my mom’s parents house where we ate Naadam hoosers. (Which are basically fried dough with meat inside) They were really great! So that was the extent of my Naadam experience…..So I thought….I’ll write more on this subject matter later. Because as of now it is starting to storm outside my ger and I have Mongolian Language homework to do before my power goes out. (when it storms it is a sure bet that soon the power will go out)

Za,
B