More Skating, for lack of anything better to do.

"Super Market" in Cyrillic.

I was walking down the street few days ago when I suddenly realized that I didn't feel odd. This fact was in itself odd, I'm in Mongolia for pity's sake. I should feel very odd and slightly excited. It was a rather disappointing realization actually.
And with this realization boredom has set in. A few days ago we got a few inches of snow, and I think it's safe to say that the snow will not melt this time. Actually, it was safe to say that after the last two storms, because it hasn't gotten above freezing in a while. The snow has an odd ability to sublimate though, going directly from a dry powder to.... well, not snow anyway.

So I went skating again. There's too much snow on the river to skate there, so I went to one of the nearby skating rinks. I've found a skating rink that has decent ice, meaning that they don't let the holes get to be more than a foot across.

While I was there I filmed this:

The kid who fell down in front of the camera went to the wall and started watching me. After a few seconds I said "You know, if you're going to stare at me like that you're going to have to say something"
"I was going to tell you to stop filming me" he said in a generic American accent.
I stared at him, amazed at what I had heard. He looked quite Mongolian.
"Are you Korean?" I asked
"nope" he said
"Where are you from?" I asked
"Here" he said, stating the obvious.
"No, I mean, where is your accent from?"
"I don't have an accent" he said, just to annoy me.
I was about to explain the technical definition of "accent" to him, but decided that it didn't matter.
"Where in the US did you live?" I asked
"Colorado" he said. "I went to school in Lakewood".
I had no idea where Lakewood was, unfortunately. I asked him if I could film him talking in Mongolian then switching to English, and he asked me what I would give him.
"Ummm, 5,000" I said.
"Nope" he said.
"10,000" I said.
"Nope" he said.
I don't see how any kid can expect more than $10 for a 30 second clip.

As he was talking to me one of his friends came up to me. "You're Russian, right?" he asked in Mongolian. lol, I love it. The tone and wording barely implied a question. I decided that next time someone asked I would toy with them a little.
I didn't have long to wait. Just ten minutes later a group of boys called me as I passed them. "Hey! Elder brother!" they said.
I came back to where they were standing.
"Do you speak Mongolian?" They asked.
"A little" I replied, as always.
"Are you Canadian? Russian?"
"Nein, German" I replied
"Oooooooh" they said, as if that had been their very next guess.
"Nah, I was just kidding" I said in Mongolian. "I'm American".
They then began arguing amongst themselves about what I really was. It was great. I would like to point out that no one has asked me if I'm American yet, not a single person.

Video of skating, watch at your own risk:


Christmas decorations / general useless junk for sale on the way home:



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Being a missionary means finally getting that service pack your personality has so desperately needed.