Around town that is! And man.. are taxis inexpensive here! It will be awhile before we get our car… yup… our Toyota Highlander is on its way to Mongolia. In a boat. A very slow boat. We’d love to rent a car… but we need a drivers license before we can drive here. But… in order to get our drivers license, we need our MFA CARDS (not exactly sure what it is… but it’s a card that says we are diplomats). And the final catch.. because nothing can be too easy… is that we have to wait 10 business days to get our MFA cards. Well.. it’s been 10 business days, but as you guessed it.. no cars yet. Which means no drivers license yet. Which means no renting cars till our car gets here.

So… TAXIS it is! Thank goodness they are cheap! I took a taxi today to 3 different stores and they patiently waited for me and helped put the groceries in the trunk! All for…. $4 usd (10,000mnt). On our trip out to the gigantic statue- we were gone from 9am and returned home at 2:30pm. All for $60 bucks.

The driving is crazy and hectic and I still can’t figure out the rules. I grew up driving in LA, you would think I’d be used to driving in traffic. But it’s different here. You can make a left turn- whenever you want and from whatever lane you want. It’s a free for all and man is it terrifying. So I close my eyes. Or I talk to the girls and pretend it’s not happening 🙂

Getting around town is easy and cheap. And we are also walking distance to so many great restaurants, a mall, an imax movie theatre, a bowling alley, a crazy amusement park and grocery stores!

The Reid girls are good.. as long as we can get out of the house. And so far, Ulaanbaatar has been good to us. Our housing compound is awesome and filled with girls, ranging in ages 4-16! The girls are having a blast and are free range children (just like in Belize). The difference between this housing and the Belize housing… here, our compound is mixed with Mongolians and other Embassies. In Belize, it was just Americans. It’s nice mingling with locals and other expats!

So far… so good. And it’s not winter… yet.

That reminds me.. I need to get online and order a giant -40 coat. Stat.

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