We made it safe and sound

I am sure a few of you may be anxious to know that we made it to Mongolia, well we did. Since then we have been quite busy, but first a little about the trip. It started out with the United Airlines ticket agent telling us our visas to Mongolia were not in order so our trip was over before it began. Fortunately, the travel agent who screwed all this up in the beginning for us was completely incompetent and couldn't even screw up our itenerary right. Thus we are still leaving Beijing on the 11th of August but we will be leaving Mongolia on the 9th (tentatively). So I convinced the ticket agent this was all within the legal limits of travelling to Mongolia without a Visa and we got on the plane. We got to Chicago alright but then found the trip to China was to take place without movies or inflight radio. They promised a goody bag for us after we exited the flight but one was not forthcoming. Luckily, Amina is able to entertain herself but I am thouroughly disgusted with United. Our flight to Mongolia was delayed 3 hours and after searching for a way to connect in the airport at Bejing for an hour and 15 minutes found this out and waited with no seats (they only have seats at that airport at the gates) for 5 hours. A more miserabletrip it would be hard to have but it did not dampen Amina or Tugsu's spirits.
Fortunately, the trip on MIAT was wonderful, after the completely apathetic United stewardesses the genuinely friendly ones on MIAT were a wonder. We arrived in Mongolia to a hero's welcome at the airport. We went from there to Tugsu's families house at around 1:30 AM and finally went to sleep around 4. We have since been mostly visiting friends and family the past few days, which has kept us very busy and very full! So much wonderful food.
We are currently staying with my friend Anuu and her family, she has a 4 year old daughter who gets along great with Amina and since neither speaks the others language they are both very eager to learn. Tomorrow the real work begins, I have to register with the polic, the embassy, the American Center for Mongolian Studies as well as meet the Mongolian physician who will be carrying out the interviews with me in Husvsgul as well as my friend Khurelee's father who used to work at the Ministry of Health. He will be a great source of information. You will certainly hear more from me about that later. I am off to bed, still having a little trouble with the time adjustment. However, it is to be expected, I am not as young as I used to be. All the best.