Epic Blog Fail

I’m writing this post (or at least the start of it) in a quiet morning lounge in Frankfurt, Germany’s airport. There’s complimentary tea and coffee, free newspapers and the people greet me in German because they can’t tell I’m foreign (!). If you’re not a Facebook enthusiast or haven’t been in direct contact with me, you’re probably wondering why I’m in Germany… Well, I’ll tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who was traveling abroad in Mongolia. “Mongolia?!” They all said, “Where is that?!”

“It’s a rather large country above China and below Russia and I’m ecstatic to go,” I said. “And I’ll keep a blog of all my happenings so that you can learn a little about what (and where) Mongolia is.”

FAIL.

I think I quit after Khuvsgul. I hope that you all have been following Glimpse as my weekly deadline kept me posting. As for the incentive-less blog-spot, well check my last post date. In any case I told many of you that I would be traveling the Trans-Siberian Rail from Ulaanbaatar to Moscow, experiencing the frigid temperatures of December Russia and seeing the Urals. I was going to depart Moscow to Helsinki and travel the Euro-Rail wherever my heart desired this winter’s break. I planned to meet a dear friend in Barcelona for a week or so, but other than that I was itinerary-less. In fact I never bought a ticket home, date TBD.

So what happened to the Trans-Siberian you might ask? Talk to the Russian Embassy. I unfortunately never got a Russian visa before leaving the States, hearing through the wireless grapevine that I could easily obtain one in country. I had three months, no problem. I acquired my visa application form in the cold concrete building in UB and even found a Russian speaking friend who wanted to accompany me (at least to St. Petersburg).

As you might know, Russians can be sticklers about who they let in their precious borders. We needed an invitation. No problem, we thought. My friend knew a friend in Moscow that we could register with and avoid the invitation fees. Some conflict of interest or limited amount of time (one of the two) meant that she couldn’t invite us, but was pleased to offer a residency for registry. We went to the Mongolian Russian Embassy website, clicked the red-white-and-blue link to an “official invitation” site and paid 56USD each for a little slip of paper to arrive by fax. Yes!

Harry, the man we were corresponding with, didn’t fax but emailed a PDF copy of our invitation. “Sounds good. Thanks a lot, Harry.” We drop by a little photo studio in the back of a clothing store in downtown UB, have some horrid portraits taken and photoshopped to oblivion and head to the Embassy.

When we dropped by the Embassy last they said, since we were registered for over 90 days in Mongolia we could obtain a visa no problem. We show up with our appropriate documents and you guessed it, get denied.

“Do you have the original copy of your invitation?” the woman asks.
“Um, no. We used the promotional site on your website, to which the protocol is fax, although we got a PDF.”

“No, I’m sorry we need the original in order to get your visa. Oh and you’ll also need three weeks for processing.” Harry!! Peeved, running out of time and visa-less I immediately contacted Harry asking him if there was any way we could have the original copy shipped to us. ASAP.

Being in country for about two months at that point, I had discovered the reason we call it ‘snail mail.’ Mongolian mail is incredibly slow and rather unreliable and as far as the students and I were concerned a big basket of envelopes en route to the U.S. sit around until the basket is full and only then are they shipped to China and then to the U.S. Parcels have been averaging three weeks or more and at a $100 DHL charge, the short time constraint wasn’t worth the price. So we gave up. On to Plan B.

My dear friend would still be waiting for me Barcelona and tickets across the Pacific were far too over-priced. So on November 14th after much deliberation I booked a flight from Ulaanbaatar to Berlin. I would leave on December 8th from UB, fly to Beijing, take a red-eye to Frankfurt and arrive in Berlin at 8am on the 9th.
So here I am. In Frankfurt, ten minutes from boarding and less than two hours from setting foot on European soil for the first time. I’ve booked a hostel for a night in Berlin and then the continent is mine to explore. I’ll be in Barcelona on the 15th, as promised, but otherwise I am still itinerary-less. Since I failed at updating you on my Mongolian ventures, I’ll do my best to keep tabs on my Euro-trip.

Wish me luck, pray that my tonsillitis will go away and stay tuned. And if I’ve disappointed you in blogging, call me when I’m back in the States and I’ll make time to grab coffee and re-tell all my Mongolian stories in person.