The days are short, but the Winter is looong

Lately my life has been a little boring... which is why I haven't written much. It's mostly too cold to go outside, so I spend a lot of time in my apartment. I have come up with various things with which to entertain myself. I've been spending a lot of time reading, and have gotten through the first 9 books of the Patrick O'Brian series in a little over a month. Sophie also helps a lot, and we've come up with all sorts of new games to play. One of her favorites began when I decided she really needed some civilized manners, and so tried to teach her not to chew on my feet all the time. My method for this was beating her with a rolled-up Newsweek whenever she started chewing on me. That quickly turned into a new game, and now whenever I pull out the rolled-up Newsweek she growls and barks and runs around in circles while I chase her. She's surprisingling agile, and generally wins the game. I'm finding that she is quite difficult to discipline. I have tried beating her with my felt slippers when she latches on and forces me to drag her around my apartment. She actually seems to like that, and it also became a game. She is a sassy little pup, and backtalks all the time. When I tell her "no," she growls.

Andrea, Tuul, Ochgo and I have also started a new tradition of going dancing every Friday night. We started it as a celebration of wine being back in stores, the second week we celebrated the fact that they started selling beer in Tsetserleg again. Our most recent dancing expedition brought back vodka. Since vodka, beer and wine are pretty much the only alcohol available in Mongolia outside of UB, we will have to think of something new to celebrate next Friday.
I have come to love dancing in Tsetserleg. They play bad music, and generally we hear the same song at least twice in the 2-3 hours we are there (some songs as many as 4 times). But there is always something interesting that happens. Two weeks ago there were some hudoo guys in for the weekend, and they came to the dance club in their winter dels and Mongol boots. One of them, who's name was "Soel" (Culture in Mongolian), bravely came up and started talking to us and even let us drag him out on the dance floor. He was so adorable, and it turns out that he owns horses and his summer camp is about 2km from the hot springs in Arkhangai. So we have plans to make a trip out there to go riding as soon as he moves back to his summer camp in May. Last friday I was asked to dance by a 16 year old, and he taught me the slow version of the Waltz. I wasn't very good at it, but he generously counted for me which helped a lot.