First day in Turkmenistan

We have arrived in turkmenistan. It was a grueling journey but at some point you lose all concept of time and then it's ok. But at the time we hit frankfurt and we had been on a very long airplane ride and super duper tired all we really thought about was a bed and then we realized we'd be in the airport for the the next 7hrs and then it's another 7hrs to our destination, oh it seemed bleak, but we lost concept of time and it all worked out.
we arrived here and it seem very eastern block communist style except with lots of neon lights. right now i'm sitting in my hotel room looking out the window at the palace of happiness, that was the first thing we saw when we landed. It's huge, it has 3,000 person hotel capacity and the place itself is over looking the whole city. It's where people get married but as sean said it just brings him a lot of happiness just looking at it.
anyway, we just finished dinner with our sponsor exxon mobile, it was a lovely dinner. We had really amazing conversation and so much food. I decided to have a turkish coffee to end the night and that is why i am on this computer right now instead of sleeping.


Today was a good day, i got a walk around outside, look at some of the shops, have a leisure morning, i think that was the first and the last of that. Anyway, i got to have a walk about our neighborhood. I had know idea that i would fit in so well, i wore my very russian style jacket, full length with fake fur hood and i wore this bright green long skirt, which just happens to be customary clothing for here. So an old woman stopped me on the street to ask me something, directions or something, when i said do you speak english? she looked at me and then looked at my clothes in disbelief. You'll see i'll post some pictures of girls all wearing long green skirts and of course the jacket is like any old russian women would wear. Funny.
but it really reminded me of Romania and Prague and maybe a little of kuwait only in the big buildings with lots of neon lights. Women were out sweeping the streets, sidewalks and dirts with traditional old stick brooms, some women where hanging out laundry of their huge communist looking apartment buildings. all the buildings have tons of satellite dishes on them, looks like they might be conversing with the aliens as sean says. i was stopped by a group of men today, i was taking pictures of them setting up the christmas tree. They all asked me to take pictures of them in front of this car. Pretty classic, then the very next question was, how many children i have. Not if i have them but how many!? then they told me that one of them had 9 another had 13, they were proud. Families are very important.


We headed to our first workshop which was at the music conservatory for children between the ages of 10-16. It was beautiful we walked in and two small children offered us some fried dough and turkmen bread, they were soooo cute. We arrived in the new facility, it was nice and we played for many enthusiastic children, they were excellent clappers and singers! At the end we played one of their traditional songs, this little boy sang, he owned that stage, he was such a natural performer, just a beautiful voice. There was also a dance that a group of the students did as well. So beautiful.

It sorta feels like a lawless country. courtney was driving tonight and i was impressed. The driving isn't totally crazy, like they aren't jerks, but there seems to be no rules that you really have to follow except do hit another car, that usually guides decisions, but like staying in lanes, turning in front of people, cutting people off it all open no rules. But it sorta feels like the energy here. There are so many buildings huge palaces but not a lot happens in them. Like tonight we went down to check out the disco that is on the bottom floor of our hotel, it so amazing. It's 1980's style with a giant disco ball in the middle of the room. Thursday night that's were we will be at.
Tomorrow we are flying to Turkmenibat. IT's to be an early morning, I should be sleeping, but right now in NYC it's 1pm and i finally feel awake thanks to Turkish Coffee.