Sorry to take so long to post but the censorship is high enough here that wordpress and facebook are both blocked out.  Even though I host my blog under my own domain they’ve figured out how I get in there.  So here I am, trying to beat the censors and get my messages to you.

I arrived on Sunday afternoon after a long, uneventful flight.  I sat next to a nice local lady who introduced me to her equally nice husband when we left the baggage claim area.  They helped me get my subway ticket, negotiating the language and figuring out my cash for me.  Ten minutes later I’m on my way into the city so it was far easier than I was anticipating.  Even though I’ve met wonderful people everywhere it still surprises me to find others who are so willing to help out.

My hostel is pretty cool and the travelers are the best I’ve met anywhere.  Older and CLEAN.  What a hot commodity.  I ended up in a mixed dorm with, surprise surprise, one other female and two clean, cute men!!!!  Never before has this good luck befallen me so I thanked my fairy godmother for her gift at my birth and made some new friends.  However, the down side is even though I was slightly dehydrated from the flight, there was no way I’d drink anything before I went to bed in case I had to jump off my top bunk and make a fool of myself on the way to the bathroom.

Speaking of bathrooms, I have never seen so many public toilets in my life.  They are everywhere and if you can’t see them you can sure smell them.  The rest of the culture shock I was expecting is nowhere to be found.  Instead I’ve found my stereotypes and assumptions blown away by what I’ve seen.  You’d think in a city of more than 10 million people that it would be frenetic and chaotic, but it is surprisingly quiet, clean, polite, and way too easy to figure out.  It’s also an extremely safe city which means walking around after sunset is no problem at all.  The hostel has a note which says “countless guards from army, police and several securit dept who have uniform or not are watching this area day and night.” Too true so my two hour solo walk on the first evening was safe and uneventful. The locals didn’t even look at me when I passed by which made my ego a little sad.

So that’s the first update from ???  Hmmm, if this gets to you how did I get it past the censors?