After the heavy wedding weekend, I was looking forward to a quite week. A quiet week, I did not get. With Alberto back from Mongolia, Espe and I were invited over to his place on Tuesday night. Not feeling great I ended up being a bit antisocial and found it more difficult than usual understanding all the Spanish. That said Alberto, of course, had lots of stories to tell and it sounds as though the Mongol Rally lived up to its reputation. It turns out Tom declared them the champions of the rally, having been the first team to arrive in UB having entered Mongolia at the far eastern point of Tsaganuur. The reward? To dress up as a Mongolian Wrestler for the finish party…

On Wednesday I found myself not feeling particularly well. That kinda messed up my plans as I had wanted to meet several people that week. Feeling better by the end of the week Ana and her boyfriend, Mat, came over for dinner. Ana is a Spanish girl I met a long time ago while doing intercambios. We’ve stayed freinds ever since. She was lucky enough to get a grant to finish her PhD in San Fransciso. She is back breifly for the summer before returning as a researcher. I think the experience has done her loads of good. She is brimming with confindence and seems to be enjoying very much what she is doing.

Two of the CAP boys are over from Krakow . I’d planned to meet up with them for some beers and tapas, but being ill in the middle of the week put an end to that. It is a shame as Marek was only over for a week and I didn’t get to see him at all. Michal is here for a few more weeks, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to make up for that.

On Sunday, Espe and I headed up into the mountains and did a trek which I’ve been wanting to do for some time: Siete Picos, or Seven Peaks. It took us three and a half hours to do the circular trek which included scaling 7 peaks, obviously, the highest of which is a mere 2138 metres above sea level.

To finish the week off nicely, on Sunday evening we were joined by the other half of the Spanish Bulfighters, David. An evening full of stories about the rally as well as a chance to see some of David’s pics from Mongolia, including further evidence that my Mini is alive and well. Top stuff.