gateway to Song-Kul

I’m not really the most touristy person in Kyrgyzstan. I receive questions from you wonderful people sometimes about places to visit in Kyrgyzstan and my reaction is usually something like, “Umm…I know a good coffee shop that’s a five-minute walk from my house,” even though what you were really wanting to know is which random …

Song-Kul belly

Happy third trimester to me! (27 weeks!) I spent the weekend at Song-Kul, a high-altitude lake in Naryn. Part of me wanted nothing more than to keep my ever-growing stomach inside my house all weekend, limiting my activities to things like eating pancakes, experimenting with homemade pumpkin spice lattes, and sleeping in my own bed. …

and now I have a broken door

(Update, 10/27: About a week ago, the police came back to explain all of the diligent work they had been doing on our case. You would not believe how crazy this story turned out to be! All along, we assumed it was a group of spoiled rich hooligans that broke our door, but the police …

Kirstin gets sued (hypothetically)

The revelation that some House Hunters and House Hunters International episodes might not be as truthful as they first appear hit some people hard. When I was back in the states one woman’s account of making her episode was national news. But nothing was affected more seriously than the strained diplomatic relations between Kazakhstan and …