How to "GET BETTER!" in Russia...

This year for my birthday I got a cold. Fortunately for me, this date
was also directly before I was to be in a train for a good 80 hours
with a Russian mother and her 13 year old translator son (he knew how
to count very well at least).
I soon found out that the trick to getting over sickness in Russia is
to eat. A lot. And it's not just any food that you eat. It's anything
and everything that has at least enough sugar or fat in it to kill all
those germs. For me, this meant cookies with "NOT LITTLE" jam on it (I
feel the need to write what was said in Russian in capital letters,
for it seems like everything is spoken that way). Once the cookies ran
out, I was to put jam in my tea. Once I couldn't drink any more tea, i
was to just eat spoonful of jam. Of course after every dosage of sugar
I was to sleep, which wasn't exactly easy. But when a Russian tells
you to do something, there's no way out. After my sugar overload, it
was time for pre-packaged chicken drumsticks with salami and cheese.
And then the train stopped, more cookies were bought, and more cookies
were stuffed into me.

It's quite funny, because I quite enjoy these foods in and of
themselves (except maybe the pre-packaged chicken legs...) however the
quantity of it all spoiled the effect.

It seems that everything in Russia is a bit forcefull. I later found
out that when someone sneezes in Russia, they respond with "GET
BETTER!" said of course with much gusto.

Oh Russia... Well, I'm in Mongolia now and still have a cough. I think
I'll try some other recipes for getting better. I'm actually quite
self conscious about it here because half the population of
Ulaanbaatar are wearing facemasks... Apparently there's been a big
outbreak recently here. Here's hoping!

Peace out world,

Kyle

p.s. For those of you who didn't notice, Kelly and I are now sharing
this blog. We've decided, in order to cut back on tensions over
writing style, that when we write together, it will be more of a
update, when we write independently, it will be whatever we like