:)

After having had dinner at Los Bandidos, in the streaming rain, I walked over to Khanbrau together with Andy. The previous Friday, we experienced one of the worst storms ever. Hail, marble sized, came down in streams. I had to walk home through streets turned into rivers, 30cm deep. Still nothing compared to the 3rd district where people were stuck in water, chest high. Or some of the outer districts where gers were washed away, killing 10 people.

Sitting in Khanbrau, among a contingent of English volunteers, listening to some band playing covers of Radiohead, U2, Limp Bizkit and others, I, for a minute, realised how lucky I was. I have heard Beethoven play at Fel Tiz and PaDoeDoe at new years in Budapest, I've seen girlfriends of oil barons dance naked on the tables of the Hungry Duck in Moscow, I've seen local musicians play acoustic compositions on the Ring of Kerry and seen native folk songs performed in miniature pubs in Dublin in Ireland, I've seen the Swan Lake performed in St. Petersburg, I've seen the emeralds encased in the walls of the Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Gizeh, lake Baikal in summer, I was frightened in the Bermuda Triangle, saw the WTC before it got leveled, got Drunk at Lake Balaton, built a house in Romania and fought with elephants in Ghana. And now, for a second, I was ready to die.

Related:  Little Gem