Welcome to Bishkek! Finally!

It’s 12:56 am on June 8 and I’m just finished my PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow’s lecture at the National Museum of Visual Art here in Bishkek. This is the end of a long 18-hour day of travel. Our day started in New York with a layover in London where we bumped into Jane Lombard who as on our NYC-London flight. The three-hour layover turned into six because the entire luggage in the plane had to be removed, rechecked and replaced in the cargo hold (something to do with security). The flight became even more interesting when Ji befriended three Georgian boys who shared a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels and chocolate, they bought at the duty free. They were becoming a bit rowdy, as young boys on booze usually do, so it was confiscated by one of the stewards and returned as the boys disembarked in Tbilisi, Georgia. We saw the same steward later with the rest of his crew at dinner in an amazing restaurant in the mountains. When we arrived at the Silk Road Lodge, completely exhausted, we took a nap before heading out meeting Shaarbek and Denise at the “City of Artists”.