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onight, Violeta and I met with our tour leader and fellow tour mates. Our fearless leader is an Aussie by the name of Adam Martin. He's freelance tour leader who focuses on tours through Indochina. He was a last minute fill-in for the person who was suppose to be leading us but who fell sick and couldn't do it. This is his first trip to Mongolia. It's going to be interesting to see how well he holds up and does his job.
This is largest I've travelled with of late. There's 15 of us in total.
There's Sharon and Adrian who are a married couple from New Zealand but who have been travelling around the globe for the past 7 months.
Rachel who is also originally from New Zealand but has spent the past few years living and working in Bangkok, Thailand.
Forest and Karen, another married couple but from the US. They're both school teachers in Taipei, Taiwan.
Eric, who has a shock of bright red hair and a face full of freckles. At 18, he's the youngest member of the group. He's spending his gap year traveling and Mongolia is his first stop.
Evan and Maree, recently engaged, from Australia.
Alexandra and Teresa from Lisbon, Portugal. Good friends now, they met on tour to Antarctica and have gone on several trips together since then.
Marilyn and Jenny who are both from the UK. Personality wise, I think they're on the opposite end of the spectrum. Jenny used to own a bridal dress shop who recently lost her husband to cancer. She's about as sweet a person as you could ever meet. On the other hand, Marilyn is a firecracker, fiesty, loud.....she's going to be a handful for Adam :-)
Last but not least, there's Cathleen who's from California, USA. Freckle face with Asian features....her father is of Irish descent and her mother of Chinese descent. Another very sweet personality. As we would all come to find out later, she, Eric and Jenny proved to be the artsy ones on the tour.
Tomorrow, we'll meet our local guide who would be accompanying us on our trip.
On the surface, it seems like a very interesting group of people and I'm looking forward to traveling with them. We're going to be split up in SUVs as we travel across Mongolia so it's going to be a challenge to get to know everyone well but I'll figure out a way to make it happen!!
