Kyrgyzstan..? Well you know, that country right next to Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan

I wonder if it's even possible to feel all these emotions at the same time! I'm so touched I could cry and so excited it's hard to sit still. I've just booked flights to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

I lived in Kyrgyzstan with my family for a year when I was fourteen, so almost exactly ten years ago. I don't think I'd be here in Petrozavodsk if it wasn't for that year. In Kyrgyzstan I became interested in the Russian language and Russia itself and there I also decided I really wanted to be a high school exchange student. And without that one year in New Zealand I certainly wouldn't have dared to apply for uni exchange in Russia. These times living abroad have played such a significant role in making me who I am today (and honestly I don't expect any less of Petrozavodsk).

I always thought I'd go back to Kyrgyzstan some day, but I certainly didn't expect it to be this spring. It's all a sequence of coincidences. It started with a Swedish exchange student going to Bishkek to see a friend and there was no convincing whatsoever needed to get me to join. There will be 3–5 of us going and I'm so excited. We will be going for a few days at the time of the local spring festival in March.

You can google Kyrgyzstan if you want to know more about it. Right now I have my mind filled with memories of sashlik, plov, lyeposhka (these are all food), bazaars and how they smell like, the smell of burning rubbish, prayer calls from the mosques, that song "Numa numa" by O-zone playing in the parks really loudly, felt hats and slippers, mountains and rivers, horses, sheep and little villages.

I can't believe I'm going back. And I can't believe I've found other people, who want to travel there too!