Oh Television Mountain, Whose Towers flash with light, wrap your beautiful steel arms around me, you my broadcasting lover.

Today is my birthday!

Alright!

This morning in honor the day I burst forth from¡¡the womb, from dark unto light, we had some special bibimbap (amazing Korean rice stuff) and some Korean birthday soup! Nice work on the food traditions Korea, nice work.

And my team surprised me. They said that it was the Korean custom to invite others out to dinner and then pay for the whole meal yourself on your birthday. Then they said we were going to this fancy restaurant that was ten bucks a person. (I only make 30 bucks a month so I was going to have to spend more than a month's pocket money on dinner) But first they said we were going to a meeting with some NGOs. So I was still glad that I was born but just barely.

But instead guess where we went? That's right! To the top of Television Mountain! Upon reaching its blessed zenith, we had a look around and I took about 100 pictures (of which all are completely terrible as the setting on the camera where set for low light and I didn't change it back so they are more washed out than something that is really washed out)

(Sitting next to me right now is this man with the most beautiful voice speaking very slowly and gently in broken english with a slightly canadian/german/afghan accent about his friend who "says the funniest things." His voice is SOOOOO GENTLE! You should hear how he says "My house!" You should hear how he says EVERYTHING!!!! I LOVE THIS MAN WITH ALL OF MY BEING!!!!!! I WISH I COULD STAND UP AND YELL ON THIS TABLE! I WANT TO TAKE HIS BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL VOICE AND PUT IT IN A SMALL, SHINY, JEWEL ENCRUSTED BOX AND THEN PUT THAT BOX IN A SMALL BASKET AND THEN MARRY THAT BASKET!)

You could see all of Kabul from the top of television mountain (and almost none of it from the top of my pictures moutain) Then they had bought an afghan almond cake and some donut things for me which we ate. Earlier they also had said that couldn't find time to get me any presents but then that was a lie too as they totally did get me presents like jerh mensants. I got a jar of nutella and some Chinese tea chocolate and because they think its so funny that I actually like to drink water, a whole case of water. So we had a little party at the top of television mountain. And as we ate the earth was very nicely formed around our brains and as we walked our arms swung slowly by our sides.

Then they said they were just kidding about the paying for a fancy restaurant custom thing and we went to a kebab place for some cheap delicious kebabs. We ate some chicken kebab which were just okay, but it was good to get another kebab under my belt. Tika, shami, and chicken are the most popular so that's what most places serve and its difficult to find the other kinds. But I will not give up the fight.

We still haven't formally started language learning (Dari, roll the "r" when you say it), We are still looking for a teacher. We went to this popular school run by the NGO, IAM (international assistance mission) but it was too expensive for classes and didn't fit with our schedule and all the popular kids made fun of my lunchbox. Hopefully we will find a teacher in the next couple of days

My friend Joony, really likes the song "the lonely shepherd" (that pan flute song made popular by ol' Quentin Tarantino, you know, "do do do...do, do do..." like that). This is lucky for both of us because I happen to love Georghe Zamfir (the romanian pan flute master from whom the song was born) and brought a bunch of jams with me. So I introduced him to Zamfir and also to some Ennio Moriconne.