Back in UB and What's Next

Six hours riding on a posh new bus over bad roads (relatively good roads by Mongolian standards) and I was back in UB. Traffic. Smog. Horns blaring. People asking me for money. Closed faces. Fancy shoes. General bombardment of the senses.
I was reeling the first evening and day back, but now the summer is slipping away from me, and in some ways it feels the time with Enhee's family was a dream. On the bus ride, and the first night away, I kept saying to myself, "I did it! I spent the summer with Mongolian nomads!" It is something I wanted to do for so long, and now it is done. There is one remnant that lets me know I was there. When I need to get up to pee in the night, I find I'm waiting half asleep and cozy for an hour or longer, postponing going outside the ger to deal with it, until I realize I just have 10 steps to an indoor toilet. With light and running water and everything.
I have been navigating, in kind of a zigzag way, the process of deciding what I'm doing. Kelly again has been a huge help, calling the Russian embassy many times with my questions and brushing up on her Russian skills. I had hoped to have an open itinerary arriving in Moscow, but then it was looking like I wouldn't even be able to get a Russian visa from here. I thought I needed a letter of invitation, so I got one online for $45 (nonrefundable), then realized it was best to use a transit visa, which doesn't require the letter. Ah well. At least the train will be less than I thought, and skipping any stopovers will save $$$ too. With the advice of friends (Thanks Andine!) and random Europeans in the cafe I like, I selected Prague as my first city on the way to Switzerland to visit relatives.
Monday I'll go back to the Russian embassy with my train ticket to Moscow ($200 for a bed in a 4 person sleeper car), and my ticket to Prague ($240). Friday 8/27/10 I will leave Mongolia on my last leg of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and have 4.5 days where the world is moving around me and I don't have to do anything. I'll cross most of the continent of Asia, write, think, talk to other passengers, sleep, and read. It feels like the best way to leave my time here and arrive in the Europe rested and ready to explore.
I'm glad I will slowly be making my way home, slowly re-Westernizing. The idea of flying to the States from here feels simply impossible. American media I see frightens me. Is that really where I'm from? Pictures of my office before I left startle me. Was that really my life for 7 years? It feels the time with the nomads has unhinged my sense of time and continuity a bit. Coming home slowly gives me time to weave those threads together, and to better understand what this trip has been about.