June 26 - we're here !!!

Thurs June 26 5:00 pm Almaty time / June 26th 6:00 am Wpg time (don't worry I won't start every update this way, just wanted to clarify the time difference)....

Hi everyone - we're here! We had a lovely send off Tuesday afternoon at Wpg airport by our Moms Pat and Aggie, Nic's sister Lise and our beautiful nieces Megan and Amy. After 3 long but uneventful flights and connections in Toronto and Frankfurt (except for a heavy rain/hail/thunder/lightning storm in Frankfurt that had us waiting on the runway for an hour) - we arrived in Almaty 21 hours later, at 1:30 am Thursday, Almaty time. Paul says we've completely 'lost' a Wednesday in there somewhere - does that mean he didn't really miss baseball ?!?

We grabbed our luggage - everything made it - yay! and were met at the busy Almaty airport by Svetlana (our translator), Natasha (not sure her role?) and Vladimir (our driver), who whisked us and a newly-arrived couple from Montreal to a grocery store for a few items and then to our respective apartments. We met the landlord briefly after a mix up with the apartment key but as it was so late we only said Hello (Zdrad-vutsi) and Thanks (Spah-see-ba).

The grocery store was a hoot - considering it was 2:00 am, there were many people shopping while we were in there. We picked up bread, eggs, milk, butter, 1 L of pepsi and 5 L of water, plus pasta/sauce/meat for a meal today/ tomorrow - this came to 2200 tenge or approx $20 US. We also browsed the huge wine/alcohol section and bought a bottle of Chilean wine that we've bought at home (which cost 1000 tenge or approx $12 US) - we'll get more adventuresome in our food/drink purchases, but thought we'd start with familiar things. For the liquour, it was funny - prices ranged from vodka starting at $2 US, to many North American brands such as Grey Goose, Crown Royal, Southern Comfort etc. These were all very expensive - for example it was $50 US for a 1 L bottle of Appletons rum - ummmm maybe not.......

The apartment is interesting - it's very small, the bedroom has an armoire and a TV, the hallway has a toilet closet and a seperate room with tub and sink, and the kitchen has a half-size oven/stove, half-size fridge/freezer, a card-table (but we need it for counter space) and a microwave. No coffee maker (!) but we brought a travel coffee maker and supplies, as we were warned that might be the case as very few Kazakhs drink coffee. Other things we were told that are true are that the bed is really a box-spring with no mattress, and there is a laundry washing machine but no dryer. On the upside there are multiple engligh-TV channels - including Fox News, CNN, Discovery, ESPN and even TLC!

There's also a balcony with a GORGEOUS view of the mountains ! As I type this, the clouds are clearing up and the mountain view is spectacular. We found it funny to realize that I've (N) never actually seen mountains before and had to travel literally to the other side of the globe to do so. I've been to Calgary many times- so close to the Rockies, but I've never seen them close-up......

So we'll decide in the next few days if we'll stay in this apartment or move somewhere else - we need to find out if there are other 'pluses' going for it, to make up for the sparseness - for example if we're in a good location with walking access to other adoptive families, inexpensive restaurants, markets, etc, then it might be worthwhile to stay put. If not, we'll look into our options next week.

We now have the internet hooked up with a minutes card (Nursat), and we'll mostly be adding entries during non-peak times (early morning our time, so mid-evening at home).

Today we slept in a bit, as we weren't able to sleep until way after the sun came up - time change is WEIRD! Then we walked around the neighbourhood and found the RAMSTOR (large shopping mall) closeby, where we picked up a few things for the apartment and grabbed some lunch. We were met there by Svetlana, Natasha and Lonya (the coordinator assigned to our file). We've learned that we already have a delay in our meeting with Min. of Education, due to a mistake on the Visa given to us by the Kaz government. Lonya and Svetlana are working on it and they're confident it can be fixed within a few days. So, in the meantime we'll continue to explore our temporary home. Please keep those good vibes comin' for us!!

For the other families currently in Almaty, our apartment is on Samal-2, by street called Dostyk (correction: Al-Farabi) . We're not in the downtown area, but north-west (correction: South-East) of it. Pam/Grev, Jen/Bert we now have your phone #s so we'll call you tonight - we'd love to meet up tomorrow or Saturday if it works for ya! Jen and Bert, we also learned that you are having the same 'issue' with your Visas as we are, so it would be good to chat.

That's all for now - thanks for the calls, texts and blog comments, and for all the love and support from home - we really appreciate it! We'll be in touch soon!
take care,
Nic and Paul