July 13 - back to the surface of the sun...

July 13 - Sunday 7:00 pm - Hi everyone! It's another hot and sunny day in Almaty - hope the weather is getting better at home, heard it's been cool and rainy! It was 37 C here yesterday and supposed to hit 40 C today - it's really tough not to wilt in this many days of this kind of heat. I've never been one to nap during the day but I tell ya - it's serious siesta-weather here!

Saturday: Drinks was fun - met a woman named Tina from Montreal who is now finishing her process in Almaty after spending 9 weeks in Uralsk adopting her little boy, so it was very nice to meet her (and him!) and hear about their experiences in Uralsk. She is travelling home on the 16th which is the same set of flights we're hoping to get on, so it would be nice to be able to chat with her on the way home. Bernard/Carole and Jen/Bert also came out for drinks - we met at an outdoor sports bar/ cafe in the pedestrian mall by TSUM - so funny to hear music videos from home when we're so far away - we heard Rianna and even Avril Lavigne!

The pedestrian market was again very entertaining - a few gypsy kids (but not many), groups of teenagers/ young adults just hanging around and laughing in groups, and then out of the blue a group of about 20 Hare Krishnas went by in a little parade- singing, playing guitars and tambourines - it was wild!

We looked at a few souvenirs in TSUM but will wait to see what the prices are like at the Green market as we heard they may be much better. They have beautiful felt things that someone said are made from camel hair - dolls, tapestries, yurts (traditional Kazakh nomadic homes), and vests/ hat/ slippers that are gorgeous with beautiful embroidery. The market should be really interesting - we've heard they expect you to negotiate for price, so Paul is looking forward to that! And yes for anyone who knows me well, I've been asked not to speak during the bartering, as I'm horrible at it......... LOL

Sunday: 10:00 went with Bernard/Carole, Jen/Bert to the Green market - it's an amazingly huge outdoor (covered) market with hundreds of tiny (4-5 feet wide) stalls selling everything under the sun - clothes, toiletries, souvenirs, groceries, meat, you name it! The food/meat area itself was amazing - an open air space around half the size of a football field with tables overflowing with meat, fish, fruit/ vegg, nuts, spices, pastries being made by older ladies - the smells were overwhelming! The majority of people here buy all their groceries this way - nothing like the sterile, cold grocery stores at home!

We did manage to find a few souvenirs, which we're happy about - not as much bartering as we were hoping for, but oh well. We'll go back for more on our 2nd trip but it was fun to grab a few things. We looked at prices of children's clothes in case we end up needing to buy some here on our 2nd trip - not bad at all! And lots of stalls have high-end purses like Prada, Gucci, D&G etc - didn't seem to be knock-offs but who knows. The prices were still really high!

We walked around for a couple of hours then thankfully stopped for lunch at Bombolo's - the same place Paul and I went to a few days ago with the cool-mist-blowing fans - it's a wonderful respite from the heat! I had a cordon bleu - like dish of pork/ham/cheese wrapped in bread crumbs, and Paul had BBQ pork/beef shyshlyk (kebabs, but wrapped in tortillas) and french fries. We are still craving meat as we're eating so little of it here - we're joking (kindof) that we're going to have steak, pork chops, burgers and more steak every day for 2 weeks when we get home!

Now we're resting for the evening (I napped the minute we got back from the market) and we'll get ready to see our girl tomorrow - yay! We've still had so little time with her - only 18 hours total over 2 weeks. We'll have a couple more visits before we leave but then we'll have to rely on our memories and our pictures (we've taken tons) to get us through the weeks when we're away from her. We're hoping that someone here will show her the pictures we'll leave of us and talk to her about us, to help her believe we're really coming back! Svetlana has offered to check in on her for us which is wonderful of her and we're thankful....

The whole thing is still very surreal - we've seen her eat but only for a minute, we haven't seen her use the potty or sleep, or any of the usual parenting things of everyday life, which we're so looking forward to! For everyone who wants to warn us about how hard or tedious some parts of parenting are, we can only say 'Lucky you!' and 'Bring it on!' after waiting so long for this opportunity. So far we've only had these brief sessions of play-time with her, which of course has been lovely, but we so wish we could take her home and be a family!

Take care,
N&P