May 04

May 4th

Rob side of the story
We got an apartment today!!! It took us a while and we've seen some interesting living arrangements. We live in a one bedroom apartment in The Titanic. At least that's what I think it's called. It's pretty sweet tho. If you want to try to call (remember we're 10 hrs ahead) (Phone number snipped and added to header, we had the wrong number) Now that we've got two living abodes I am poor so call me!!!


Jen right now is cleaning the dust off the floors in the apartment,,, not a big deal but Astana is incredibly dusty. I liken it to NYC meets Hong Kong meets Moscow meets Cairo but with Russian Alphabet and language being used. There are people of all races here tho I have not seen a black person, Eurasian, Asian, Eastern European, Western European.... and 1 big geeky american (reflection in the mirror). The women dress very formally in dresses and boots. (!!!ha ha ha!!!! snort! I love it here!) The men wear casual business attire and some suits (I think but not looking much at them (ouch jen just wacked me)).

Our son still has a cold but we had a good time today and were pushing a ball around the play room. The play room was awesome with lots of toys. I took a break to play with our son but mostly I played with the toys in the playroom..... for some reason I am typing and reading this right now in a russian accent. I think I need to go to bed the cheap beer got to me.

So..... Enough from me. Do you miss me? Prolly not (except tig and fluff).
But It's cool here being immersed in Kazakhstan culture.

Jen’s side of the story
Eek gads, I thought I had bad grammar…until I read Rob’s post. I hope his high school English teaching is not reading this.

Today was a good day with junior. He didn’t cry as much today—we can wipe his nose now without him freaking out. I juggled some squooshy balls for him and it kept him (and Rob) entertained. Then we started rolling a ball to him and he would grab it or whack it back. We’re pretty sure he’s a lefty. He has been glued to us the past couple days because he likes to have the attention and be held, but we wanted to play with him on the floor. He immediately started to whale, but the caregivers said “oh yes, he crawls all the time and walks long the sofa” (of source they said it in Russian so it sounded like he was doing something horrible light lighting farts for the other kids). We had not seen on iota of this crawling thing. We had been duped! He worked the crying thing so we would hold him all the time! After we realized we were being played for suckers we put him down on the little blanket we brought and lo and behold the little guy could crawl….but not without some theatrics. First he laid face down crying for about 15 seconds, then his butt went up and he pushed himself up and motored over to me. All the time he was crying like there was no tomorrow. Maybe he realized we have figured out his game. We’ll experiment more tomorrow. By the end of the week we’ll have him walking. We was also on the potty when we got there today….way to save on the diapers!

We also found out he digs looking at himself in the mirror, we were in a different room today than the past 2 days and he had a wall of mirrors to check out. The play room also has a little slide which I slid him down twice….I think it was a different sensation with a diaper on and he was a bit unsure what to think. It was a good visit and we can really see how he’s changing and getting used to us. I’m really glad we have 2 weeks of visits so he can get used to us a little at a time….we’re a lot to take in all at once. After the 2 weeks we’ll visit for another 3 weeks, at least, while we wait for court and paperwork and the 15 day waiting period.

After our visit we saw yet another POS apartment today, but it did have an awesome view of the Ishim River. Unfortunately it had only a single bed, so we regretfully nixed it and were feeling homeless since we checked out of the hotel that morning. Oh yeah, there was a family living there too and we felt weird about giving them the boot on 1 hour’s notice. And the elevator in the building had a weight limit, like all elevators do, and with 6 of us on the elevator the OVERLOAD light lit up. We had to boot someone out to get to the 8th floor. Oddly enough, we could use the same elevator with everyone in it to go DOWN. Kind of scary, Rob’s face was a bit panicked. Who would want ot plummet to their death in a foreign land.

Bazhit , one of the 2 coordinators—the one who reminds me of a Russian speaking version of my Aunt Bernie, suggested we try one last place. Actually she looked at us and said “Fileep and Jeneeefur, blah blah blah in Russian, titanic, more blah blah blah Russian (smile and wink)”. I thought she was saying our chances of finding a decent apartment were like a sinking ship. After spending a day and a half driving all over town, we found one within spitting distance of our hotel; the apartment building is called The Titanic. It’s a really nice apartment….complete with a 3-door security system within about a 2-foot distance. Of course it will take us 30 minutes to lock and unlock the doors with the funky skeleton keys they have. We started doing laundry tonight because baby boogers and drool do wonders to shirts. Our washing machine is awesome! It takes about 2 ½ hours to do one small load (2 pairs of pants and 3 shirts), which is all that fits in the washing machine. And there are no dryers here, but they do have a drying rack which we put where the kitchen table was since we have a dining room table. We’ll probably do a load of laundry a day to keep up with the drool and give us enough time to let stuff dry in the kitchen. Looks like I won’t need those 40 pairs of underwear I FoodSaver’d and packed.

The apartment is close to the river and we can see it out of the bedroom window and the sunroom and micro balcony (about 9 square feet). Tomorrow we’ll walk a block to the river and walk on the path along the river. It has nice looking lights which would be very pretty at night. They do a kick ass job here with lighting things up at night. There are rainbow lights in 3 or 4 places over the main road, lights on the light posts that look like Christmas decorations and lots of stuff lit up. Since it gets dark so freaking late, we usually can’t stay up that late.

To celebrate our finding an apartment we broke out the good toilet paper that we brought from home: 24 rolls of pristine Quilted Northern. We need to ration ourselves with 1 roll every 2 or 3 days. It was nice to use real toilet paper again, the stuff they have here looks like party streamers—that crinkly stuff that damn near repels water. And it is not very effective on the after affects of Borscht with food foreign to my system.

We went to the small market after scoring the apartment to buy some grub, bath towels and cleaning supplies. They have awesome bread here (about 40 cents a loaf) and about 50 flavors of juice. I bought the obligatory apple juice, which comes in red, green and yellow, and drum roll please…….PEAR JUICE! If you have not tried it, you must. I think years ago in America they sold Pear Soda, but it did not catch on like it should have. Our translator looked at me like I was crazy when I said we don’t have Pear Juice. She thought every country had 50 flavors of juice. No, instead America has 50 flavors of Coke. We also bought some milk. They have milk in BAGS, and it has tons of fat. At home we think 4% while milk is a lot, here they have 8% milk. We could not find any bagged milk less than 3%. Then we found some milk in what looked like a big juice box. As always I checked the expiration date: July 2007! I don’t know what they do to the milk here, but I bought some Nesquik in case it tastes too funky.

The food store was not one 1 big food store, it was little sections. One section you would buy cleaning supplies, another food, another towels, another a European a hair dryer (which I bought for about $6). It reminded me of the old Montgomeryville Mart, but a wee bit cleaner…and no Mickey Mouse Club.

I also spent the night cleaning the apartment…we might as well enjoy a clean place to stay instead of cleaning it at the end. It looks awesome!

Junior turned 10 months old today. We are still in the market for the right baby name. Today’s pick: Hoegarten Taylor.

Here's our Dining Room...complete with a china cabinet full of fine crystal and shot glasses.


Kaz's version of Empire State building,
outside our bedroom window.












Kitchen where Robbie makes me breakfast. Tha'ts me in the picyte washing dishes. Neighbor John would like all the hand washing of dishing.