May 12, Jen

May 12th

We had a good visit with Junior today. We took him outside for about a half hour, and there was a group of 7 year olds, mostly girls visiting today. They were all outside on the playground where we were. He seemed to take a fancy for one in particular that we called Princess. He did not zonk out like he had the past couple of days.

Then we headed inside to the Ball Room where the other family was also today. He was busy watching everyone else in the room today-- I guess he does not see that many different grown ups so he was a bit pre-occupied watching everyone. Rob did discover the game of "throw a blaket on my head and whip it off and watch me giggle". That lasted about 15 minutes, until it was time to go. Junior seems to be over his cold and only boogers and drools a little bit now.

Then it was on to an afternoon of errands trying to get internet access. We decided to bite the bullet and get unlimited access at 32k.....yes that is 32k like we all had a decade ago. At least it will be fast enough to do some instant messaging, and Quicken downloads......2 things I am suffering withdrawal from.

In the evening I went out with our translator Aizhan, and her 2 sisters, Genera and Gunara (Obviosly spelled phonetically). They wanted to practice their English before an interview at the Embassy next week so they can travel for a few months to the US to work. We walked over to the amusement park, and the world's smelliest Zoo which we skipped, then had a gigantic chicken shishkebob. They were very grateful to practice their English, and tomorrow night we will play cards to practice some more. They tried explaining the game, which loosely translates to Loser, or Stupid, but in America I think it was more like a drinking game we played in college with a much more harsh name. I'll find out more when we play cards.

Rob spend the rest of the evening reading his "John Grisham" novel, which he is now totally engrossed in.

Here's a picture of a car we saw on the street one night.

Aizhan was making a remark that it was quite an ugly color, and at the same time we said "The color of baby poo". Once again, I am sure my niece would like to drive this one around.

While Rob was not with me, I got these pictures of the 'lobby' of our apartment. This is the hi-tech ultra secure security office where a grandma sits each day. We try to avoid eye contact because she only speaks Russian and we are not sure how to say "chill out lady, we really live here".

And i

n case the 'security guard' gets tired while on her 'round the clock watch, this is where she sleeps.