June 26 -> June 28- Back from the USSR

June 26
I had the embassy interview Monday June 26th, then stopped by the Lufthansa office. I wanted to see if I had made the flight on June 29th, and the lady said no, but I was confirmed for June 27th. That was the best outcome, and somehow we got it. Since I was flying out of another city I thought I would have to pay a fee but when you have either a screaming or sleeping baby with you when you vist an office they tend to want to get you out of there as soon as possible.

After out embassy interview Natalie and I celebrated by packing. Natalie was nice enough to give me her potty since Andrew did not take to the Throne I bought him, so I left one more item, along with most of my clothes in Kazkhstan.

June 27
The flights home something I don't care to remember. One the first leg from Almaty to Frankfurt I had a bassinet so he slept all but an hour or 2. And those hours he spent screaming. We had a six hour layover in Frankfurt so we went to McDonalds, rode the moving sidewalk for an hour or 2, went potty 2x in the port-a-potty, had 2 Andrew meals and then got our boarding passes. I thought it was odd that I did not get a seat assignment with the boarding passes. Turns out the flight to Newark was overbooked, but I did get on. Unfortunately the people in the bulkheads would not trade seats so I could not get a bassinet. The entire plane was punished with about 9 hours of a blood curding screaming child, Andrew. This obviously made eating any meals for me impossible so I asked the stewardess to give my meal to the peopl e in the bulkhead....I don't think she got it. I had about 400 angry eyes on me and my screaming child, then word got out that we was adopted from either Pakistan or Afghanistan, then everyone was stopping by and their looks of anger changed to smiles.

We finally made it to Newark, but Lufthansa decided my luggage, all 1 bag of it, would not be travelling with me. They knew this when I was in Frankfurt, but declined to tell me until I was waiting at bagge claim for about 45 minutes, with a child who was no longer screaming. So my luggage will spend another day or 2 in Eurpoe, or Asia, along with the 10% of my body weight that I left behind.

Since most of the rest of the baby food was in the checked luggage (other than the 2 days I had as carry-on) we stopped at the foodstore on the way home for Baby Food, and New Yorker White American Cheese sliced thin. We got the baby food, but they ripped me off on the cheese and gave me mongo thick slices of generic american cheese.

June 28
Andrew went to bed around 7 or 8pm our time and woke up around 5:30 am....with about 10 times waking up in the middle of the night. Once he realized we were still there he slept for more than 30 minutes. In the morning he had his first American breakfast, #1 and #2 business on the potty and took a nap while I got a long awaited shower.

It's nice to be back in America with one more US citizen in the house.

28 June - HOME AT LAST

Andrew and Jen are recovering from their adventure on the Lufthansa Airplanes.
Andrew was ok on the first flight half way but screamed half the first flight and the entire second flight. Sorry for Jen about that! I had to pay similar dues once on a flight from SFO-->PHL but that's a much shorter ride. When I saw Andrew in the airport he was smiling and laughing and he slept the entire car ride home. So I thought it went well. Then I asked Jen and looked at her and found out it was no picnic.

The time change and all the changes have impacted Andrew's sleep and eat schedule so we're working on that. Andrew was pretty scared of the cats at first (no crying just a scared face) but seems to have accepted them as part of his new home. The cats also seem to be ok and tig came to check Andrew out right away. No jealousy yet since Jen has been away so much they don't mind little attention from her.

So that's it for now gotta do some work.

- Rob

June 27 - FRA---->EWR---->ABE

Jen emailed me this morning to report that her and Andrew are in Frankfurt, Germany one continent closer to home.

I am excited.

Yeah this is sort of a surprise that she was able to complete her mission a bit early and with some co-operation with Lufthansa was able to be on her way.

If you want to be a geek and track Jen's flight it's LH402 and you can use this web site.
http://www.flightview.com/TravelTools/FlightTrackerQueryResults.asp

I am going to pick the family up at EWR.

When we're settled at home we'll be in touch...
It's "nesting" time (I am probably screwing this term up but forgive me!!!)

- Rob

June 25 (Kaz)

June 25

Today we moved to our new room, and it is awesome! There's a room a little bigger than a standard hotel room where we have the 2 beds and 2 cribs, and a little entry way room where we moved a sofa and a chair to to use as a play area safe for kids, and a big bathroom with a bidet, jacuzzi, shower stall and the other regular stuff like sinks and a toilet.









Here's our hotel from the outside. I think it's about 8 or 9 years old, but it has a dated look from the outside. The inside is very nice. And since we had to do a little laundry while we were here, here's a close up of our balcony, and if you look very closely you can see my bras hanging out to dry. Ahh, how classy we are.








When Pat and Alli said they spent their evenings in the bathroom eating dinner so they would not wake the kids I thought they were crazy....but know I understand. Here's a picture of our fine dinner on the toilet in the old hotel room. We have since given up on dinner....or breakfast or lunch.








The kids settled in pretty well and enjoyed having cribs next to each other. They were roommates in the orphanage for our first month here, and Andrew seems mesmerized by Alaina, and shows his affection by throwing all of his toys into her crib. Sometimes we put them in the crib together so they can play together, but then Andrew usually pulls her hair, or they swap pacifiers. Andrew will not use his pacifier, but he has no problem using Alaina's.




We needed to do a little laundry today to make sure we had enough for the plane ride home, so Natalie broke the barrier and cleaned and did laundry in the bidet. This must have looked like too much fun for Andrew and Alaina, because when laundry was done they wanted to play in the water....better the bidet than the toilet! At least they had an afternoon with the Fun Mommies...and no visible scars!





After a couple failed attempts at a bath, or even being washed in the sink, Andrew screamed for a couple minutes, when realized he liked the bath, or at least if I distracted him with the tub toys he liked it. But when it came time for the final hose down he screamed again. But after the bath, he was clean and happy, although he is looking like he is planning a submarine expedition for the next bath. I will avoid the details on the food he ate that stained his butt cheeks, which required the long bath.






On our walk to the Gros supermarket the other day we passed a sports stadium. Apparently they pay homage to large breasted Kazak women.









Here's the fountain in the lobby of the Hyatt. We had to stop here one day for a food emergency-- the kids needed yogurt.








And for those interested in potty training, Andrew does the big #2 after each meal. Now I just need to work on the fien art of 'how soon' aftr the meal. If I am too slow with feeding, and miss the 1-minute warning farts, I miss the opportunity for him to do his business in the bowl instead of his diaper.

June 24 - USA

Revenge of the SITH is on HBO in HD so it's tough to find time to clean the house.
I managed to get the master bath done and I must say with the gadgets Jen has it's not that bad a chore. And as long as you clean naked and then jump in the shower right afterwards you don't get many chemical burns at all!

So one chore done and 50 million more to go... for some reason tigger decided to barf 6 times after I swept the whole house.. He has some nasty hairballs but is now feeling fine.

So I am anxious to for my wife and kid to get home.
I miss them.

- Rob

June 23

June 23

Another day in Almaty, and another set of baby food is on my clothes.....and Andrew's.

I have also found out that much baby food is colored orange, and the color does not change much on it's processing trip through the human body. Andrew had another productive day on the potty-- with a jumbo #2. Unfortunately he also had 3 even bigger #2's before 10am. That will teach me to try to sleep in when his colon is on a schedule. I know, you really wanted to know all of that info.

We had a big day and made it out of the room by 10:30am. Andrew is not a fan of bathes, or bathes in a sink, so he screamed the whole time. I also learend that feeding a child, then trying to feed yourself in a restaurant only makes the child hungry again. So I tried some peach yogurt for him which gave me time for about 5 forks of food. We treked to the supermarket (Gros store) to stock up on the baby food fruits and vegatables. I am still trying to push the Carrots and Potatoes, and Squash and Potatoes without much luck. So Andrew is experiencing the fine art of mixing all left over baby food and getting leftovers at the next meal....yes I am too cheap to throw out uneaten food...especially when I need to walk a half hour to get more. I have also learned to feed him vegateables first, when he is hungry, then the good stuff later.

The evening we spent in the Regency Club.....a courtesy room where they have drinks and snacks during the day. There was no one there so we stayed for an hour or 2 and let the kids crawl around. The hostess for the room enjoyed the entertainment because people rarely come in, and seldom do kids. Andrew woo'ed her with his new found walking ability, farting and technique of laying on the floor to look up her dress.

June 22 and 23- Gate Crashing

June 22nd

Today on the way to the orphanage I realized that there was a problem with the adoption certificate, which meant one last trip to the notary in Astana, or so I thought. I was supposed to buy flowers on the way, but there was not enough time with the unplanned notary visit. Needless to say we were running extra late, so I flew through the orphange tossing gifts at people left and right, picked up Andrew and we crashed the gates of the orphange one last time. He's now under my care 24x7....and Rob's in a week or so.

We jumped on the plane to Almaty, and Andrew did pretty good. He played with the barf bag for a while before take off and kept throwing it in the aisle which made quite a few passengers worrisome. Then he assisted the Pre-Flight demonstration by waving the information card in the aisle for everyone to see. The guy seated next to me looked quite worried, but 5 minutes after take off Andrew fell asleep until about 2 minuts before landing.

Almaty is is much greener than Astana. We got to the hotel fed them and went to sleep by midnight. But not before Natalie realized they gave us too small of a room.....we were bored one night at the internet cafe last week and printed out the Deluxe King description, which was not what we got. The room is livable, but kinda small. The reponse from Hyatt was "oh , so sorry.....we will correct the internet because the description is wrong." After 2 months in Kazakhstan, you better believe their mistake will not be my loss. Unfortunately there is a summit in town, and all the big rooms are booked by politicians. So halfway through our stay we will be upgraded to a Club Deluxe which has 2 rooms and a fancy bathroom, and free breakfast (full instead of continental) and 2 hours a day of free internet access (a $100 value with the hotel prices). So we are happy now. If I knew negotiating would have been so easy I would have asked for more, but they met all my demands on the first attempt!

All in all, the day was quite unmomentous given the importance of it.

June 23
Toway we had our medical visit at te International SOS clinic. Andrew was well behaved until he saw someone from the medical profession. They he screamed bloody murder. There was no question as to is his lungs were healthy. But he did not bite or scratch any of the nice people. Oe of mympapers fro the embassy is missing but they said it shodl be here by Monday so I can still hae my Embassy interview on Monday, then travel as soon as I get a flight....or June 29th at teh latest is United has not boogered up my flights again.

Andrew was pretty well behaved today....He had 3 poops on the pottie.....and 2 in the diaper. I think the Rabbit (no kidding) I fed him for lunch might not have agreed with him, but he ate it up. The only food he didn't like was the Potatoes and Squash. I tried to give him a bath in about 1/8" of water tonight and he freaked out, so I hosed him down, wrapped him in a towel and dressed him for bed. Natalie is watching the sleeping beauties while I consume one of our 2 free hours of internet use. I know have a headache from an hour of screaming....whcih Rob got to experience when he called this morning at feeding time.

22 June - (USA)

Robby is grumpy again and today made clothing suggestions to a nice Allentown Pakastani Murano driving person who was "Driving Like a Woman!!***"
This was much to the great entertainment of Robbie's fellow passengers.

Grill Fetching is stressful!!!

I miss my kid and wife and there is only so much John and Heather I can take!!!! :P

But seriously, The number in the header of the blog is for Jen.. She is now with Andrew in Almaty. I spoke with her today as she was feeding andrew horsemeat and cat liver pudding.

Tomorrow she goes for the health check. She is still scheduled to come home on 6/29.

WOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!

- Rob

***PG version!!! :P

June 21 (Kaz)

June 21

Today was an uber exciting visit at the baby house, Andrew fell asleep on me after about 15 minutes of crawling around. The care givers were not happy with that, becuase that means he does not nap at nap time. Oh well, our days in Astana are numbered and then we are off to Almaty for a week of more paperwork.

After the visit we went to the Gross supermarket to go food shopping. I'm not sure if Andrew has any allergies because he has only eaten mashed potatoes with a little meat, porridge and soup. So I played it safe and got the hypo-allergenic german food. Unfortunately the only meat they had was Rabbit With Fennel. Mmmmm, Mmmmm good. You can bet I won't dig into his food.

This little stuffed animal showed up on the sofa at the orphanage today. It looks oddly happy, yet a bit disturbing.








I was getting ready to pack and went through the clothes I bought here. Way back in the beginning it was cold outside and I had to buy sweat pants for Junior. Good Golly these are ugly. They are now a donation for the next generation of kids at the orphanage.






We went out to dinner tonight to an Italian place near us. The food is pretty good, and it's Air Conditioned. The menu is in English and Russian, but some of the translations are a bit odd, like #12 Lasagna and #26 Apices of Asparagus (I think.)








And here is the tasty Vitamin Salad I had. I think it was cabbage and carrots. It was surprisingly good.









These are the people we had dinner with. Maggie and Bryan are on the right....they are from Iowa and are naturally beautiful and really nice people. Ross and Karen are on the end....they are from Illinios and went into shock the first dinner we had when they found out how long they would be here. Natalie is on the left in the front....she is elated to be leaving soon.




We saw these kitties at the mall. They look like out kitties, but will not pee all over once Enrdu arrives home.










We cleaned out the fridge; we had this ketchup from our French Fry Feast. This little bottle of Heinz came a long way for our feast.

June 20 (Kaz)

June 20

At my visit with Andrew today he took his first steps (about 5 steps, then plooped on his diaper), at least the first ones that I saw....he seems to be holding back with showing us the stuff he can do...like when we thought he did not know how to crawl, then the next day he crawled and pulled himself up on the wall. He celebrated by scratching his head.







Here's some pictures of the outside play area....some areas are nicer than others. The stroller in the one picture is one of my Kazak purchases....Andrew was asleep in it and I forgot with the backpack hung on the back it has a tendency to tip. Good thing he did not shift or he would have been launched.







To celebrate the momentous occassion of Endru's first steps we had a nice liter....of apply juice. The little napkin was our spelling of it, unsure if it's Kazak or Russian, because for some reason the waitress could not understand our fluent Russian. We only know how to spell it because we buy a liter of apple juice at the market every couple days.









And in case you forget what I look like, or what 7 1/2 weeks in Kazakhstan does to you, here's a picture of me, about 4 weeks overdue for a haircut., and pondering a Russian menu. Yes, we have hit the bottom of the barrel for photos for the blog.

Keep those comments coming, and pray to the Paperwork and Travel Gods. Our translator suggested I pray to ALL the Gods, not just mine, that the paperwork has no problems. I don't see that as a good sign.

June 19 (Kaz)

June 19

Today was another day like walking on the sun. Now I know why they walk so slow and never say Excuse Me when running into you....the heat takes it out of them.

Yesterday when we were doing yard work at the orphange they brought the 3 or 4 year old kids out to play in the yard. I was digging weeds out of the dirt and had about 6 kids standing about 12 inches from me watching me like I was a freak. One little boy had a bucket and I thought we wanted to dig too, but when I made a move for his bucket to fill it, he got really concerned I was going to take his bucket. After about half an hour outside, they stripped the kids down to their underwwear to play on the new playset, then got out the hose and hosed them down for half an hour. Hmmm, maybe Andrew's life in America won't be too different!

We tried spending some time inside today and Andrew was having fun beating on everyting with the plastic bowling pins. After about 20 minutes of beating in the sweltering hot room, we headed outside for our visit today, which was like being in an outdoor sauna. Andrew lasted about an hour in the heat, then crashed in the stroller again.







This is one of the pictures of one of the 2 play rooms--- we were banished from the other playroom for unknown reasons. The big yellow thing on the right side is the jump-o-lene that Rob liked to shake like an Earthquake with Andrew in it.

For dinner last night Natalie decided to try the shrimp....in a landlocked country, except for the Caspian Sea, I do not suggest the shrimp. They looked dried up and had eye balls. Hmm, are Kazak Shrimps really tiny crawfishes? Where is Bubba Gump when you need him.





And Rob will love this one, if he does not like Andy, then he will love the birth certificate: Endru Taylor. What a phonetic country.

Adn another thing, Rob was gripeing that I was not putting KAZ on the posts anymore, but I don't see many USA posts.

June 18- Freda Gardening Day

June 18

Today is Sunday, and no visit for Andrew. Instead we spent the day at the orphange doing yard work. We have been trying to set it up for a couple weeks now, but they looked at us like we have 3 heads : "You want to travel around the world, pay lots of money and now do yardwork?". In the sprit of my mother, who would have dug in the dirt too, I called in Freda Gardening Day. I can now say I have gardened on 2 continents, but who's counting.

We started off the day by heading to the Tool Bazaar with our Russian speaking driver....we were experimenting life without a translator. We are able to buy 5 pairs of gloves, 2 pruners, 1 big pruner and one weed hacking tool for about $20. We tried to buy a wheel barrel and could only find 1 for about $90. Can you tell they did not really want to sell it to us?

Once we got to the orphanage the 'man' who we were told would be there was no where to be found. I pulled out my handy dandy Russian Translation book and pieced together a sentence that said "Cloakroom man vacant. Need Grass Machine" which meant "the man in the coat room is not there. We need the lawn mower". After an hour of trying my awesome Russian, we gave up and called the translator. After much negotiation we were not given the lawn mower, but instead 2 primitive dirt rakes. We made due with the rakes, shovels, a dirt mover (see picture) and the tools we bought at the bizarre bazaar.

We mainly weeded and moved a lot of dirt. Here's the before and after picture of the new playset they installed our first week here. When the director finally agreed for us to go some yardwork, which we thought meant some lawn mowing and weeding with some branch trimming, her eyes lit up and asked us to move the 'little' sand pile. It was the size of a volkswagon bug, and we did the best we could. Here are the before and after pictures of the main area we worked on. For some reason the director really likes the kids to play in the dirt, and how could I argue? The day after we moved the dirt I took Andrew out to my dirt mounds and let him play for half an hour. It took him a bit to warm up to the idea, and he ate more dirt than planned, but he is catching on. Next up is getting him to move mulch.







Look how energetic we look at the beginning of the day, and then the end of the day. We worked for about 4 hours, in the blazing sun and stopped for 2 breaks: the first for water, bread and the only suitable chocolate chip cookies we could find in the country, and the second time for water melon that we bought from the fruit stand man. Water melon never tasted so good. We only ate half and gave the rest to the orphange staff. Hopefully we scored some brownie points with everyone this day.

June 17 (Kaz)

June 17

Here ends week 7....2 weeks to go!

Andrew is adjusting to his new schedule and was actually awake the whole visit. He got a little fidgeting after playing on the grass for half an hour, so we got up and headed over to the strollers to take a walk around the driveway. When I was about 15 feet from my blanket of toys, I saw that they had let the 3 and 4 year olds out in the playground. About 5 little kids made a beeline for my blanket and were about to make much destruction of my toys. It was like slow motion, I lunged back towards the blanket saying 'n-o-o-o-o-o-o-o' while the Spanish man, Waldo, adopting a little girl, came to my rescue from the other angle , scooped up my toys and blanket in one scoop just milliseconds before the onslaught of 4 year olds. This was not their first attempt at toy scarfing of adoptive parents. They hade a devlish look on their face as the toys were safely stowed in my back pack. Andrew was entertained but unphased. We made it to the stroller and he started to figure ou the little steering wheel on the stroller.....next up is Rob's Lexus.

The other night while I was out to dinner with Baheet, our Russian speaking co-ordinator, she was gushing with comments about the type of parents that Rob and I would be. I think it was the obligatory comments that come with the 'thank you' dinner we had for them. In the middle of eating my Lagmon meal (pasta, soup, noodles and assorted other items of unknown origins) I dripped some down the front of my shirt....a common occurance. Baheet looks over at me, smiled and gestured to my now food stained front porch and says "And that is Erbol's (Andrew's) favorite part of his new mommy". Coming from anyone else I would be annoyed, but I think it was her attempt at humor. Here's a picture of Andrew making use of his new found mommy pillows/front porch.


On the ride home from the the orphanage we were following this car. That will be Rob and I in 40 years....driving around in our Lada with the kitty kat sleeping on the back dashboard. The other night at the restaurnat Baheet was telling us that in Kazakhstan many younger men look for older woman to support them. Then the men can do 3 things: 1) sleep, 2) eat and 3) watch TV. Maybe Rob will re-think his decision to return to the USA and come back to Kazakhstan to live.







We thought there was no nice grass in Kazakhstan. At the orphange they have the worst field of weeds that should be a test case for Scott's Fertilizer. Along the river walk one of the newer apartment buildings has a nice patch of grass. We say their 'lawn mowers' out cutting it the other day. Their lawn mowers are a bunch of 10 year olds that slowly and carefully break off the grass. Andrew will surely miss that activity as he gets older. When I told Andrew this, here was his response. Has anyone seen this look on Rob's face ?

June 16 (Kaz)

June 16

For thos asking for photos as prood that Rob is progressing on the TO DO list, we will have to take his word for it as the only digital camera he has at home is the one we stepped on which does not quite work as well. But if you are concerned about his progress, feel free to stop by and inspect and report back through the comments.

Today we were back to our normal visits of 2 hours. They just changed Andrew's schedule earlier this week and he is on a new nap schedule, but his body is on the old nap schedule. So after 5 minutes of playing, he got cranky and fell asleep on my shoulder. After 45 mintus of holding him I decided to lay down in the grass and take a nap with him. He woke up right on schedule for his OLD schedule and we had another 15 minutes of playing before our time was up. Before crashing he did use the teether a little, which someone said will help with popping ears on the plane. For the sake of the other passengers on the plane, let's home that's true.

On our daily 5 hour walk we passed this restaurant. Althought the food looks tasty I am sure that if we went inside that nothing they served would look like the sign on the outside. So we kept walking and I got porridge the goulash for lunch. I was going to have the beet salad too, but I thought that combo would just put it over the edge with weird combinations.




After all that oatmeal I had to stop along our walk to make a BM Energy deposit. We stopped in at an English pub which has very nice bathrooms, and was right next to the DHL office which had Natalie's plane tickets home. They have a very nice bathroom and a pretty floor. So for anyone out there looking to have the real Kazak Experience bathroom floor, here you go!




While Rob was here we were feeding the birds. There were some birds which we called Black Birds, which were really Black and White birds. Then today I noticed they were also black, white and blue birds. There were 2 birds feeling quite frisky and I was only able to get one picture that was not too blurry. Seems them like to rush the camera too in case I had food for them. Oddly enough, in Kazakhstan they do not call these Black Birds, and they wondered why we did since they are not only black. Crazy Americans.


Towards the end of our day or walking we were walking along the river and I got another shot of the river and the fancy building across the river. It was windy again, as it is most days, and I thought the river looked nice and wavy. The waves did not seem to deter teh dozen rowing people who row laps up and down the river most days. I guess there is not much of a current in the river.





Here is Andrew's "Daddy I miss you and want to slobber all over you" face. Rob may think the hat is kind of girlie, but it's the only one I could find the keep the sun off him. If I don't turn up the front, he thinks it's a game and keep ripping off the hat and tossing it like Mary Tyler Moore,

June 15 (Kaz rebuttal to the USA post)

I just read Rob's June 15 post and felt the need to post a reply.

It seems he is too busy to
a) Tend to the honey Do list
b) Work, since he is posting during the work day

So for anyone out there, feel free to call Rob (610.391.0378) to see if he has tended to the list, specifically

• fertilizing the lawn
• kid proofing the kitchen cabinets
• installing the kid gates
• getting a booster seat
• fixing the crib height
• buying a changing pad
• buying a car seat....and installing it
• relocating gitars to a kid friendly zone
• installing the bathroom door lock for the powder door
• scheduling the house cleaning (alternate item was to clean the hosue which will not happen)
• getting the cat pee out fo the sofa and chair

If you have offered him a free meal or a party invite, feel free to hold back until he provides proof of items on the list being completed.

Rob should know not to diss me from the other side of the World.... I have a network of naggers ready to pounce on him, and HRR to personally inspect.

June 15 (Kaz)

June 15

Today is day 47.....if I were on Survivor the final Four would have been a week ago, but we are still going for another 2 weeks.

Today was a super short visit with Andrew, only 30 minutes because they were preparing for a visit from the Health Dept and did not want me anywhere near the orphanage. We had enough time to cruise around the grounds in the stroller at break neck speeds...strolling at a walking pace is far too boring now. We zig zag, do wheelies and hit all of the bumps and puddles to make it more interesting. Today we also got clearence from the director and the Bun lady (lady who wears her hair in a bun and watches you come and go) to come and do yard work Sunday when we do not have any visits. I could spend a month in the yard here and still have work to do. So a bunch of the families will be cleaning up the yard a bit on Sunday. It wil be interesting to see what 'tools' they provide for us.

On the drive after the visit we drove by this new building. We think it is a restaurant or maybe a nightclub. It has quite ornate elephants in the front of the building so it really stands out from the soviet style building. As an added bonus there was a naked man in one of the windows. And someone thought they saw a naked lady behind him, but I did not zoom in on the picture enough to see that.

After the naked man we went to the Fed Ex office to pick up Andrew's plane ticket which was Fed Ex'ed to Kazakhstan. Fed Ex is not really popular here and the 'office' is in a tiny strip mall, down a hallway, up some rickety stairs, down the end of a dark hallway and behind a door whith a cheap photo copy of the Fed Ex logo. It looked like a shady deal.. Unfortunately they were out to lunch and our co-ordinator called them on her cell to rip them a new one. The package was delivered to her door witin an hour or 2. The co-ordinator, Baheet received the package and wanted to know why we tried to Fed Ex the package to the DHL office. in case you ever try to do this, it's a bad idea that the Russians or Kazaks just don't understand.

After the visit we went walking for a couple hours to a store where I bought a $4 polo shirt for Andrew. It is quite stylish, even for me who has no ability to match clothes.

I took out our co-ordinator and translator for dinner to Ali Baba. We were supposed to do it after court before Rob left, but we never got around to it, so Natalie 'stood' in for Rob. Here's the menus that we ordered from--- they were shiny silk fabric covered. I was tempted to add one to my souvenier pile, but Natalie stopped me before I did something really wrong.

On our walk after dinner we ran across a car that had this on the windshield. As taunting as it was, we chose not to KNOCK HERE for fear that we would be hauled off to a Kazak jail.