Sorry for the delay in the post but it took us a while to get set up with internet. I’ll get into that later.
We have arrived safe and sound in Taraz. We are staying at the Hotel Zhambul just blocks away from the center of town. Our coordinator, Janette, uses this hotel frequently for her PAPs (prospective adoptive parents) so they give her a discount. With the current exchange rate it works out to about $67/day. We have a bedroom with an adjoining shower, a living room, a dining room, a separate water closet and a small room with a fridge. They showed us 3 different rooms and let us pick which one we wanted. Don’t get that back home. The hotel has a small restaurant (English menu) and bar in the lobby. Here are some pictures of our accommodations:
Living room
Dining Room
Bedroom
View from room
I will now pick up where we left off on the last post….the Frankfurt airport is not the most exciting place to have a long layover. There really isn’t much to do and first thing in the morning it is very busy so you have to search for a place to sit down. After walking pretty much the entire B terminal we found a place to camp out for the duration until our flight. There was no bathroom beyond the security check to our gate so we decided to wait in a different area until boarding. The airport has places to get some food, your obligatory newsstand/snack food store and duty free shopping but that is pretty much it.
I hate to disappoint but we made it through the last security checkpoint without having anything confiscated this time. While waiting for the buses that would take us to our plane for boarding we discovered that one of the passengers on our flight from Dulles was also on our flight to Almaty. She recognized us from the first flight and came over and sat down and started talking to us in Russian. I very quickly responded, “English”. She spoke very good English. It ends up she has been living in Chattanooga, TN for the last 7 years. She grew up in Almaty and was headed home to visit her son who still lives here. We had a nice chat with our new friend, Arina. She told us all about Kaz and Almaty and filled us in some on Taraz. She was very excited and happy for us and our plans to adopt a child from Kaz. Now you might ask, “how does a woman from Almaty end up living in TN?” She met her American husband at a Baptist Church in Almaty. He was here serving as a missionary. I like to think of Arina as God’s way of putting us at ease with the next stop on our journey. She was quite helpful and very friendly.
Both of us managed to sleep some on the 2nd flight. We arrived in Almaty at 12:15am as scheduled. We essentially just followed the crowd to the customs area. We filled out the very small immigration registration form (for those of you coming behind us, each person needs a separate form) which had instructions in Russian and English and waited in the passport clearance line. We processed through very quickly with out problems. Next up was baggage claims. All of our bags arrived with out incident. We then headed out of the baggage area to what I though was going to be customs. Too my surprise we didn’t go through any additional customs check or fill out any additional declaration forms. We went through what looked almost like a welcoming committee lined up on either side of the door way. They were all Taxi drivers asking if you needed a ride. We just kept saying nyet and kept walking. We were told that our driver and the person delivering our Kaz cell phone would be waiting with a sign saying Robey. I looked over the crowd and sure enough they were both there. We collected the phone and then met our driver, Ernur, He was there with a translator. Now it was time to begin the big car ride. We dropped our translator off at his apartment. Conveniently there was a money exchange facility on the bottom floor of his apartment. He helped Wayne exchange a small amount of money so we would have it to purchase food and beverages on the way and when we first get to Taraz. He also gave us each a piece of paper with key words/phrases so we would be able to communicate with Ernur on the drive. Wayne sat up front and I sat in the back of Ernur’s Toyota Camary. We barely got all our luggage in the car and we didn’t have that much as far as I was concerned.
The first order of business on the way out of town was to find a toilet since it was estimated to be a 6-8 hour drive. Now, remember, it is now around 1:30am. Ernur was on a mission, he made several stops and finally found a station with a bathroom. Like some US stations on along the highway it was outside the main building. Unlike in the US it was down an unlit set of steps in what I would call a concrete outhouse with no doors, complete with 2 holes in the ground. Quite interesting when you don’t have a flashlight and it is pitch dark outside. At least I was prepared with Kleenex. I had been forewarned that the public restrooms don’t usually have toilet paper. Once back in the car I settled in with the pillows and blanket in the backseat, put on my ipod and tried to sleep. That worked out quite well for the first couple of hours. Then we left the well kept highway and played a game of dodge the craters in the road until we got to Taraz. It is kind of hard to sleep when you are being jostled around and the car is swerving back and forth across the road attempting to avoid the crater sized potholes and the oncoming traffic at the same time. I personally don’t know how Ernur did it with out getting a flat tire or hitting something. Once the sun came up I actually got to see some of the scenery. It reminded me a great deal of driving through the open highway in Texas in some areas. Flat, open and not much else except for a beautiful, snow capped mountain range to our south in the distance. Every so often we would come across a few houses or “blink and you’ll miss them” towns. As we approached the outskirts of Taraz it was mostly farms. All of the livestock is free range. We had to stop several times because a herd of sheep, goats, cattle or horses were crossing the road. Some were alone and some were being herded by people along the side of the road. It was a lot easier to make long road trips like this when I was back in college. I think I’m getting a little old for them at this point in time. Well, that is my take on our car ride. Wayne was sitting up front and was awake for the trip so I will let him describe it from the front seat view.
The view from the front seat was at some points pure terror. While it was mainly rainy, when we went into the mountains, it began to snow and was very foggy. As we were driving all of the sudden our front windshield would fill up with the back of a truck. They all have tail lights, I guess they just don’t go to the trouble of making them work. There was no sleep for me, as I spent my time in silent prayer and occasionally looking back at Lynda and wondering why I married her.
We arrived in Taraz a little before 9am and were greeted by Janette (our coordinator and doer of all paperwork and business end of things), Zema (our translator and life line) and several other people who helped with our bags. Once we decided on which room to stay in we handed off our paperwork to Janette and then had breakfast in the hotel. We arranged to meet Zema at noon so she could give us a tour around town and help us get a few items to tide us over. There is a lovely little grocery (convenience-think 7-11 but less expensive) store directly across the street from our hotel. (Editorial comment by Wayne, I found Diet Pepsi!!!) She pointed out landmarks, places to eat, pharmacy, and the different stores all within walking distance. There is also a park across the street. We bought some bottled water and some I-cards for the computer. Zema dropped us back off at the hotel and informed us that she and Janetta would pick us up at 9:45 tomorrow morning to go to the baby house for the big meet and greet. We both had nice hot showers (which felt great after all that traveling) and something to eat. Feeling a little tired but otherwise, ok. So I thought, alright, now that I have the internet cards I’m ready to set up our internet connection in our room….WRONG!!! I brought directions that a previous PAP had listed on the Taraz message board. I followed his instruction for setting up dial up service and everything was going great until it came time to dial-up. It appears that the type of dial tone on our phone is not recognized by the computer and it keeps telling me it can’t locate a dial tone. So it doesn’t look like we will be able to use the internet in our room. We will see if the hotel has internet service in a business center or try and find an Internet Café to use. Obviously, if you are reading this we were able to work something out. We figured we would call home using the Kaz cell phone to at least let family know we arrived safely, however, I didn’t bother to write down the US country code before leaving so we couldn’t call home either. It’s $3/minute to use the cell for calling out of country but only 12-18 cents/min in country. Incoming calls are free.
It is around 10pm here, I fell asleep around 3pm after getting frustrated with the computer and woke up around 9pm. I couldn’t get back to sleep right away so I figured I would write up the days blog post in word and paste it in once we get on-line. We purchased 36 hrs worth of internet time for around $15US. We will probably continue to save the posts in word and copy to the blog in order to conserve our internet minutes. Well, I guess I am off to bed to try and get some more rest for the big day and get myself on Kaz time.
Spakoyni nochee (good night),
Lynda & Wayne
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