So Much to Do, So Little Time!

That sums up our experience in Almaty. Being the largest city in Kazakhstan and the former capital city of Kazakhstan, Almaty is abundant with things to do and see. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in the predicament of deciding what to see and what we are close enough to see by walking since we haven’t really all that much time here. Something that also weighs in on our decision is the direction of the mountains. Since we are on the south side of the city, going is much easier than returning because the city is built on quite a slope, so it’s downhill all the way there, but uphill all the way back. And by uphill we don’t just mean a little bout here or there, it’s a steep uphill the whole way. On one block we walked yesterday we were able to calculate that the grade rose about 6 feet over the course of the block. The shopping mall across from us has a full story difference from one side to the other. That is, when you walk in the side closest to us, you are at street level but if you depart from the other side, you must go down one level to be at street level again. Those of you who spent considerable time here in Almaty must have legs of steel by now!

However, our adventurous spirits did take us on a bit of a walking tour the past two days. The first day we scouted out the locations nearest to us until we got our bearings and yesterday we ventured a little farther. As it turns out, we are about two blocks from the Presidential Residence and the Central Museum (pictured below), which we will set out to see later today.

Yesterday we ventured to Kok-Tobe, which is a beautiful park up the mountain that you access by taking a cable car. From atop Kok-Tobe you can look over the entire city, (well the part that isn’t covered up by smog, anyway). There is a bit of a zoo, some restaurants, a children’s play area along with numerous water features and souvenir stands. It was definitely beautiful and very peaceful there, and we can see why it is a popular destination. Here are a couple of pictures from atop Kok-Tobe. The views of the city appear blurry, but that is actually smog, not a camera malfunction.

Nope, we didn’t get as far as Paris, this is the French Embassy here in Almaty!


On Friday, we ventured south of our apartment to scout out an area that has a lot of new developments. There are a number of skyscrapers being built. We also came across this beautiful building, which isn't on our map, so we aren't exactly certain what it might be. Unfortunately we couldn’t get a great picture of it because it is surrounded by trees and buildings that block the view, but it is definitely beautiful nonetheless. From the side you can get a feel for the steepness of the city.

Max enjoying the playground on one of our last days in Ust.

We’ve Gone Prime Time!

Okay folks, so here’s a crazy story…we’re in Almaty!

Yeah, we know we were supposed to get here eventually, but we originally had our flight booked for tomorrow, not today. So, here’s what happened…

Minutes before noon today we were lounging around waiting for Max to get up from his nap when all of a sudden the phone rang and our coordinator told Rod that she was going to be at our apartment in 5 minutes to pick him up because we needed to fly to Almaty today and we needed to change our tickets. Oh, and could we be packed and ready to leave for the airport in an hour so we can catch our 3pm flight!

No, we’re not kidding.

So picture it, Rod running out the door, somewhat clothed, and Tammy trying to get some lunch into her son that just woke up as she’s doing the mad dash packing race. Picture a hot dog eating contest, but instead of the contestants sitting at a table with a big bib on, they’re rushing around 600 sqft grabbing and smashing stuff into suitcases and duffle bags. AND, one charming and well rested little boy is trying to help by chasing his frantic mother around the apartment and unpacking the suitcases as fast as she can pack them!

Rod arrived just in time to see both of us near complete meltdown and felt that the best solution was to join in the ramming and cramming. Our poor driver, who thought he would come up and grab whichever suitcases were ready, stepped into a complete mad house. The ear to ear grin on his face said it all. We’re really glad he kept the quiet part quiet because one peep out of him may have ended his lovely life.

Now, if you think our day was stressful, just imagine our friend DW who was in the same predicament as us, but didn’t get the call until just after 1pm and in addition to all that we had to do, also had to pick his son up from the baby house (which is on the very opposite end of town as the airport – couldn’t get any farther apart).

So, you’ve heard us talk about adoption being like the movies Groundhog Day and Lost in Translation. Now, as we’ve said, we’ve gone to prime time and we now have The Amazing Race – Baby on Board. These couples on TV have nothing on us. We can do all that, carry a toddler, and somehow change a diaper or two! Oh, and we weren’t packed nearly as light as those lucky contestants.

Oh, and how did Sir Max handle the whole episode? Well, besides a few tears during the packing frenzy, he was amazing. Once we got all our stuff and ourselves crammed into the car, he was totally a trooper. He didn’t fuss whatsoever until the last couple of minutes before we finally got to the apartment here. Now that’s an amazing feat in itself considering the poor guy barely got to eat dinner, was witness to the packing disaster, missed his afternoon nap and didn’t get to eat supper until 7pm (don’t worry, we packed him full of cheerios and biscuits on the plane, so he won’t starve before tomorrow.)

We had planned to post a picture of Max getting ready to leave Ust and take his first plane ride, but for one, we don’t know where we crammed the camera and two, we had to make a choice – take a picture of the plane he would ride on or get on the plane, we didn’t have time for both.
Anyway, so that was our day. How’s things on your side of the world?

Almaty, Here We Come!

As promised, we said we would let you know what we know, which most days doesn’t add up to much, but here’s what we know today:

We will fly to Almaty this Friday afternoon. We still haven’t heard where we are staying, but are confident that there is a place that will be ready for us. We won’t know for certain if Max’s visa will arrive in time for our flight until Monday or Tuesday, so you will all have to continue to be patient along with us. Believe us, we do understand just how hard that is. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Other than that, we’re just riding the days out here. We now realize that if you have forgotten what we look like, we will be the only ones wearing sweaters in August back home. After a month of temperatures in the mid 30’s outside and low 30’s in our apartment, what we consider cool weather has increased considerably. The other morning we were discussing how we maybe shouldn’t have left the windows open and fan on overnight because it was rather chilly in the apartment. We then noticed that the thermometer in our alarm clock sat at 26 degrees! Brrrrrrrr……

As always, Max is doing wonderfully. He continues to be a very happy little boy that we can’t wait for you all to meet. We’ve discovered that he is rather fond of walks in his stroller. This afternoon Rod pulled it out from the balcony for us to walk down for some groceries and Max’s reaction could be likened to Christmas and Birthday all in one. You would have thought we had just presented him with the biggest gift ever! He was laughing, kicking, flapping his arms, screaming, and crawling around like a mad man. I guess he needs his daily outings as much as we do. We are very happy that he is willing to spend some time in his stroller because it will make navigating airports that much easier and we don’t have to worry as much about him when we are fumbling around for passports and paperwork. Of course there is the little glitch of preferring to be in motion, but he’s gotten much better at sitting patiently for a couple of minutes, especially if you sneak him a cookie!

We’ve also completely lost our desire to cook and so we are using our last few days here to visit all of our favourite restaurants one last time. Tonight was a visit to a restaurant that is nicknamed “The Pancake House”. It has another name that we can never spell, but it has excellent food and an English menu. The Beef Carmen is fantastic, as are the Russian borsht and the ham and cheese crepes. Tomorrow we will either head for the restaurant below the Pancake House (take the doorway on the right instead of the left) which is also highly recommended and is a more traditional sit-down restaurant or the Pizza Bluez by the traffic circle. We had originally thought that it would be difficult to take Max to a restaurant for a meal, but he does really well. Maybe it’s all the action and people coming and going, but he doesn’t fuss (touch wood) and eats really well, plus it is much easier to find something for him to eat when he has a bit of variety from both of our plates.

Well, we’ve got a few things we want to get done yet tonight, now that Max is asleep, so we’ll sign off for now and either post an update on Thursday or possibly not until Almaty, if we find somewhere to access the Internet.

Take Care

Here's the Plan, Stan

Yes, Max’s passport did arrive, so as far as we know, everything is still going according to schedule. Tomorrow morning we will go to purchase our tickets to fly to Almaty on either Thursday or Friday afternoon of this week. As it turns out, the coordinators are able to apply for Max’s visa on our behalf (we love these people) and so we will meet up with the remainder of his paperwork in Almaty, on time for us to fly home on the 30th.

This morning we thought it might be a good idea to do a little more packing since we didn’t know exactly how much noticed we’d get about departing for Almaty. We knew it was going to take us a bit to get everything perfectly arranged (crammed in) because we replaced our depleted supplies with new purchases, so we didn’t have as much extra room as we hoped. Plus, our goal was to go down at least by one piece of luggage so we packed pretty much everything and it appears that we will be living out of suitcases for the next few days.

As always, we’ll let you know what we know as soon as we know it.