Friday, April 27, 2007

Bonding Day #10

Today we woke up to a cold rainy morning. We had been having some very nice weather until today. Yesterday it got up to 87. Sergei #2 picked us up this morning. He drives a very nice Audi and we both wonder if it is a car or an airplane. Now this city has some streets that are marked as 2 lanes or 3 lanes but today we took a street that was not marked. If there are no marked lanes, the drivers fit as many cars across as possible. We could easily reach out our window and touch the cars next to us. As we were on our way Sergei must have thought that we were late or something because we got to a stretch were there weren’t any cars and a good distance to the next light and it felt as if he was flying about 4 feet off the ground. I have ridden in a car that has gone over 100 and you can always recognize how different the air sounds at that speed. Well I am sure that we cracked the 100 mark. Not that this bothers me very much because he is a very good driver. But, when the streets are wet and the old ladies are trying to cross the street have to run to get out of his way, he’s going a bit fast. He never had to honk but everyone must know this car. Anytime we got close to anyone they either ran across the street with their life flashing before their eyes or they backed a good 6 feet away from the street. Maybe Sergei is part of the Russian mob or something. I was kidding with Amy after we got out that if we ever got ourselves into a Memphis mob that I would have to hire him as our driver. Amy said she felt like the little girl from the movie “Pacifier” when she jumps out of the van, falling to the ground screaming “LAND.”

The Burnetts were with him the day before and they told us that a black Mercedes pulled next to him and the driver lowered the window and pointed for him to get over. Instead of getting over he decided to run. They said the guy in the Mercedes started chasing him and honking his horn. Finally he pulled over and this very large man got out of the black car wearing a dark suit and square framed sunglasses. His jaw was shaped like a rock. He shook Sergei’s hand very firmly and they maybe had 4-5 sentences between them. After that he got in the car and took off. They just speculated that the guy was undercover or the mob. They were just glad he got back in the car and took them home.

Well Az was doing great again today. We had another good visit with him. We think that he has incorporated us into part of his daily routine and if we are late, like the day before, or something else he starts getting upset. This really makes us feel good. We have some new pictures that we will post with this blog. He was very curious during our visit. He likes to investigate everything. There is a small bike with training wheels and a motorized motorcycle that he is enamored with. He inspects every detail, but does not like to ride them.

The rest of the day went pretty quickly. We had made plans to go to dinner with the Burnetts. So we met them at 6:00 and went over to the Irish Pub. Just imagine Dan McGuiness in the middle of Pavlodar. The food was wonderful. It was only the second time Amy and I had eaten out. She had a really good grilled chicken w/ buttered potatoes and I had steak and potatoes with a cream sauce drizzled on top. We also shared a greek salad and the beer went down really well. We also shared desert which was pancakes and jam. These are not the regular flapjacks at IHOP or anything like that. These are crepes that are about 9 inches around and then folded. It was delicious!!!!

We were able to have some really good adult, English Speaking conversations. We finished the evening with Tom Cruise in “The Last Samauri”.

Tomorrow we will go see Az and then to the store for more food and stuff.

Paka
Love, Dave and Amy