Tuesday, May 29, 2007

9 Days and counting

Yeah!!! We finally made it in to single digit waiting days. Not too much longer!!!!!
We woke up today wondering what we would do since we were not able see Az. After laying around for most of the morning, we decided to take a walk to the ferris wheel park and take a few pictures. We felt like animals on display at the zoo. Everyone found it very interesting to stare at us. Many of the people here stare at you and give you a double take if you smile when passing. It’s been difficult to get used to since we smile at people back home. After our hour on display, we walked back home stopping at Au Map (pronounced like I Mar) to pick up a few things. The grocery store seems to be one of our favorite places to go these days. They did not have everything we wanted so on the final leg home Amy walked to the corner store while I came on up to the apartment. The phone was ringing as soon as I walked in the door. It was Tanya wondering where we had been. She invited us to go on a river cruise on the Irtysh River with her, Svetlana, and Svetlana’s son Danu. We couldn’t wait. Sergei picked us up around 4:30 and he needed to exchange some USD to Tenge so we stopped at a nearby bank. It took him about 20 minutes to do this, which made us late picking up Svetlana. We raced to the boat dock hoping there was still time. Unfortunately, we arrived about 30 seconds too late (the boat left at 5 pm). Even Svetlana could not get the lady to hold the boat for us. Since we missed the boat we decided to eat at one of the small cafes at the river. I had pork shish kabobs and Amy had chicken shish kabobs. They were ok but nothing like Memphis shish kabobs. We had a good time talking with Svetlana and Tanya during dinner. Hopefully we can catch the river cruise another day. After dinner we went home and ended the day with movies and 24 episodes.

We are looking forward to seeing Az tomorrow and talking to all of you soon.

Paka,
Love David and Amy