We are comfortably settled in a temporary house in Astana while we await the completion of the new Residence -- hopefully in a month. The dog LOVES this house -- don't know if it's because there are fewer stairs, or the stairs are carpeted, or what.
We had a pleasant, non-eventful and pretty flat two day drive up here. We stayed overnight in Balkhash on the top of Lake Balkhash (Balqash?) and of course was greeted at check in with the usual SSSR/post Soviet "no hot water" as it's summer and the city team heating pipes get cleaned.
We arrived on a Wednesday, and that weekend had a distinguished visitor which was an honor and a pleasure, and another visitor the next week. We unpacked our food, hung up our clothes, put some books and videos on shelves, set up the computers and am quite comfy. I have enough knitting to keep me busy when I can get to it. We brought our basil plant in the car, and other plants have arrived.
The internet connection has improved some, but is still too slow to download podcasats and Skype isn't always fabulous. We are hoping there will be improvement in the next house.
The "dream team" staff is fabulous and getting organized with an internet address, a copy machine and all of that so we can do the accounting. Setting up is always expensive, and I felt like a squirrel in winter when we were able to stash 3 cases of diet coke "Coke Light" in the basement. It's just not always availabe here. We had a small "Back to School" event with American and local kids, and our staff brought their kids -- two of the girls did a couple of dance numbers for us. The dog thought she was in heaven -- kids running around with chips and cupcakes at her level!
I found Turkish peaches at the Ramstor and was very pleased -- they have been delicious and just about as good as California peaches in the summer. The Turkish Ambassador told us yesterday that the Ramstor is trying to bring up more Turkish produce, which will be good for us!! No broccoli ever here, it seems, although in Almaty I think we pretty much had broccoli almost every night. Too bad.
This will be great if the internet will hold to post this ... hopefully the connection will improve tomorrow and I can get some pictures up. Happy September 2!
