Almaty

I have not really taken photographs since I am in Almaty. I do not seem to be as interested in this city as I was in my little village of Arkalyk. By the way…….I hope I was clear that I have been on dial up speed and once I am back home and able to get high speed again I will be able to post some truly interesting higher resolution photos of the landscape as I saw it. Too difficult now with dial up.

I have also been without Internet completely for 6 days, boo hoo. I walk around with Veronika during the day without a cell phone, not speaking the language or able to read even a street sign and not connected by Internet, what a contrast and disconnect to life as I know it. I now know what Tom meant when he told me he felt like he was on one of those Zen silent retreats where there is no one to speak to in English for hours on end.

Tom is working out of Grata Law Firm’s high rise office, relatively connected and meeting people daily that are educated and speak some English so he has made some in-roads at understanding the city and culture.

Thankfully I have our driver Alexandr, again not a word of language understood by either of us yet we figure out how to get Veronika and I to and fro as needed. Being in a completely foreign place is amazing and exhausting all at the same time. V and I met Tom at his office last night for a cocktail party, they were celebrating the next day’s Republic Day Holiday. We got to meet all of his co-workers and hear some toasts, in Russian of course, and laugh along like we understood. The “toast” is ever-present in Kazakhstan, whether it’s an intimate family dinner or office party, and Tom thinks that there is a premium placed on the length of the toast as a sign of respect for the person being toasted, where we often respect bang-for-the buck in a short but well-spoken phrase or two.

Later that evening, Tom wanted to treat me to a nice evening and take us for a sushi dinner. He had been to this particular restaurant last week and thought I would enjoy. Sushi is one of my favorite meals, so I agreed. It wasn’t the most relaxing of meals, but all in all enjoyable. Keep in mind we had a 2year old sitting and waiting for food much longer then anticipated and maybe more restless then we were accustomed to, but she handled herself pretty well despite the late hour and new environment.

I was blown away with the fact that we were ordering sushi for ourselves and trying to get something for Veronika like a rice with cooked chicken and vegetable sort of meal when the server brings over a menu to tell us in Russian – “children’s menu.” What were the two options, you might ask? We had no idea how universal the children’s menu concept is, the options were, not surprisingly, chicken fingers with fries or spaghetti. How amazing, because there is no reference to anything American here in this country, there are almost no fast food chains, yet they serve children the two most American meals available on the children’s menu in any restaurant USA. Talk about a lack of context.

There we were eating Veronika’s fries with ketchup with our chopsticks while we waited on our sushi – it was Veronika’s first chicken fingers and fries – not bad once she figured out what they were. The sushi, which nearly resembled what we thought we’d ordered, wasn’t bad and might just hold us over until we get home.