This has certainly been an adventure. We seem to have had all kinds of airline problems. In Memphis on Saturday night we get to the gate and are told they don’t have tickets for me. First we had the fiasco with them not having Jon’s reservation right. I thankfully held on to my printed off check in that I did on Friday night at almost midnight. We are allowed to go get on the plane. It was packed going to Amsterdam. We then flew all night on a packed airplane. I slept less than an hour, Jon maybe slept 2. We arrive in Amsterdam and enjoyed the day. We had no problems at the Amsterdam airport and enjoyed the day in Amsterdam.
We got on the plane in Amsterdam headed to Almaty and the plane was only about 1/3 full. I moved to the bulk head seat after we took off and had plenty of leg room. I watched a movie and tried to sleep some. There were a lot of Kazak people on the plane. The flight attendants spoke Russian, maybe Dutch and English. Jon stayed in his seat in the back of the first section of the plane and I moved to the front row of the economy section. The first class and business class sections are very nice. The business class section was completely empty.
We got off the plane in Almaty and went and filled out a migration form. Then we waited in line for about 20 minutes to have someone stamp our passport. It was a Kazak woman, maybe 30 and she had no patience with us and never smiled or anything. We have to keep up with the migration form the entire time we are here and will have to turn it back in when we leave. We then went and collected our bags. The Almaty airport was nice and seemed pretty modern. Right through the doors waiting for us was Oleg. He is such a nice man. He helped us with our baggage and we found a spot to sit in the café for a couple of hours. We arrived a little bit early, so we got in the airport at about 5:00 a.m., it was still dark.
Jon, Oleg and I sat in the café and drank coffee and visited until 8AM. Oleg had bought our tickets already for us. Oleg took me in the airport to change money and to buy a phone card. I know that 122 tenge is equal to $1. This makes things really difficult to figure without a calculator. Oleg and I had coffee and water. Jon tried juice and ordered several different things to try. Our bill after all this was 4000 tenge. It came to about $30.00. Oleg said the airport is very expensive in Almaty. Oleg had our tickets purchased for us and everything done. We checked in and went to the ticket counter. At the ticket counter the woman took all our luggage and printed some things out for us. She told us to go back up front where Oleg was and pay overage fees. I paid $120.00 in overage fees at the airport for our big bags. I then went back and sat down to wait on the plane. About 30 minutes later they called boarding. We went through security and gave them our tickets. What I didn’t know was that after paying the overages we had to go back to the ticket counter and get our boarding passes. She didn’t tell us and I didn’t bother looking at the tickets, because they were in Russian anyway. We hurriedly got our boarding passes and went back through security. We did not get to sit together and both had middle seats. I sat next to a young Kazak man who was very nice. We struck up a conversation and I practiced my Russian and he practiced his English. We watched some videos together on the flight. The flight was only about 1 ½ hours to get to Astana. I will look forward to going back to Almaty on our second trip. Walking out to our plane you could see the beautiful mountains. I didn’t have a chance to take any pictures, but know I can when we come back. The mountains were just breath taking, all covered in snow.
We arrived in Astana around 11:00 AM and waited for our next flight. People stare at us when we walk around. I think it is so obvious that we are not from around here. The Astana airport was very nice and modern, but empty. There were almost no people there. There was one little café down stairs that sold pastries and soft drinks and of course a bar. We didn’t realize at the time, but upstairs after we went through security to go to our gate there was another little bar. This is where I saw the computers and was able to log on wirelessly in the airport.
A class of school children, all ages were there the same time we were. The woman that was leading them had blond hair and looked so familiar to me. She looked like a school teacher or official that I had seen on some of the pictures. When walked down some stairs and caught a bus out to our plane. It was cold and there was old dirty snow all over the place. We were all standing on the bus, no seats, just bars to hold on. Several of the children were staring at us and talking about us. Finally the lady pointed at one girl and said she knows some English, talking to me. I turned and started talking to the girl. She knew very little English, but seemed to understand a little of what I said. She wanted to know where we were from and what we were doing there. I told her and she just smiled. We all got on a crop duster looking plane. Jon and I ended up in the second row, not our seats, but I’m not sure anyone cared. The plane ride was cold, loud and lasted just over an hour and a half. Jon slept a lot and I slept for a few minutes. I was really tired.
Flying into Petro I could see just miles and miles of frozen tundra. I saw frozen rivers. Everything was white. There were very few houses out away from town. We landed in Petro and walked from the plane to the airport. It was very cold. It was shocking to say the least walking into this airport. It was like something that time had forgotten. Very, very old and not well maintained. Some parts had dirt floors if I remember correctly. We stepped through the doorway and there was Maria and Sasha waiting for us. I recognized her immediately from her pictures. She is a very pretty girl, maybe 25. We finally got all our luggage into Sasha’s little car. It was packed. Our big purple bag had to ride in the front seat and Jon, Maria and I rode in the back.
We came into the town and I was just amazed. Everything is just so dirty and run down looking. There is mud and piles of old snow. There is trash laying around and the buildings are simply depressing. We really do have things good in America. We went to the apartment which was quite scary looking from the outside, but things got better after we went in. You stepped over a thresehold onto a dirty floor. There is a really bad smell there, sort of like sewer. We went up a couple of steps and our apartment was to the left. There was a man there with the key and he opened it for us. Maria introduced him as the manager of all the apartments, he was very young, maybe 25. The apartment on the inside is much nicer than you would think. They obviously use it for Americans. We have a small kitchen with a table, a den, bathroom with a corner shower stall, with a small washing machine.
We leave all our luggage and go to the grocery store. Maria goes in with us and we buy a few things. Then we go back to our apartment and take showers and hurry to go to the Ministry of Education. We are ready in about 45 minutes and Maria and Sasha come back and get us. After the grocery store we had an hour to shower and dress and then went to the Ministry of Education. We were picked up at 4:30 and went to meet with the head of the Ministry. She was a Kazak woman and had little to say to us. But she asked us a few questions and then signed everything. She commented to Maria that we seemed very nice. I spoke some Russian to her and she seemed to like that. After we walked out Jon said I was scaring him talking Russian to people.
We went back to the apartment after this and crashed. I was asleep by 8PM and slept until 6:45 this morning. Jon slept longer than that.
I hated we couldn't go to the orphanage that day, but someome from the ministry had to go with us and set everything up with the director.
I'll add more for Tuesday.
Kathy
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