Bowling and a Mighty Fine Dinner

Wednesday, June 21

We arose a little later on our last Wednesday in Karaganda and had some breakfast and the other usual routine here. We had a quiet morning of Gameboy and me trying to catch up on the blog. The internet is so slow here. It can take 5-10 minutes to upload a picture. But the public has spoken and said pictures are worth a thousand words which makes my efforts seem kinda small but we do our best to keep you hungry for more. Today is no exception!

After lunch of course, you wouldn’t want Garrett to go without missing a meal, we met 3 other families for Bowling at the Boomer Bowling Alley. It had pictures of BMW’s everywhere thus the name Boomer but at home we call them Beemers…go figure. I guess it is one of those translation things. It was a small and very nice bowling alley. There are two in Karaganda and now we have seen both. It had only 10 lanes and instead of concessions you have a menu that you order from and they bring it from the bar upstairs. John and Robin and their family took lane 1. Robert and Pam took lane 2 and we took lanes 3 and 4. Sasha, Stella and Marat took lane 3 and they have those nice bumpers to prevent gutter balls. I wish we had them too! All the kids had fun with them. It is cute to watch a ball going down the long and winding path to the pins with only gravity making them meet. Then when 2 succumb to the ball there are screams of delight and much jumping and clapping.

Natalia came along with us which was a good thing because no one else was there to help us work out the details of shoes, lanes, balls, food etc. so all families used her and she handled it all so well! She said she loves her job of translating for Marina and working with families. She graduates from college on Friday and plans to continue working for Marina. She got a discount card so that next time we can bowl and have food at a discount. She was very attentive to our needs and noticed on the first game that Sasha made a perfect 100 for his score so she raced to the counter to get his prize a beer or juice. We chose juice of course and he was very proud of himself. If you get three strikes you get a beer or a hamburger! Brett got three and they insisted he take his beer to go when we were leaving. They handed him his nice frosty Karaganda beer as went out he door. We are definitely not in America! We all bowled fairly mediocre except for Garrett and our local Bowling Turkey Brett…he says we can call him Mr. Brett. Garrett actually made a Turkey but it was 2 of his own and one shot for me while I was talking to Stella after she pummeled her brother and needed a mama, shall we say “conference”. I made a few lame excuses about not having my own ball after double gutter balls. Then when I said I was not going to do that any more Brett said, “You are a woman of your word.” just after I took out a single pin. I think that takes talent to show that kind of restraint!
The kids had a good time and made good scores thanks to the bumpers. I am a little jealous. We videoed the three kids and studied their techniques. They love to stand on the carpet with the ball by their side. Then on tip toes run as best they can with a 5 pound ball hanging off their arm and just before they get to the lane slow down and shrug their shoulder for the release followed by the big thud as it hits the floor. I think we can go pro
After a few games of bowling we said goodbye to John and Robin and Robert and Pam along with their families as they headed for home.

We headed to the Zoom along with Brett and Karen to pick up a few more gifts for our visit to camp Friday. We were there for about an hour and then off to the much awaited event for our son Sasha. Shish-ka-bob or sha-slick as they call it! He has been talking about this for weeks and Natalia knew a place that was wonderful. It was the nicest restaurants we have seen so far. It had a pond and a bridge inside with a pretty atrium. We sat down and Natalia ordered us a greek salad and chicken Shish-ka-bob along with some fries of course. It came in tee pee type fashion with flames coming up from the center. Very nice presentation and mighty tasty! The table was silent as we munched away and Natalia said, “Is it good, do you like it?” She made a comment about how quiet we all were since the food arrived. The interesting thing to me is there are no desserts on the menu. It is not really a Russian thing to have dessert here. Also even though we were having fine dining Brett and Karen ordered a “pop” as they call it up North. They asked what we natives call a pop in Atlanta and we just looked at them in disbelief and said, “Coke!”

We had a few pictures made and looked at the snake they had in captivity. Very cool, I might add. Then we split up in two taxis for the ride home and the race was on! Okay, our driver was old and not interested in racing but the other car had a young driver for Karen and the kids. From what she said he was a wild man and almost took out old women and children along with several cars. We often pray protection over all of us and God is faithful to watch over us and keep us safe.

We once again got to hang out with the Michigan (not Detroit) Gang, aka. Brett, Karen and Marat for some good times. The kids were a good 30 minutes into Gameboy when Karen pulled out the big guns…BLOWPENS! Well you cannot pull out arts andcrafts without my two getting involved so in no time they were creating all kinds of original works of art. It was all remarkable and sheer genius. Sasha asked me if we could get some too. “Of course”, I said. He was very excited. We had seen them before but Garrett was concerned they would be too messy. There is not as much blow as you think there would be. They are quite fun actually. We headed upstairs after a while and decided baths would be better for the morning and after a little…you guessed it…gameboy we headed off to bed. Good Night! See you tomorrow…