Last Full Day in Karaganda

Here we are with Nastia at dinner.

Saturday, June 24th

We decided today was a good day to spend with our friends from Michigan since we will be leaving Karaganda on Sunday evening for an overnight train to Almaty, the former Kazakhstan capital, to do our final paperwork, medicals for the kids and our US Embassy interview. Then we are outta here baby…

We had a nice lunch provided by Nastia, one of the cooks upstairs, of chicken soup with egg noodles and salad and meat. She also made a fresh compote of boiled fruit and water. It is very good. While we were eating Brett wanted to say something to Marat but Murat was talking to Sasha so he held up his finger and said, “One minute.” We all cracked up because we have talked to them about interrupting us, while talking, many times. After he finished talking he put his hand down and said, ”Yes, Papa?” The look on Brett’s face was priceless! We had a good laugh at his expense. At least we know they are listening.

Marina came in to see us and told us she had bad news that we will not be able to make our Friday flight home but will have to change to Saturday since the flights leave at 3am. Pleas pray for favor that we can find flights with it being a holiday weekend and that we make good connections. Sasha and Garrett and I were very bummed. We decided to not stay bummed but enjoy our day with good friends. We know God will make a way where there is no way.

After lunch we headed out to the now world famous Aqua Park. Brett and Karen and Marat have not been to this Aqua Park yet and today was their chance to enjoy the ever changing water. We hooked up with our Nastya and headed out for one last swim in Karaganda, Kaz. The kids all enjoyed swimming as usual and Garrett and I and Brett and Karen and even Nastya sat on a bench and watched the fun this time. We talked “adult talk” and watched the kids slide and swim and leap off the diving platform. Of course their favorite thing to do is the “Mama, Papa watch this!” game. You can always pick out Sasha in a crowd when he speaks. His voice is very distinct especially when he yells, “Marat!” with the rolling “r’s! The pool was fairly crowded so it makes it more of a challenge to keep our eyes on them at all times.

The slides block a lot of our view and the lighting in not real good. One time Marat and Sasha decided to go to the top of the big slide which is about two circles around before hitting the water. We could see them from our point of view. Sasha went in first followed quickly by Marat, a definite no-no. All the sudden I saw the top of Marat’s head pop up five feet into the tube. He had decided not to go and was coming back to the top. The guard was blowing his whistle and yelling something but Marat kept on coming till he was back at the top with his water wings on. He jumped out and like a bullet took off back down stairs to try to get back in the water before Sasha hit water at the end of the tube. I know what you are thinking…there is no way a kids could climb two flights of stairs and get back down before he came down a water tube. But this tube could also be called the “slow thriller”. The kids do not lay back like the rapid propulsion people do so they go real slow down to the tube until they get to the bottom and you see feet and then they hop into the water.

When it was time to go we gave the kids the usual 5 minute warning. After showering and calling a taxi we headed to the Asia store to get some souvenirs. We spent about an hour and a half in this small store, much to Brett’s dismay, but it is loaded with authentic Kaz items of all sorts. We got a few things for the kids and ourselves and gifts for our families.

After leaving the store….we realized our hunger meters were redlining and we needed some real Kaz cuisine…only one thing could possibly satisfy our ravenous-itis…Shis-ka-bob! Fortunately our ka-bob place was just down the street so we headed out via taxi of course. The place was much more crowded this time and we wondered if there would be a wait. It was Saturday night you know! But they seated us right away in our “usual” table. Ok, we’ve been there twice to this huge restaurant and they put us in the exact same seat. Garrett and I dined on some borsh soup and we all had some greek salad and chicken ka-bobs. Garrett and Brett walked on the wild side and had some sort of Kazak beef dish. All the food was excellent and we got to listen to a well known Kaz singer who serenaded the whole place. He was really good. He had shoulder length slicked back hair and was wearing a white suit. He walked around the whole place with his wireless microphone. I kept waiting for the Mariachi band to pop out but they never came. There were several parties going on at the same time, mostly graduation parties from Kazakhstan Universities. There was lots of dancing and celebrating. Finally a good thing had to come to an end and our tummies were full and it was 8:30 so we headed for home. We got two taxis after a bit of an ordeal locating a second one. The first taxi driver walked out in the street and flagged down this guy. His car did not look like a taxi but hey we had Nastia so if she was ok with it so were we. Garrett volunteered to take the kids with the first guy which left Brett, Karen, Nastia and me for the other taxi. We discussed the fact that we could go somewhere else and let Garrett take care of the kids but thought better of it. We did have a good time laughing and sharing “stories” (that’s for you Brett) on the way home. It was a great night!

We went back to the apartment and said a very reluctant good-bye to Nastya for the last time. There were a few tears and a promise to stay in touch. We are trying to get her to visit the U.S. and we will take good care of her during her stay. We swung by Brett and Karen’s on our way up to borrow a movie and then headed upstairs where we started the nasty deed of packing. Ok, I packed and the kids watched the movie. I think we turned in about midnight to close out our last full day in Karaganda with some much needed sleep. I decided to run a couple of loads of clothes but just ran one because it takes three hours for one load but praise God for a washing machine! God is so good to us.

We head out tomorrow evening at 9:50pm for our train adventure. Garrett has never even been on a train so we are all looking forward to it. It is a Spanish Train that will travel overnight while we sleep and we arrive in Almaty at 8:05 am. We hate to go but it will be nice to have a change of scenery. So until tomorrow, “Good Morning, America!”