The Twain...The Twain!!

Monday, June 26th

Here we are in Almaty. We made it! It is a beautiful city and very clean. It feels like any other European city. It has beautiful snow-capped mountains off in the distance. We look forward to visiting some of the sites here.

We left the train station in Karaganda around 9:50pm. It arrives 15 minutes before departure and there is much anticipation when getting on. Marina was there with us the whole time and we were hanging back a bit getting out our Passports when Marina said, “Garrett, hurry!” We did and had no time really to say goodbye to Marina, just a quick hug and a kiss from me. I was a little emotional. I brought up the rear on the train and got on just in time to see Garrett wrestling with one of our suitcases through the narrow corridor. Garrett won, because he is so muscley. Marina said we would be fine if we did not have too much luggage. I think we were borderline. The little cabins have a sink straight ahead under the window and two seats on each side. We were riding the famous “Spanish Train” that we have heard so much about. The other train option is apparently not a very good experience. There is a common bathroom to each train car much like an airplane. Nothing real exciting but Marina told us, “you will survive.” We were not real sure what that meant but she was right! As soon as we got in our room we looked out the window and Marina was standing there like a mother hen making sure everything was ok. I think she would board the train and straighten out a few people if reason arose. Stella went over to the window and waved while Marina blew kisses to her and continued until we left a few minutes later. She walked along the train for a few seconds and blew kisses to us all. Stella said over and over, “Goodbye Karaganda!”

The seats collapse and four beds drop down. We paid the attendant an extra 600 tenge for something…we are not real sure what for, maybe to lower the beds. They used a key to unlock them. We went ahead and dropped them down since it was after 10:00 and we did not know when she would come back. The kids immediately crawled up on the top bunks, which was ok with us and according to our plan. I pulled their genuine Karaganda blankets we bought at the Green Bazaar and they stripped down and we turned out the lights and stared out the window watching the sun finally go down. Sasha told me before we got on the train that he would not be sleeping but would play gameboy all night long. I said yeah, right. They did play for a while but it was not too long before the lull of the rocking train drew us all into a mediocre sleep. Sometimes the rails were loud and sometimes quiet. We stopped twice, we are sure of that. At 3ish I got up and went to the little girls room which is also the little boys room. I decided to close the curtains since the sun would be rising in another hour or so and I knew we would sleep better but...at first light Sasha threw open the curtains so we could see the sunrise. Yeah… I decided to see it on video later as Garrett was recording. I was nursing a head wound after all and had a band-aid to prove it after all!!! Me’s was still big hurt!

I thought I would not fall asleep with all the blinding light in our cabin but amazingly enough I woke at 7:15am. Garrett was up too but the kids were sacked out. At about 7:30 there was a knock at the door from the train attendant and she basically said, “Get up you lazy Americans…we will be in the train station soon and we want your butts off this train!” (loose translation) It worked too because the kids hopped to it. In 15 minutes we were dressed, had teeth brushed, put up our beds and had our luggage ready to go. We were not going to be left behind! We pulled in at exactly 8:05am feeling as fresh as we looked. We pushed the kids off first sacrificing ourselves for their sake. Praise God Lola was there to get them while we wrestled the mighty suitcases out of the train unassisted of course. Marina told us sternly not to accept anyone’s help there because the bill would rise with every step they took. I was relieved Lola had a driver to help with one of the suitcases and in no time we were at the car. Lola looked at us and then the car and asked if we needed another car. We laughed after all our escapades with many more people in a much smaller Mr. Bean style car. We won’t know what to do when we get to America where the amount of people in a car is limited by the number of seatbelts! We could be candidates for the circus I think!

She brought us to our very nice apartment with a/c in the master bedroom!!! Woo-hoo, happy times!!! We are very thankful for such nice accommodations. We went immediately with her to a grocery store but they were not open yet so we ate at a café outside on croissants and 7 up…yummy. When the grocery finally opened we were there to secure what we might be needing. We are on our own now, like everyone else having to cook or prepare food three times a day!!! How barbaric! I do not think we can live under these conditions! It is hard to come up with meals in a foreign grocery but we did the best we could and lugged home what we thought we could carry.

We were all pretty tired and I was not feeling well. Remember the mirror to the head incident…so I took a nap and the family sacrificed and gave me the a/c room and closed the door making the apartment get quite warm. About 3 hours later I woke up and the kids were HOT! The apartment has a very nice shower with a rain shower head and massaging jets and a small bath area, just big enough for a kid so they filled it up with cold water and took turns dunking their heads in the ice cold water. Then they had to put on their bathing suits and try to put their bodies underwater. Needless to say they were “BIG cold” soon enough. Garrett went out and got us all “King Burgers.” They looked a lot like Burger King but without the lingering flame broil taste. He wisely chose chicken burgers and “frites” for the kids. He said it was an adventure ordering them.

By 7pm Stella officially passed out. Sasha followed by 8:30. We got our internet up and blogged a bit and then headed to bed ourselves in our a/c room. Ahhhh….