March 6, 2005

March 4th finally arrived and we were whisked off to the airport with our huge amount of luggage (thanks Craig!) We had no problems with the luggage; they didn’t even weigh it, which was a slight disappointment after all the time we spent making sure we were within the weight limits. The British Air flight “across the pond” was superb. The service and food were excellent. We had a short layover at Heathrow in London where we walked around to stretch and then boarded the flight to Almaty.

It was very cold and snowing in Ekaterinberg where we stopped to refuel. Then on to Almaty. We quickly sailed through the Almaty airport. Customs counted our money but that was all. Our coordinator met us immediately. He arranged a junior suite at the Hotel Aiser to accommodate all four of us. We just returned to the room after enjoying a very good Sunday brunch at the restaurant. Everything was delicious so it doesn’t look like the Kazakhstani diet is going to work out the way I’d planned. We get to rest for a few hours and then we’ll leave at 4pm to board the train for Taraz.

We’re on the 6th floor of the hotel. Thankfully it has an elevator, but it’s the size of a shower stall. Our room here is interesting. It’s one large room with a full bed and a sleeper sofa. The bathroom has beautiful tile. There’s a 2nd small room with a twin bed. Russ is amused at the knee high light switches and the fact that code appears to allow only one outlet per room. That outlet is placed as far from the telephone line as possible to make dialing in while actually plugged into the wall completely impossible.

Almaty looks a lot like Denver, almost surrounded by snow capped mountains. But there are no foothills; the mountains are right on the edge of the city. Not many people can speak English but they sure try hard and smile at our feeble attempts at Russian. We were surprised at all the English advertising and the magazines in English here in our room.

We purchased some pills called “No-Jet-Lag” from the luggage store at the mall and they worked remarkably well. With only a few hours of sleep, we’re not feeling all that bad. We highly recommend them.

That’s all for now. We’ll write again tomorrow from Taraz