Baby It's Cold Outside!

The car we drive in to the village everyday



Crab Chips!

Consitution Avenue, the pedestrian mainstreet

The entrace to our hotel, The Skiff

It is 3:30am and I am wide awake! Can't seem to switch my days and nights just yet. I will, of course, get in the routine probably two days before we leave. We had a rather quiet day yesterday. It was really nice to talk to some people from home and catch up on some emails.

My absolute favorite part of having this blog is reading all the comments everyone leaves. It makes us feel connected to you, even though we are a world apart.

The time is going by faster than we had expected. I think because we have such a long drive, most of our day is gone once we return to the hotel. We really enjoy the drive. It has given us an opportunity to see areas of Kazakhstan that we would have never seen if we had adopted from the city. We had a unique opportunity to see where Karina lived before going to the orphanage. It is a small village of about 3,000 people. There is no running water and no heat. We saw heaping piles of coal next to every house. This must be how the warm their homes. There were very few cars and we were told that everyone walks to where they must go. While we were driving through the village, several children looked like they were walking home from school. I suppose they are used to it and it is just their way of life, but I certainly can not imagine having to walk such lengths in freezing temperatures such as these.

If you can imagine, it is getting colder! Our translator told us that this first week of January they call the Christmas Frost. January 7 is their Christmas Holiday here. She informed us that after Christmas is when it gets really cold. Wait, I thought it WAS really cold?!? When our driver arrived before our last visit, he had to ask our facilitator whether or not we should make the drive because the conditions were bad. She made the decision for us to go, but that day was only -35 degrees. So, I am sure that we might face the possibility of not being able to visit a day our two because the weather might not allow it.

It has been a bit challenging for us to find food that is close to what we are used to. I am not an adventerous eater, so I am completely out of my comfort zone. The hotel provides us breakfast each morning and even have a menu in English. The server only speaks a few words in English, but they have all been very nice and helpful. The first day we had breakfast, Mike ordered what he thought was a simple breakfast, but was a little surprised to be brought out a plate of cottage cheese mixed into fried eggs and a side of beet salad. Yummy! I found the safer breakfast, that we have all been ordering since. Fried eggs with sausage (tastes like bologna), cucumber and tomato salad, oatmeal, bread, juice and tea. Our tranlator took us to a Turkish Pizza House and I had a hamburger and fries and Mike had a chicken kabob with rice. It was very good. Mike did purchase some crab flavored Lay's Potato C hips and he commented that they do indead taste like crab!

Happy New Year to everyone and we look forward to your comments!