Sunday, March 21 - Not a great night of sleeping for John, woke up feeling sick and went back to sleep until nearly 11AM. Decided to go this day without our interpreter. First venture was to City Mall about ½ block away. Very windy and cold (learning that a night’s snow is a GOOD thing because our snow boots don’t slip, which John experienced on the ice with a fall a couple days before). We got out our handy lamenated Russian phrase pamphlet and pointed to “Money exchange” to the little lady sitting at the mall’s info desk. We were so proud of ourselves UNTIL she gave us a length answer all in Russian which left us just as uninformed as before we presented to her our question. Found the ATM down in the basement of the mall but all instructions are in Russian, go figure. (Probably needed Janat with us but we are determined!) Decide we have enough money for lunch (now after 2PM and we are starving) and head back to Café Karagandy (Turkish place) where John orders cheeseburger (same word as in Russian) and free (frenchfries) and I point to the chicken and soup that has been sitting out for who knows how long. Able to sit and eat and see e-mails, send out a blog (which I type beforehand in our apartment). We cannot tell you how wonderful the comments and e-mails are- please keep them coming.
About 5PM – drop off computer at apartment which is on way to fancy mall across the street where we are able to exchange money (John slides in his American money and the teller slides him paper Tenge and coins). This mall is very expensive. Looking forward to Janat showing us where the good buys are. Everyone here at this mall are dressed to impress (if the average worker in Karaganda makes $2oo/month as Janat says, than all of these people are not average).
Our first adventure through the grocercy store without Gulnara or Janat was successful. Do wish that I had paid better attention to learning the metric system way back in school. Did you know that when it says 3,% milk on a carton of milk it’s very much like half and half – live and learn. Fresh bread is huge here. I was craving protein so had a boiled egg, part of a can of some sort of beans (picture on the cans is helpful) and cheese on leftover bread.
Real bummer – because we have had packed much of our items for our trip to Kaz. back in Sept 08, we failed to go back and check the 22 movies downloaded onto 5 DVD’s to see if they would actually work on John’s computer. Well, the sound part does and there are some really pretty color graphics that swirl around , but NO picture. So…. We watched our nightly 2 King of Queens shows (we have 45 remaining) and one DVD of A Knight’s Tale (which John watched the first night while I slept). An English speaking movie is just a great way to take our minds somewhere else for a couple of hours.
9:30PM Kate calls from Colorado and assures us that everything will be ok - that Gulnara has a very good relationship with our babyhouse director (the one in the hospital now who I pray makes a speedy recovery from her leg issues) and that the assistant director that was with us Friday night at the babyhouse should have no impact on how things go for us from here. We trust Kate.