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| [9:01 pm] |
| Subject: We made it! |
| Mood |
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 quixotic |
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Welcome to the actual trip journal!!! If you are one of those people that just likes to get to the latest and greatest, just keep reading. If you prefer to savor every inane detail and minutia that we pen down (it’s not that detailed), scroll down to the entry from March 20, and then make your way up to here. Okay, everyone ready?
Eager to get on board yet another airplane, Sarah and your intrepid narrator had a decent breakfast at the hotel in Almaty, then headed into the van with our driver, Nikolai, and our adoption agency’s man in the street, Murat. We are also traveling with a fellow Coloradoin couple, DJ and Kim. The Almaty airport is very new and very efficient, effectively exchanging the take-off-your-shoes requirement for the far more practical everyone-goes-through-the-metal-detector-twice system. Though I specifically requested a jet airplane built after the Bolshevik Revolution, we were nonetheless herded onto a little prop plane for our 4 hour flight to Kostanai. Note the name of the airline in the picture below. A kindly gentlemen from England noticed Sarah’s anxiety about the small old plane and remarked, “Don’t worry, they stopped making these thirty years ago.” Ah, tranquility. The flight to Kostanai was noisy and slightly bumpy, but the best part was, it was shorter than our previous 2 flights, and we landed without a hitch. (They use landing gears, not hitches, so that was just fine.) As I was gazing out the window on the trans-kaz flight, I noticed that the landscape is inoffensive, unobtrusive, and thoroughly uninteresting. I likened it to an infinitely large powdered chocolate donut. When we landed, the benevolent Brit was kind enough to prevent us from committing a major faux-pas, by pointing out that we are to remain seated until the pilot exits the plane. We left the plane with our dignity in tact I’m happy to say.
We then met up with Eugene, an Irish looking Kazak who speaks fluent English and Eubonics. Eugene will be our primary contact while we are in Kostanai, and will handle all the translating, orphanage visits, plumbing emergencies and babe scoping. He also is fanatic about his car, and we instructed not to dent, smack, smudge, scratch, or otherwise inflict ourselves in anyway upon his precious auto.
We blinked and were through the Kostanai airport, and then a fifteen minute drive later we arrived at our apartment, which at first glance appeared to be something located in the inner city projects of a large American town. We were exceedingly surprised by the apartment itself though, as it is very nice, clean, and has some good amenities (TV with DVD player, microwave, and large tub with shower – all the comforts of home.) Murat gave us a tour of the apartment and showed us how everything worked. The tour started with a demonstration of the more interesting channels that our satellite TV picks up. The naked women simply would not get off the screen! Murat was very embarrassed and apologetic as we laughed heartily at his expense.
After unpacking the few measly possessions we still had with us, we met up with the whole group at a small café near our apartment for dinner. Dinner for under $4 for 2 people? That is hard to beat. Eugene took us grocery shopping whilst rocking out to Dr. Dre and 50 cent, and then we headed back to our pad to crash.
Tomorrow, drum roll please… we will go to the baby house and meet our daughter. Holy guacamole. We are desperately hoping that our daughter does not reject us due to the ripeness of our clothing (now on day 4!) and the absence of toys we intended to bring (sitting on the tarmac at Frankfurt airport). We leave at 9 am and should be there for 2 hours. Then we plan to spend the rest of the day in a giddy haze.
Tune in tomorrow to see what happens!
Here are some pictures of the apartment.
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