| |
|
|
| [7:58 pm] |
| Subject: Good day sunshine! |
| Mood |
: |
 good |
|
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain… It’s really much better here when we can get outside and walk around town. After cleaning the apartment and thanking the water gods that the water was both hot and muck free, we went out for lunch at Café Mango. Even though we were the only people in the place, the food still took about 45 minutes to prepare.
Following lunch was visit #14!!! We are officially done with stage 1. Tomorrow we will find out our pre-court date, and hopefully the final court date as well. Once we know that, we should have a pretty good idea of when we’ll be coming home. Woo hoo!
Asella was in usual goofy form today, and spent much of our visit demonstrating the news skills she has learned with her lip. She can now pout, look like Popeye, make spit bubbles, and generate other random phhlbttt noises.
When she wasn’t doing performance art pieces with her lips, she continued her quiet infatuation with her playmate, Grant. There’s just something about that guy that she finds irresistible. Maybe it’s the matching outfit he’s wearing, maybe it’s his active mobility (the baby equivalent of having a nice car?); whatever it is, she’s becoming quite obsessed. And of course, being a boy, Grant has no clue and doesn’t give her the time of day, even when she asks nicely, or when she doesn’t and just grabs his ear.
Being quite nice out, we strolled around town a bit after the visit, and of course garnered our usual quota of stares, strange looks, pivoting heads, and general busy-bodyness. We are still at loss to explain why we’re so weird. I know, a psychiatrist could probably help with that, but I’m just not getting it. I did think of one potential reason… I was the only person in Kostanai outside without a jacket. (It was 60 degrees.) Here’s me at the mosque.
This is a plaza in the center of town. Note the small horse (tomorrow’s dinner) and the mosque in the background.
Closer to our apartment we came across this playground. I think we’ll let Asella play here when we get her.
We met one of our neighbors this afternoon, as he wanted us to translate his answering machine instructions into Russian. Apparently he knew we spoke English, and just assumed we spoke Russian as well. (I did say hello to him in Russian.) We got our translator on the phone and he straightened out the situation. All we could figure out from our initial conversation was that he was going to Bangladesh. We thought he might want us to water his plants or feed his cat, but that was not the case. My Russian is not as good as he had hoped.
Dinner was excellent – café knick-knack, and of course, dirt cheap. It is cheaper to eat out than to cook at home, mainly due to the price of produce in the markets. That may change as the spring season matures, but for now we’re taking the “eat out more often” slogan to heart.
Tomorrow, yet again, is another day. Cheerio! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|