Would You Like A Straw With That?

Notice anything strange about this picture?

No, it's not that I'm drinking a beer. I've actually grown to enjoy a decent light beer, on occasion. My taste is evolving, much like my drift from drinking only sweet white wines to now preferring the dryest red wine I can find.
I'm not sure that I will ever change my beer preferences to wanting a straw with it, though. However, here in the big K, one is always placed in my pint.
These pictures were taken at a local brewery here, called Tinkoff. They have a great rooftop restuarant, where we have found delicious shashlik (remember - meet on a stick) and their beers are pretty good and reasonably priced. As seen below, Stephen sometimes enjoys the darker beers. I say, yuck.
The best part about Tinkoff is the view. I mean, seriously, people. You have to come visit sometime and see the mountains in person!
Starting tomorrow, we will have lots of room! We are moving into our new apartment tomorrow morning! You might not hear from me for a few days, as internet will not be ready tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be reconnected soon.

This has been a pretty good week of "work." I say "work" because it has included meeting for about an hour, as a whole group, and then another hour long meeting with our departments. Then, they feed us lunch. Then, we are done for the day! Next week's pace will increase a little bit, but not enough to complain about at all. Also, they are giving us a 4 day weekend to get settled in our apartments!

I am so excited, I am going to go finish getting everything ready to go tomorrow morning!

The Apple City

Almaty, formerly known as Alma-Alta is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 1.5 million people. It used to be the capital of the big K, from 1929 to 1998. In 1998, they moved the capital to Astana, which is up north, more centrally located in the country.

The word "Almaty" actually translates to mean "rich with apple", as Kazakhstan seems to be the birthplace of the apple.

I think it's neat that Stephen and I were living in "The Big Apple" and now we're living here! We must have some weird subconscious obsession with wanting to live in cities that have "apple" in their nicknames.

And apples are Stephen's favorite fruit. At least in his lunch.
Okay, so about the pictures you are looking at: The one above showcases the Soviet-style apartment buildings that most of the Kazakhs live in. Notice how long that apartment building is? It goes on forever! It is one continuous building that is probably about 3 typical city blocks long. I think these apartments usually rent for about $300-500 per month. Cheap, right? Just don't forget that you get what you pay for!

I took all of these pictures from our apartment windows, so I'm blocked by the surrounding apartment towers, but you can see the Tien Shen Mountains in between the buildings above. It is also very smoggy in this picture, but on a clear day, they are absolutely gorgeous.

Notice the smog in the other pictures. You can see it on the horizon. Although the city itself is kept reasonably clean of garbage on the streets and in the parks and stuff, the pollution is pretty bad. They use mostly coal for power and everyone drives a car! Cars, cars, everywhere! Gas is relatively inexpensive here, as it is subsidized by the government. Stephen says it's about $2.30/gallon. There are long gas lines all the time during the day and the gas stations close after dark.

Plus, the roads here are (in my opinion) ridiculously designed. No turn lanes. Usually can't turn left, so you end up having to drive about twice as far as needed, simply because you can't cross the double line in the middle of the road. Although the drivers are insane here, one thing they won't do is cross that line. I'm guessing if they're caught, it's a mean fine.

Stephen especially enjoys the policemen's excessively tall hats. The angle in this picture hardly does it justice, though. It was the only photo I could find up close enough. The police here are known for pulling people over, simply to get some money from them. This is the main reason we will not be driving ourselves here. We'd rather our money go towards a driver who will keep us safe! We have been blessed, in that our driver hasn't been pulled over with us inside yet. I don't doubt it will happen, though! Since our driver is a local, his license plate is white, but if we were to buy a car and drive, the license plate would be yellow, which screams, "We are foreigners. We have money. Pull us over."

Our New Place

It is a little after 4 pm on Monday and I just got home from my first day of reporting for work! This week is slightly leisurely, only reporting by 10 am until mid-afternoon and having the afternoons free and usually some sort of dinner or evening gathering is planned.

Last night, we went to Mad Murphy's Irish Pub for the school-sponsored BBQ of shashlik (kebabs, usually lamb) and some other traditional Kazakh foods - potatoes and this coleslaw that tasted like kimchi. We were able to meet most of the teachers, so it is great to make some new friends. So, today when I arrived at the hotel for our welcome ceremony, there were some familiar faces.

After being officially welcomed by the British ambassador, we enjoyed a "business lunch," which is extremely popular here in Almaty. It was alright. Soup was offered, but I was sweating hot, so I passed on that. The main course was some spaghetti noodles with some sort of meat sauce that did not taste like spaghetti sauce. But, it was okay tasting. I might be having an apple here pretty soon, as I'm hungry! The apples are great here, since they supposedly originate from Kazakhstan. Little tidbit fact for you, there.

Anyway, after lunch, they bussed the teachers over to our apartments that we will be moving into on Friday. Stephen and I visited them when we first arrived here about a month ago, but they have come a long way, thank goodness! I am soooooooo excited to get moved in there and get everything out of our suitcases and boxes. The apartments are HUGE! 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, living room, kitchen....a little different from our teensy-weensy NYC apartment. I'm pretty sure we will lose each other!

I took a couple of pictures when I went, but was rushed, so didn't have time to take a picture of each room. Plus, we couldn't get the door unlocked to the living room, so I didn't see that! Apparently, they have been having troubles with theft already, so they're locking the living rooms, since the TV's are in there.

This is a picture of the kitchen, well, half of it. The other half is behind the camera, where the fridge is. It is long and narrow, so I'm pretty sure I'll be rearranging this somehow. Plus, there is supposed to be a dishwasher, but there isn't. We will be purchasing one, as I absolutely despise washing dishes.
This is one of the bedrooms. They are a good size and each has its own full bathroom attached. Notice the hideous curtains.
This is the Master bedroom, as it is the largest and has a balcony! I'm not loving the furniture, but you can't complain, when it's provided for you. It has a very Asian feel, which I just am not the biggest fan of. Notice the carpet ~ it is brand new and about 10 times better than what was in there in July. It was that indoor/outdoor carpet in varying colors throughout the place of blue, gray, and black. And the seams were exposed and looked horrible! I thought it was just laid down to cover the real flooring underneath. Then, it was explained to me that that was the permanent carpeting. A few days later, I learned that the woman who owns these places was appalled at them and demanded that better carpeting be laid, thank goodness.

There are some things that I hope to change, to make it our own. They have already hung up curtains, which is nice so that we aren't having to duck down to change when we first move in. However, they are U-G-L-Y. Remember the curtain in our current kitchen, with the fake sunflower? They're along that calibur.

So, I noticed when we were at the Mega Center (nice mall here) that the electronics store had sewing machines for around $40! I might be purchasing one of those and making some nice, normal curtains. Who would've ever known that my sewing skills would come to use in Kazakhstan, of all places?

But, I am very excited, in case you can't tell. I'm just rambling on and on about this place. Don't worry, I will post many more pictures, once we move in this weekend. I haven't heard yet what the internet situation will be at the houses, so I am unclear as to if we will have it when we get there. Based on how everything else seems to go in this country, I'm going to say no. However, we will get it set up as soon as we can.

Yeah!!!

Did you see this?

Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen?

And a little weird?

Click here for the article.

But it makes me think about my dog, Riley:

Riley would definitely nurse tiger cubs.