New Day, New Apartment

We changed apartments again today. This is our 3rd apartment and we like it the best so far. We are now close to a wonderful grocery store and lots of conveniences. We are also within walking distance of Andrew – maybe 5-7 blocks. We also have a bed with a mattress. Wow!!! We had heard before we came that most of the beds were just box springs with some blankets on them. That’s what we had at our previous apartment. It wasn’t unbearable but trust me having a mattress is so much better!

Now for a little bit about Kazakhstan on a day to day basis…Our friends Gretchen & Chris, who have been here since May, told us about all of the walking we would do. Gretchen had said it’s all “uphill” and I have to say it feels that way. We walk most places – to the grocery store, to eat, to parks, etc. Many of the intersections have tunnels so you walk under the street instead of crossing. It’s actually nice because the traffic here is everything we had heard it was. Crazy drivers but we have adjusted to it. Just a few things about the drivers…most of the streets are 4 lanes that we travel since we are in the city. What’s interesting is that they are turned into 6-8 lanes, especially at intersections. The way to drive in Kaz is to fill in every gap with a car, then blow your horn. They drive somewhere between the right hand side of the road to the middle. The steering wheels are either on the right hand or left hand side of the car. There is no standard and I would say it is about half & half. It is so congested so we haven’t seen any major accidents, just lots of fender benders. I haven’t figured out if some of the roads we go down were actually foot traffic alleys when they were originally built. Now cars regularly travel them. When you meet a car in the alley, there are some hand motions between drivers to work out who will get to go and who will have to backup. We have also seen real live games of “chicken” at the intersections. No one blinked and somehow an accident was avoided. We are so thankful that our driver does not take unnecessary chances. He is awesome. So, if New York City traffic is too tame for you, try Kaz.

It was a good day with Andrew. He was feeling much better. It’s fun to watch Lainey and him play together. He continues to laugh and smile and coo. You can tell that the caretakers have treated him well. He is such an easygoing child. They really seem to love the children.

We signed lots of documents for court yesterday. They were all in Russian so our translator read them to us. We trust her so we signed. Our coordinator will have someone hand courier our papers to Astana (the new capital) and they will travel by train to get there. She said it would save at least a week by handling it this way. We hope to find out this week when our court date will be. We have been pleased with the progress.