i had forgotten what an adventure it can be as a foreigner in a foreign land. when it was time to leave the pre-school to go and meet chris... it took me a while to find a taxi willing to stop... and when i did it took me a while to find one that wasn't trying to rip me off.
a note on being "ripped off". is there really a difference between $4 and $6? not really. but it seems like a lot when you are dealing in soms (the currency of kyrgyzstan) or tengy (the currency of kazakhstan) and instead of looking at two dollar difference you are looking at 100som difference or 1000ten difference. i get do indignant when someone tries to squeeze a little more out of me and then i just realize that it is only a dollar or two difference and not a big deal.
so i finally find a taxi that i end up sharing with this young russian kid who speaks some english but is wearing his head phones the entire time and not talking. we (meaning me and the taxi driver... i was being a back seat driver) drop him off and then head to downtown almaty where i am to meet chris.
the night before in the mega mall i ended up buying a local sim card for my phone so i could make calls in almaty. the card i have in my phone normally only works in kyrgyzstan. it worked great and only cost about $5. of course i didn't bring my charger for my phone (or my camera battery which i had left back in bishkek in the camera charger... hence the lack of photos) so i turned my phone off on saturday night to save battery power. when i went to turn it back on sunday the phone was locked and asking for a pin. of course i didn't think to ask the guy whom i bought the sim card from about a pin (and he didn't speak english anyway) so i couldn't use my phone. but i had plans to meet chris at one so it was all good... right?
no. i showed up (surprising myself and the taxi driver that i found the place) at his girlfriends apartment. and just as i was about to get into the elevator to go up to the night floor... chris gets out of the adjoining elevator and stops me. his is having a fight with his girlfriend and can't hang out. do i mind walking around by myself for four hours and then coming back? uh... no chris. i would rather come upstairs and watch you guys fight!
i turned out great as i did end up waking around downtown almaty and as much as i hate to admit it... it was really nice. very, very european. lots of parks and monuments like bishkek... but on a much bigger and much nicer/western scale. i was pleased. between discovering downtown and the mountain top park (with a crazy gravity roller coaster) i quite liked almaty. not the gross outskirts... but the city center was great.
so i walked around. ate some lunch. and then waited downstairs (aka fell asleep in a chair) in the lobby until he came down and got me. we headed out and drove back to bishkek three hours through the famous kazakh steppes. surely you have heard of them?!
the great thing about riding in an car with red plates (aka embassy car) is that you can speed and break traffic laws in front of the police and never get stopped. we even cut line to the front at the border crossing. instead of two hours it took us about 10 minutes.
i should travel everywhere with chris. IF we decide to stay overseas next year and IF we take a position in europe... i think it would be amazing to drive from central asia through russia to europe. chris has already said he is in. if we just put his red plates on my car we should be fine! jen can fly home early and i will take olive and boone with me!
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