nothing says night out to dinner better than not having electricity

the central heat hasn't been turned on yet in most of the city and with the onset (or onslaught depending on how you view it) of cold weather people have been plugging in their electric heaters... which of course has resulted in power blackouts across the city.

we have been pretty lucky in our new place in that we haven't had any scheduled outages of yet - most of the city is under a midnight to 500pm power reduction (which is a fancy way of saying the power is cut off).  but with folks trying to stay warm, the grid became overloaded and we lost power from midmorning until around 1110pm that night.

the house was warm enough but sitting around in the dark talking about our feelings can only get you so far and doesn't feed the belly.  so we decided to join the holmes and some other embassy friends out to dinner (at a place with power, obviously).   we went to a new mediterranean place not to far from our house.  we showed up a little bit late (we have lost the ability to be on time now that we have olivia) and folks had already ordered the dinner special for eight which turned out to be course after course of food.  mostly finger food stuff.  hummus (ok... not a finger food... but you put it on finger food items).  salads (ok... also not a finger food).  lots of great food.

we normally go to another place for our mediterranean fix. and end up spending about 700som (a little less then $20) for the two of us.  so needless to say we were SHOCKED when the bill came out to 10000soms which worked out to $50 a couple.

it is one thing to go out in the states and drop that much a dinner.  but in bishkek?  really?  i don't know other than expats and diplomats who could afford such a pricey meal in central asia.  ok... maybe the organized crime folks. but not the regular crowd.  i think it is the biggest sticker shock that jen and i have had since we've been here.

but it beat staying home in the dark.

after dinner we went to the holmes' house (or "holmes's home" as i like to say) for some chai and ice cream.  being that they work at the embassy... the can ship in chai and ice cream from the states. so good!  we love them.  and then i played video games with shane while the girls hung out with olivia (their kids were asleep already).  it is good to be a 40 year old male who plays video games while his wife watches the baby.


by the time we got home around midnight the power was back on at the house.