Jen here. Well, here we are in Uralsk! After our worries about the small, cold, old airplane (called the "Buddy Holly" flight by those who have gone before), we are happy to report that we arrived in a brand new 757 - with video screens, hot food, and stewards that spoke Kazak, Russian, and English, and did not allow smoking! (Hmmm - wonder what happened to the old plane?!) It was an easy 3.25 hour trip. Uralsk looks just like Fargo, ND would look if it had been built in the 40s and no one had done anything to fix it up since... but I am getting ahead of myself.

In Frankfurt - soon after we finished our November 26th entry, we met up with our travel partners - Mary Lou and Jon. They are delightful people - very positive and talkative. They are adopting a beautiful 7 month old daughter - Eva. 

We arrived in Almaty late on the 27th after the shortest Thanksgiving on record (the whole day was less than 12 hours for us).  They had one of those sticky snow storms that day and so every tree branch sparkled. A fog clung to the ground and the city lights on the snow and fog created this surreal quality. We were met by our driver, Kiril, and our interpreter, Denoza, and they took us to our hotel. It was not fancy - but blissfully warm, dark, and quiet as a tomb. We slept 7 hours.

In the morning we had our first cultural adventure. I felt that after completing 5 of the 8 Pimsleur's "Learn to speak essential Russian 1" that I was more than ready to mingle with the locals. So we searched out a hole-in-the-wall cafe for breakfast. We looked at the menu for several long minutes (ever seen Russian?) and then we "talked" with the waitress for several minutes. We were finally able to order Chai and Coffey. And she took pity on us and brought us bread and four bowls of ... something .... The meal was a thin, tasty, mildly-spicy tomato broth with rutabaga and thick homemade noodles (we could see a woman making them in the back) and some unknown meat-like substance.  Very good. Loud European pop music played in the background. The whole meal (for all of us together) cost about 600 tenge - which was a problem - because we had no tenge at all. We did have among the four of us (and I am not exaggerating here) approximately $24,000 in cash - but no tenge. Steve and Jon saved the day by running out to exchange money - and we were finally able to pay for our meal (by the way, 600 tenge is worth about $4.50 US). Thinking back on it, perhaps it was not the wisest plan - but those noodles were really great. Didn't need to eat for the rest of the day.

 At 11:40 we were picked up by Kiril (WPA has amazing partners here - everything works just like clockwork so far - Kiril speaks quite a bit of English and he is very efficient. We told him we wanted a hair dryer, a phone card, and some snacks to bring on the plane and he took us to the Ramstore and helped us to buy everything (which was much appreciated after our morning of striking out on our own.) and brought to meet WPA's lawyer, Gulbanu at noon. We exchanged paperwork, handed over our money, signed a few papers that we couldn't read, and were given plane tickets to Uralsk. Kiril took us to the airport at 2:40 (after the Ramstore) and made sure we did everything right at the airport (he also helped with the way-too-heavy luggage that cost us $100 in overweight charges).

We are staying in a hotel here in Uralsk until December 3rd when we get to move to an apartment. The building looks as though it could fall apart. The inside is quite ... eclectic. For instance the bathroom is amazing! The bedroom is modest but fine.

The sitting room contains a partially boarded up window and a "wall- to-wall" carpet made of scraps. And the hall situation is beyond description - but you are welcome to try to make sense of the photos below.

Tomorrow morning, we meet our new son!