What's Going On In Kostanai

Sunday, July 29, 2007
11:55 am (Kazakhstan) & 1:50 am (East Coast)

Greetings from hotel Medeu: www.medeuhotel.kz / phone # 0117-3142-545-845 / room # 206. We thought it would be fun to share what a typical day in Kostanai is like for us: First of all, the days have been flying by; we are so busy taking care of our primary needs, walking to market to pick up water & supplies. We can only buy a few things at a time because we have to carry everything. We wake up each morning at 6:30 am, shower & get ready to have breakfast at 7:30 am at the hotel. We usually drink a liter of water “water with out gas” which is your typical American bottled water-they also have, “water with gas” which is sparkling water. (No Diet Pepsi & No Ice for Christy). Larry on the other hand loves the coffee and tea is very popular served with honey, milk, lemon, condensed milk or even jam. For breakfast (everything is homemade), we usually have bread with jam, eggs with chicken and potatoes, and Larry’s favorite “Ellada” a breakfast salad with sheep’s milk cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, Bulgarian pepper, fresh pickles and flour oil. Our driver “Andre” picks us up for 1000 Tenge round trip and we go to the Baby House every morning from 9:30 -11:00 am. (It’s the best part of our day!!).
When we come back in the afternoon, we usually have our main mid-day meal. Fortunately for us, our neighbors (who are from Harrisburg, PA) come with us and they have been studying Russian for over a year-which really helps because most of the menus are in full Russian. Amy and Galen know many of the great restaurants and sights to see so we have been having an amazing time. We have really fallen in love with the culture. The town square is beautiful, children and families are out and about –everyone walks all over here. It’s daylight from about 4:30 am until 11:00 pm this time of year and we love all the sunlight!!! Christy’s favorite thing is the Hot Chocolate with whipped cream-it’s like homemade, warm chocolate pudding in a cup-delicious! We think Rachel Ray should come here to do her $ 40.00 a day in Kostania. The food is really good-foreign but truly good! Since the fall of the Soviet Union, and especially during the past 5 years, small Russian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Kazak cafes have been popping up all over. We actually even found pizza-a thin crust-it was very good. The people seem interested in us; they are friendly and want to try a word of English or two. We are doing the best we can to learn some Russian-we want to continue to use some Russian words with Norah when she comes home. At the Baby House, her caregivers call her “Irina or Irrika”. Yesterday we went to an enormous outdoor market-it seemed to go on for miles! The locals have little huts with everything; kitchen sinks, household items, clothing, and food, you name it! Larry says it’s like their version of home depot, Wal-Mart and a super market all rolled into one. We are looking forward to going bowling, and to a Russian movie. We had our 4th precious day with Norah-she has a little bit of a cold and fell asleep on Daddy. She is beautiful! We’re so in love. Talk to you all soon. Love Christy, Larry & Norah xo