Hello from Uralsk!

I am going to apologize upfront because this post is going to be kind of short. My jetlag officially kicked in and it took me a good 30 minutes to figure out how to switch this keyboard to English. :-)

Things are still going great. Yesterday afternoon my driver Dima took me to do a little sightseeing around Almaty. We went to Central Park (including a beautiful cathedral and a WWII memorial). We also went to a nearby mountain for a lovely (though pollution filled) view of Almaty.

This morning my driver picked me up at 3:45am for my 5:15am flight to Uralsk. That was quite the adventure as this part of the airport was more like a bus stop but not much English going on. I just kind of followed the crowd and managed to get both me and my luggage (which cost me about 9000 tenge because it was over the weight limit) on the plane. I wound up meeting an American woman while waiting on the plane (which was about an hour late). She and her husband work in Uralsk and are in the process of moving to Almaty. It was pretty cool to speak fluent English. :-)

The flight to Uralsk was about 3 hours and is 2 hours behind Almaty timewise. The plane stopped on the tarmac and we walked to a small building. Let me just say...... It is cold. I was pretty happy to have my big coat and hat. My facilitator Olga and driver Igor were waiting on me and after we gathered my luggage we were off to Uralsk. The drive was about 25 minutes and was very pretty. Snow everywhere of course but the moon was full and absolutely stunning. Quite an entrance to my daughter's birth city.

We stopped by my apartment and home for the next 2 weeks. This apartment is more modest than the one in Almaty but will do just fine. It is huge! My first moment to be nervous followed dropping my stuff at the apartment. We went to meet with the Minister of Education. Imagine me, my interpreter Marina, Olga, 3 women from the Minister's office, and the Minister all sitting around a HUGE table. They were all speaking Russian. Then came the reason I was ther - to answer the minister's questions. Olga had prepared me earlier for how to answer some of the questions but he even asked me things they did not figure he would. The woman also asked lots of questions. Anyway, I was very nervous but at the end Marina told me he wished me the best and said he knew my daughter would have a better life with me. I think that is the first time I breathed during the whole meeting. :-)

After this meeting, my regular interpreter Assia and Igor took me to the store to get groceries. It was very cheap. I got things like yogurt, fruit, bread and cheese.

And now I just have to wait 3 more hours before we go to the baby house!!! :-) It has already been a very long day but I truly can not wait. This internet cafe is only 3 or 4 blocks from my apartment and my schedule should get kind of routine now so I hope to be able to post more tomorrow.

Thank you so much to all of you who have written me!!! I appreciate so much!