Day 44. Major events of the day: Waiting Period day 15 of 15! (Wahooooo!), Snow, Lights and The Last Day of Waiting!
Morning weather report: 13, feels like 0. Projected high: 21 (Brrr!)
Meanwhile back in Memphis: Overnight low of 35, and heading back to a high of 55 (we had those temps in Petro at the beginning of October!)
The good news is that temperature forecasts have edged up a little for the next few days! Overnight lows are now forecast as 11, 11, 11, 14, and 17 for the next 5 days instead of lows in the single digits. Unfortunately, the highest forecast temperature over the same 5 days is 26 on Sunday. Pretty likely that the rides at the Park will not be running this weekend! I’ve promised to take the kids back to the Donner Café this weekend instead.
Last night I had planned to finish reading the Robbins book on Kazakhstan so I could give it back to Hilton, but around 6 pm (when it was already dark outside), the power went out. It has done so on a couple infrequent and thankfully brief occasions. Cathe and I suspect it has something to do with our neighbors in the apartment next door because as soon as the lights would go out we could hear the wife yelling at the husband who would then go out into the hallway, flick his lighter, dig in the electrical box, and then the lights would come back on. He would go back into the apartment, and more yelling, mostly her, would ensue and then all would be happy once again. We couldn’t tell whether he was getting the tongue lashing for a) having done something himself, or b) not having made sure that there was adequate power for the wife’s needs. Either way, it sounded like something right out of the Honeymooners, just in Russian.
However, last night the power didn’t come back on after a few minutes, nor did I hear the Honeymooners going toe-to-toe. Since I was online and the laptop was running fine on battery power, I continued to work by the light from the screen. Then an hour went by, with no noise from next door and still no lights. The Honeymooners must have been out for the evening… I couldn’t call Masha since the cordless phone base station needed power, so I sent an e-mail. Another hour had passed when an e-note from Suzanne popped into my in box. A quick response outlining my plight quickly brought help in the form of an e-mail from Masha. Suzanne called Masha’s cell phone, then Masha called her dad’s cell phone, but he was still at the train station waiting for a package and the train was running late, but he could probably come by 9 pm, then Masha summarized it all in an e-mail back to me, all before my battery ran out.
By the time my laptop reached 7% power remaining and was starting automatic shutdown around 8:45 pm, I looked out the peep hole in the door and noticed the little 15 watt hallway light was on. The power panel cover looks pretty harmless, so I decided to have a look into the electrical box. What a mess of wires, switched, fuses, and circuit breakers! But wait! Two of the three circuit breakers had tripped, so I took a chance and reset them. Viola! Power was restored to the apartment and the lights came back on. At least I got to read another hour or so before deciding to call it a night.
Today was another early visit, and we stayed on campus today. Masha, the cruise activity coordinator extraordinaire, had figured out how to juggle a day full of conflicting activities necessitating covering quite a bit of territory to accomplish. Gary from Spain is coming back today to pick up his daughter Anastasia, so Masha and Sasha needed to gather up all of her paperwork and head out to Poludino to fetch her (as Masha says) before Gary’s flight arrives. A quick follow-up call from Masha confirmed that I wouldn’t mind going earlier for my visit with Kate and David while she made the hour trek (each way) out to Poludino and back, giving me about 2 1/2 hours on my own to communicate with the kids. (Cathe and I met Gary and his wife Susanna in the Almaty airport as they were going home for the Waiting Period and we were just arriving.) Sounded easy enough!
David, having more experience with English, knows many words and is well on his way toward forming complete sentences. Kate, who has less experience is quickly picking up words, but is less confident in trying to use them and is further frustrated when David chimes in before she has a chance to answer. Deciding not to go deep on academics today, I was satisfied when the each successfully ran through the basic Who, What, Where, When, How, and Why cards and let them focus in their interest areas. 
While David hit the keyboard, our little gymnast, dancer, fashion model, paparazzi, banshee went to work in front of and behind the camera, trying to keep Dad’s attention, with the help of one of her favorite friends.
Once I had explained tomorrow’s plan (which makes for a VERY full day), they were both happy, especially when I mentioned visiting the Air Astana office to buy our tickets from Petropavlovsk to Almaty. They have both played with Google Earth and have seen how far it is from just Petro to Almaty, and know that Memphis is a loooong way from Almaty, but I don’t think the full scale of our coming journey has sunken in just yet. “Ok, so you’ve got a lot of paperwork and some plane tickets to buy tomorrow. When do we get to go back to the Café?” was the next question. Gotta love kids and their priorities! After that, they both settled into their favorite activities until Masha’s return signaled the end of another days visit.
A quick walk to the Iceberg after returning form today’s visit confirmed that cold weather (at least to us) has officially arrived, as indicated by the frost patterns on the balcony enclosure windows! Now it’s time to just sit back and relax while the final hours of our Post Court Waiting Period pass into history.
Morning weather report: 13, feels like 0. Projected high: 21 (Brrr!)
Meanwhile back in Memphis: Overnight low of 35, and heading back to a high of 55 (we had those temps in Petro at the beginning of October!)
The good news is that temperature forecasts have edged up a little for the next few days! Overnight lows are now forecast as 11, 11, 11, 14, and 17 for the next 5 days instead of lows in the single digits. Unfortunately, the highest forecast temperature over the same 5 days is 26 on Sunday. Pretty likely that the rides at the Park will not be running this weekend! I’ve promised to take the kids back to the Donner Café this weekend instead.
Last night I had planned to finish reading the Robbins book on Kazakhstan so I could give it back to Hilton, but around 6 pm (when it was already dark outside), the power went out. It has done so on a couple infrequent and thankfully brief occasions. Cathe and I suspect it has something to do with our neighbors in the apartment next door because as soon as the lights would go out we could hear the wife yelling at the husband who would then go out into the hallway, flick his lighter, dig in the electrical box, and then the lights would come back on. He would go back into the apartment, and more yelling, mostly her, would ensue and then all would be happy once again. We couldn’t tell whether he was getting the tongue lashing for a) having done something himself, or b) not having made sure that there was adequate power for the wife’s needs. Either way, it sounded like something right out of the Honeymooners, just in Russian.
However, last night the power didn’t come back on after a few minutes, nor did I hear the Honeymooners going toe-to-toe. Since I was online and the laptop was running fine on battery power, I continued to work by the light from the screen. Then an hour went by, with no noise from next door and still no lights. The Honeymooners must have been out for the evening… I couldn’t call Masha since the cordless phone base station needed power, so I sent an e-mail. Another hour had passed when an e-note from Suzanne popped into my in box. A quick response outlining my plight quickly brought help in the form of an e-mail from Masha. Suzanne called Masha’s cell phone, then Masha called her dad’s cell phone, but he was still at the train station waiting for a package and the train was running late, but he could probably come by 9 pm, then Masha summarized it all in an e-mail back to me, all before my battery ran out.
By the time my laptop reached 7% power remaining and was starting automatic shutdown around 8:45 pm, I looked out the peep hole in the door and noticed the little 15 watt hallway light was on. The power panel cover looks pretty harmless, so I decided to have a look into the electrical box. What a mess of wires, switched, fuses, and circuit breakers! But wait! Two of the three circuit breakers had tripped, so I took a chance and reset them. Viola! Power was restored to the apartment and the lights came back on. At least I got to read another hour or so before deciding to call it a night.
Today was another early visit, and we stayed on campus today. Masha, the cruise activity coordinator extraordinaire, had figured out how to juggle a day full of conflicting activities necessitating covering quite a bit of territory to accomplish. Gary from Spain is coming back today to pick up his daughter Anastasia, so Masha and Sasha needed to gather up all of her paperwork and head out to Poludino to fetch her (as Masha says) before Gary’s flight arrives. A quick follow-up call from Masha confirmed that I wouldn’t mind going earlier for my visit with Kate and David while she made the hour trek (each way) out to Poludino and back, giving me about 2 1/2 hours on my own to communicate with the kids. (Cathe and I met Gary and his wife Susanna in the Almaty airport as they were going home for the Waiting Period and we were just arriving.) Sounded easy enough!
David, having more experience with English, knows many words and is well on his way toward forming complete sentences. Kate, who has less experience is quickly picking up words, but is less confident in trying to use them and is further frustrated when David chimes in before she has a chance to answer. Deciding not to go deep on academics today, I was satisfied when the each successfully ran through the basic Who, What, Where, When, How, and Why cards and let them focus in their interest areas. 
While David hit the keyboard, our little gymnast, dancer, fashion model, paparazzi, banshee went to work in front of and behind the camera, trying to keep Dad’s attention, with the help of one of her favorite friends.Once I had explained tomorrow’s plan (which makes for a VERY full day), they were both happy, especially when I mentioned visiting the Air Astana office to buy our tickets from Petropavlovsk to Almaty. They have both played with Google Earth and have seen how far it is from just Petro to Almaty, and know that Memphis is a loooong way from Almaty, but I don’t think the full scale of our coming journey has sunken in just yet. “Ok, so you’ve got a lot of paperwork and some plane tickets to buy tomorrow. When do we get to go back to the Café?” was the next question. Gotta love kids and their priorities! After that, they both settled into their favorite activities until Masha’s return signaled the end of another days visit.
A quick walk to the Iceberg after returning form today’s visit confirmed that cold weather (at least to us) has officially arrived, as indicated by the frost patterns on the balcony enclosure windows! Now it’s time to just sit back and relax while the final hours of our Post Court Waiting Period pass into history.
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