Still Lost, But went to the Museum!

Wednesday, Nov 14th
Second Day of Internet withdrawals! And I thought dial-up was painful!!! At least I'm only 1 day behind in posting (today) which I hope to catch up soon.

Day 50. Major events of the day: A Day in the Museum of Kazakhstan

No connection, so I’m winging the weather report:
Almaty weather: Feels like mid 40’s. Overcast, haze, damp and early drizzle, very reminiscent of Seattle this time of year.
Back in Petro: Probably a lot colder than here! Temperatures up there have bee running about 20 degrees cooler.
Meanwhile back in Memphis: I bet it’s a lot warmer, even if everyone back there thinks it’s cold.

Still overcast, a little foggy and intermittent drizzle, but we could see some of the foothills, and saw the funicular cable car which goes up one of the foothills east of the Ram Store on our morning visit. Well, we saw the towers and cables, but didn’t see it in operation. If the weather clears up a bit I want to take the kids up for a view. I bet it would be spectacular with the snow-capped mountains to the south. (The sign says: "I Love Almaty")

Our first morning trek was to the Ram Store to see if I could get a connection. Nope. Both kids REALLY wanted to ice skate again, but I gave the thumbs-down. Had I gotten a connection, I probably would have shelled out another 1400 kzt for them to skate (children’s rate for 1 hour, with skates, for both… Very reasonable!). We took a different route back to the apartment so I could seek out a place to exchange some dollars. It sure didn’t take long to burn through the last batch I exchanged. I have collected a sandwich bag worth of small change, but I want to get as close to zero as possible. Most of the stores in the mall take credit cards, but the ATM rejected my cash card.

Once you get used to having something, such as Internet access, going without can be a hard thing. Even dial-up, as painful as it is, is better than being disconnected from everyone. When Nikolai dropped us off, I neglected to get a contact phone number since I have Oleg’s cell number, except that when I try to call it from the apartment, I get a recorded telkom message telling me I cannot connect for some reason. Unfortunately, I focused my Russian studies on the phrases and objects I would need to know for basic communication with the kids (which is going fairly well, at least mostly when someone isn’t pouting because she isn’t getting her way, but I won’t mention which of the two kids she might be)!

The Museum of Kazakhstan was very interesting. There’s a pretty good natural history section with a couple dinosaurs and other small fossils and an excellent pre-historic man section before moving into historic migrations, trading routes and so on. There’s a very nice display upstairs on the political history of Kazakhstan back to the 1800s when Russia began colonizing, but mostly focusing on the last 15 or so years since Kazakhstan gained its independence from Russia. Definitely a worth-while visit, and I could have spent far longer looking over the displays if the children would have let me (Cathe will have help from now on!).

Spending my early years in the DC area, I visited many times but didn’t really appreciate all the museums. I have probably visited more and seen more of each museum since moving away, especially during the ten years I lived in Virginia Beach, less than 4 hours away. Although I have now come to really appreciate museums, when younger, I wanted to rush through to see the interesting stuff and found reading the placards boring.

Since arriving Monday and pointing out the Museum to the kids, they wanted to watch Ночь в Музее (Night at the Museum) again (and again). The kids have been alternating between “Gum-Gum” (wanting a piece of gum) and “Yum-Yum” (wanting a snack) to the point of absolute nuisance. It had calmed down a bit, then they saw a small statue at the museum. I’ll suffer a few more days until they wear that out. Oh, remember I mentioned exchanging money earlier in this post? Well, we hit the museum gift shop on the way out. So much for the “extra” cash! We did end up with some nice souvenirs though.

Anyway, sleep (maybe lack of) and boredom is beginning to catch up with the kids. It’s raining outside, so no evening trip to try to find a connection. Maybe we’ll try a game or at least some flash cards after dinner. They will definitely be ready for school and friends by the time we get home!