almaty, kazakhstan, etc.

Lance and I are in Almaty. To be honest, I can't think of good reason why. I asked Lance why we were in Kazakhstan and he said, "I'm happy to be here". I'm not sure I could say the same thing. We haven't really done anything, the adventist church we contacted didn't return our e-mails, we couldn't get tickets to Moscow, so we have to take a 1st class sleeper back to Novosibirsk (sounds good, but it's expensive), we don't know how to register our visas, so we may get fined; the list goes on. Too much stress for my liking. Probably everything will go ok. We'll find some way to get into the beautiful mountains that surround the city, we'll figure out what to do about our visas (or nothing will have to be done at all), we'll thoroughly enjoy the 1st class train, and we'll be able to get a ticket to Moscow the same day we arrive in Novosibirsk (and avoid having to pay $80 for a hotel room). It would have been simpler if Georgia and Russia could've been civil. Oh well.

But aside from the stress and nuisances, we love life. Yes, we think about going home now almost everyday, but will we regret coming to Kazakhstan? No - I have to agree with Lance on this one. The city is beautiful and modern. Although we haven't found the part of town with tall buildings, the streets are all lined with beautiful trees, and they slope constantly upwards towards impressive looking snow-covered mountains at the city's edge. The near-by super market is perfect. Bread, cheese, cereal, milk (which turned out to be strong-flavored yoghurt), tomatoes, onions, peach nectar: everything two hungry college boys could want.

But perhaps the highlight of Kazakhstan was encountered in the train itself: people. One lady offered us a tomato, some bread, and a large roll of sausage (we followed Paul's advice in Corinthians and graciously enjoyed it). We enjoyed teaching a couple Russian boys and one Kazakh girl how to play scum, and later, when they had left and we had new companions, we played a variation of UNO with Alexandra (age 8), and Nadia (age 12), who, with the help of an older Kazakh girl who spoke some English, asked us our names, about our pets, our siblings, our parents, our trip, etc. Alexandra called me beautiful. I guess being called beautiful by a blonde eight-year-old in Kazakhstan will have to go down as one of the highlights of my trip.

My camera broke. I think it got sand in it from the Gobi. So, for the next two weeks, I'll be memorizing faces and places more carefully.