(Maureen's Post)
I'm still having somewhat of a time trying to adjust to the time change. We've been here for about a week now, and I am still having trouble getting to bed on time. Sean's pretty much adjusted and goes to bed around 10:30 PM to 11 PM and wakes up about 7AM. I can't seem to wind down until about 2AM to fall asleep, and then I wake up at about 9:30AM. But each day does get better, and I'm hoping to be on a fairly normal sleep pattern by the weekend.
I think we're finally starting to get into the "Groundhog Day" pattern that so many families before us have talked about. For those of you who haven't seen the movie starring Bill Murray, it's about a guy who keeps reliving the same day in his life over and over again. Every day here has pretty much been the same routine: wake up, eat breakfast, go for walk or update website, eat quick lunch, go visit baby, run errands, go back to apartment, eat dinner, watch TV, go to sleep, then start over again. It's the same every day, even on weekends, so we get confused and often ask each other what day it is.

Speaking of TV, now we have 2 working TV channels, both with bad reception and neither one in English. We did bring a DVD player, but it doesn't seem to be working too well here. Don't worry, Anna - we didn't break it (we don't think). We drained the battery the other day watching "I-Robot" and couldn't get it to recharge when we plugged the transformer into the wall. However, Sean had an idea and figured that we just needed just a little more juice to jump start it into recharging itself. Sean used the cigarette lighter adapter that came with the DVD player, plugged it into the cigarette lighter in Oleg's minivan, and the DVD player turned on. It didn't actually recharge, just turned on, but that's still a good sign. So, the plan is to try to recharge it tomorrow in the minivan. Hope it works - otherwise it's going to be a long 5 weeks, especially once we're pretty much home-bound with the baby.

Anyway, Sean made cheese and onion omelets for breakfast (made our apartment smell really lovely), and I had my usual tea with sugar. Sean usually drinks decaf, but there is no brewed coffee to be found here. Instead of packing the french press and lugging coffee here from back home, we decided that we would make do with what we could find here. Fortunately, I do like drinking tea and have been doing so ever since we got here. Sean said that he's probably gonna give in and buy the Nescafe they have here (instant coffee). Ah, yes...Nescafe. Brings back memories of college when Starbucks didn't exist and I was not picky about where my caffeine fix came from.

We went for a walk today so we could get some air and exercise (because going up and down four flights of stairs isn't enough) and also so we could see some of Kokshetau, where our baby was born. We walked for about an hour, passing a building that looked like it was built from logs and ended up on a street with a giant Jumbotron-like TV screen on it. If I remember the story correctly from reading other family blogs, there was a building being torn down here in Kokshetau, and in the demolition phase a bag of gold was found in the attic. So the gold was used to restore it into what is now the log building. I'll confirm the story and let you know if I got it right. As for the Jumbotron screen (also on the same street) it was just put there in December. I heard that maybe it's the same one that used to be in the parking lot of the Tsum store? Need to get confirmation on that, too.

Some observations about Kokshetau; it's definitely a smaller city than Almaty. I do feel a little bit safer in terms of walking around here and not getting run over since drivers seem to follow the lights and let people cross the street. Or at least the driving is better in the daylight. Again, different makes/models of cars. The minivan Oleg drives us around in is a Toyota Sienna. However, most of the cars here are German and Japanese imports. We've seen more BMW's here than we expected. The police here stand on street corners and pull cars over for traffic violations by waving them over. We asked Inna what would happen if you didn't pull over and just drove away, and she said that if the cop was able to get your vehicle license number they would still track you down, but you would be hit with a stiffer penalty. The roads are rough - lots of potholes. Of course, when you're dealing with weather that cause the roads to ice over then the ice melts, then it ices over again, etc. potholes are not a big surprise. Plus it makes a lot of mud everywhere, so everytime you go into someone's home you always take off your shoes before coming in. We just wear slippers around the apartment. Inna did confirm that Kokshetau is considered to be in southern Siberia since it is so far north in the country. The weather here is still hovering around freezing or a few degrees below - again, mild for Kokshetau. Still, if we go on any more walks longer than an hour I'll have to don my long underwear, for sure. We've been checking out the weather in Almaty on the one news station we can get, and it's downright balmy down there with highs in the upper 40's!

Maybe because we are so close to the Russian border I thought we would see more people of Russian ethnicity than we did in Almaty, but not necessarily so as there are lots of Kazakhs here. All the people here speak Russian, and the Kazakhs also speak the Kazakh language, which is harder. It's funny how we can form stereotypes, though. Even though I knew to expect it, I was still a little thrown off the first time I heard a Kazakh speaking Russian. When I see an Asian person back home, Russian is not the language I expect to hear coming out of his or her mouth! I also have to say that all the young women here are absolutely beautiful, thin, some quite tall, and very fashionable, wearing lots of fur-trimmed coats and hats and spiky high-heeled boots. With all the ice and snow around here, we're speculating that the stiletto-heeled boots help the ladies get a better foothold, maybe like an icepick would. Also, the young ladies tend to walk together arm-in-arm so as to keep each other from falling. Of course, if one falls, then they would probably all fall like dominoes.

It was another good visit today. When we came in he was being held by a nurse who we think dotes on him a lot, and she was looking outside the window with him and was whispering to him. I know she will really miss him once he leaves. Sean talked about coincidences yesterday, so here's another one. James has a Mongolian spot (blue-ish gray-colored birthmark) on his right shoulder. Well, I also have one, almost in the same place. The only difference is that my Mongolian spot is on the back of my right shoulder and James' is more in the front of his right shoulder. Today makes official visit #7, so we're halfway through with the required number of visits before we can petition to go to court!

Last night we walked over to Bob and Jodi Mechem's apartment which is just around the corner from us. We met up at the Viola store where they picked up food for dinner and we picked up a cake for dessert. The guys also picked up some more Kazakh beer. Bob got the Siberian Crown, and Sean calls one of the beers he picked up "Fajita number 3" because he couldn't read the label but said that was what it looked like. Both guys said they liked their beers. Of course, Jodi and I had to have our cherry juice and vodka cocktails (hmm...this is starting to become a regular thing with me). For dinner we had a salad with potato, carrots, peas, and of course, mayo. Dinner was a meat pie, of sorts, with some chicken, potatoes, and lots of onions in a very elaborate lattice-topped pie crust. It was pretty good. For dessert we had the cake you see below. While it was good, the flavors were not what we were expecting. It had several layers of what appeared to be graham cracker and pink-colored marshmallow creme. It had smooth chocolate icing on top and chopped almonds on the sides and was garnished with small, but whole almonds. Considering the graham cracker-like layers, the marshmallow creme and the chocolate icing, Sean has dubbed it "The S'mores Cake." As you can tell from the pictures above, it's all about the presentation. As far as the food here, everything we've tried so far has been pretty good, but we also try to keep an open mind. We're used to eating all different kinds of foods, anyway, seeing as we live in Houston and have friends from so many different ethnic backgrounds. By the way, we learned that today is National Vodka Day - cheers!

So, that's all for today's post. Tomorrow evening we have plans to go back to the Rainbow Cafe and have dinner with the other American families here. Should be fun!

Paka and love to all!