Friday August 21, 2009

We woke up early in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 0630. Looking out the hotel window we had a great view of snow capped mountains. The hotel provided a complimentary breakfast. The breakfast consisted of hard boiled eggs, assorted breads, fruit and cheese. They also had something that looked like soup. I think several of our breakfast mates were Russians. We heard no English spoken.

After breakfast we got a map from the front desk and started walking around Almaty. The people at the desk highlighted several places that we should visit. The street names were in Russian letters and very hard to read. Our first stop was the Visitors Information Center but that was a disaster. No one spoke English. We then stopped at the big shopping mall. The mall was in a huge five story building. The store was empty until we got to the electronic section. That section was jammed with young folks buying cells phones and ipods.

Almaty has several nice parks and they seemed well maintained. We visited one big park that had a huge Russian Orthodox Church. The church had a big golden dome. We walked around Almaty getting a feel for Kazakhstan. I was surprised that in Almaty we saw few signs that we were in a Muslin country. We did see a lot of blond folk. I am assuming that they were Russians who had moved here during the Soviet era. Traffic was fairly disciplined and the cars looked to be of recent vintage. The streets were wide and tree lined. The police did not carry guns. We did note a lot of people smoking.

The exchange rate was $1 = 150 tenge. For dinner we ate at a sidewalk cafe. The meal ended up costing us $30. It was early to bed for Bob and Nancy because we had to get up at 0530 to catch our morning flight to Qyzylorda.

Ossineke, MI this date in 1938. GG noted that it was a cool Sunday. Ossineke beat Hubbard Lake 12 to 2 and there were 12 people at church. GG also noted that the self starter on his car burned out.