More Travel Woes

LM just keeps getting bigger and more fun each day. We went outside today and some of the “big kids” were a little more brave about coming over to us today. Several of them are very interested in LM. One of the boys played ball with me and LM and a couple of the girls came over to touch him. It’s hard to be outside with all these kids, most of whom are not able to be adopted, and want to play with them and give them attention. They get shooed away by the caretakers if they spend too much time with us so we have to walk a fine line between playing with them and playing with them too much.

On the way back from the Baby House today we gave one of the Drs. a ride to the children’s hospital with one of the babies. It reminded me a bit of being in Philly in University City – a couple of hospitals complete with the food carts lined up outside. We also got to see the hospital where LM was born.

Our experience here has been very good, and LM is a great little boy and we’ll miss him when we leave, but it’s a long trip and we are really ready to come home. We miss Tim and he misses us and I’m sure, as much as my parents enjoy Tim, it’s nice to get back to your own life and be in your own house (we can sure relate to that!). It would also be helpful to get back to work and earn a living, too. We’ve been emailing our travel agent for 2 days to get our plane tickets changed from the 25th to whatever is the next flight we can get home. Well, we found out today that the “Out of Office” message is apparently an unknown concept to Golden Rule Travel. We finally called today to find out that our agent is out of the office this week, but could he call us Monday. Let’s see – we’re calling from Kazakhstan, so, NO! The person that answered the phone was able to help us, but it turns out that the flights on the 28th and 30th are both booked. Now, maybe they would still have been booked 2 days ago, but it would have been nice to know then. They are still trying to get us on the flight on the 28th so we’ll see what happens. Otherwise, we’ll be here for an entire week after court. At that point, we’d have to turn around and come back 2 weeks later – definitely not cost-effective, but we’re not about to leave Tim for that much longer. It’s nice to visit LM, but it’s only 2 hours a day and we won’t have seen our other son for 6 weeks. OK – enough venting. It is what it is and maybe it will still work out that we get on the flight on the 28th.

We had a nice dinner with the couple from Jacksonville (before we found out about the travel situation). We discovered more coincidences – James also works in the aerospace industry like Mike.

In response to a question from yesterday regarding taxis and people walking in Astana - There are lots of taxis and buses in Astana and also lots of "unofficial" taxis. You see lots of people standing by the side of the road with their hand out. A car pulls over and then the person negotiates with the driver for the fee. There are also lots of cars in Astana, but driving here will be the topic of another blog. I'd say, the city is probably NOT full of health nuts - our translater and coordinator had a good chuckle when they heard we took a 4 hour walk to Eurasia one day. One other thing we've both commented on, despite the number of people who seem to do at least some grocery shopping each day and having to haul home 5L bottles of water, we have not seen a single metal cart like you would in a city in the States. Everyone carries things in bags - sometimes the bags are so big that 2 people carry it together.

That’s about it from here today. Say a few extra prayers that we get on the flight from Kaz on the 28th. Even if we do, we won’t be able to get all the way back to the States on the 28th, but if we can get to London, we’ll have a lot more flight options home on the 29th.