Big News Today!!

Around 3pm today, we got a call from our Almaty coordinator Marina and she gave us perhaps the best news we have heard since our court decision. We get to come home on SATURDAY!!! Max’s visa will be here on Thursday and our passports should be here either Wednesday or Thursday. Marina set up our US Embassy appointment for Friday at 3pm and we are free to leave after that. We quickly emailed our travel agent Leanne to let her know (even though it was like 4am at the time) of our new departure date so she could make the necessary changes. We leave Almaty around 3am on Saturday morning (or Friday night if you prefer) and go to Frankfurt. Then we fly to Washington DC (instead of Chicago) and then on to Cincinnati. We should land around 7:15pm on Saturday night. THAT’S FOUR DAYS SOONER THAN WE HAD PLANNED!!! Obviously, we are excited beyond words.

Well, we did NOT get to go up into the mountains today because the rain never let up. So instead, Kate dropped us off at the MEGA-MALL, the largest mall in all of Kazakhstan. It was about three-quarters the size of Tri-County Mall in the Cincinnati area (I deferred to Jenny, our resident mall-expert on size estimates). It was a nice mall with lots of upscale clothing retailers and a food court that had familiar food (we chose Sbarro for lunch and Max had a hot dog from Starburger). We also made a visit to the PAMCTOP (that’s Ram-store) which is a large grocery store that had a LOT more selection of familiar brands than our nearby market. Leonid picked us up at 12:30 and we came back and hung out here in the apartment all day (did we mention the rain never let up?).

Laura Holland had asked in her comment if we knew where our apartment was located. As near as I can tell on Google Earth (I love me some Google Earth), we are about 2 blocks to the west and 2 blocks to the north of Panfilov Park. Near the corner of Panfilov St. and Makataev Mukagali St. Obviously, only a few of our readers are going to have any idea where these streets are, but we’ll try to get some photos up sometime soon. We have none to share today once again. Actually, we have a couple to share, but I cannot seem to locate the USB cord that connects to our camera, so I am unable to put them on the computer and cannot upload them to the blog. I could have sworn that I packed it, so it either fell out of the backpack or it is sitting on the desk in our Aktobe apartment. Anyway, the Zoom Store has a HUGE electronics department on the first floor, so I am going to look and see if I can get a replacement.

We are hoping to get to the mountains tomorrow if the weather cooperates. The forecast does not look too friendly, so we may be stuck inside all day again. Keep your fingers crossed for some sunshine! We would certainly like to see some of this beautiful city before we leave this weekend!