My Trip Continued

(Good overseas internet tip - prewrite your blog entries on Word to save money
My flight from Amsterdam to Almaty was very good, of course it was, I was in first class. Score! The seats very awesome, I could completely recline, stretch my legs, etc. I met another young Kazak man on my flight, he sat next to me and was in his first year of college in Boston studying finance. I hear that Business & Finance are the jobs that pay over here. When he asked why I was flying to Aqtobe, I told him adoption and he was ecstatic. He said that it was so brave and good, he too wants to adopt some day from their orphanages. It sounded like his mom was somehow involved in the orphanages but I didn’t pry. We ate like kings, had a glass of Dutch wine with my supper (from the one grape vine they have in Holland as my Stuart mentioned.)  I just tried to sleep, which I wasn’t successful at. We then circled Almaty for nearly 2 hours and finally ended up landing. I guess that we were the first of 5 planes to actually land, 4 others were diverted to other airports to refuel and wait for the fog to clear; needless to say, this pushed back every flight out of Almaty too. I was supposed to catch the 7:45 flight to Aqtobe, but my flight didn’t even get in until after 8:00 so my Aqtobe flight was pushed back to 10:00, then 11:45, then 12:30 and finally we left Almaty around 2:30. Ugh! (Thus I now cannot visit the orphanage until Friday as today – Thursday – was a national day off.) There were no seats anywhere in the airport to be found, so Marina, my translator, and I hung out on the floor. We also walked next door to the hotel and grabbed some lunch, since the restaurants in the airport were plum full. We had porridge and an apricot pastry, it was very good! The porridge is similar to that that they serve in the orphanages Marina said, it is a rice porridge made with rice, milk, sugar and butter. Mmmm

I did end up flying Air Astana, not SCATT as I had feared (but I still had my Grandma’s Rosary handy Pamela ), airline to Aqtobe and it was again a pretty nice plane. I found myself once again trying to sleep, at times I awoke with my mouth open and a bit of saliva forming at the corners, man was I tired. ;) Once again we had to circle Aqtobe a time or two before landing as the weather was horrendous. Okay people, when I say horrendous, I mean unlike anything you have probably experienced before. I went to college in Grand Forks, North Dakota and we had underground tunnels from the dorms to class due to the cold winters, and it was way way worse in Aqtobe! Cold I tell you – possibly like Antarctica! I had been prepped that the airport was quite simple with dirt floors, but I am not sure anyone could have prepped me enough getting off this plane. First, they brought the stairway up to the plane, we carefully lugged our luggage down the icy staircase and loaded onto a bus. They then brought us to the ‘airport,’ I say this with quite a pause. Their ‘airport’ was no more than an ancient metal pole building with a dirt floor. No insulation, not even fully covered in metal, no reception desk or baggage claim, just an old metal building that we all piled into awaiting our luggage. It was as freezing as I have ever felt and I was not prepped to make sure I had my gloves and hat out for this plane ride, who knew that I would be nearly outside, in Antarctic type cold, the entire time! (Just learned over supper with a very nice Dutch man that the old airport was taken down and a new one is being built, so this is just a temporary building; I guess that it also has an inside area that we weren’t shown w/ a reception desk and chairs, no matter, it was still an old metal pole building and it was chilly. 

TIP #1 for upcoming Aqtobe families flying in the winter months: GET YOUR WARMEST COAT, COZY GLOVES AND FITTED HAT OUT AND READY FOR THE PLANE RIDE FROM ALMATY TO AQTOBE – THIS IS NEARLY AS IMPORTANT AS YOUR PASSPORT!

They then brought our luggage near the building, yes outside, and put it on wooden pallets (like those they bring your retaining wall block on, just wood pallets on the dirt ground) and we all (100-200 people) scrambled in the freezing blowing cold to find our bags and give our baggage ticket to the poor girl that had to check us each out (yes she was outside too without gloves.) I seriously thought that my fingers were going to break right off. It was that cold! We then piled into Ceric’s mini-van and headed off to my hotel. I must mention that Ceric’s van is a very nice newer mini-van, not all that scary.

My hotel is called the Amsterdam and I think it is where the business people stay as it is remarkable. I would have to say that I scored here compared to all of the stories that I have heard of other apartments and hotels.

TIP #2 for all upcoming Aqtobe families: STAY HERE! IF YOU WANT A HOTEL VERSUS AN APARTMENT, THIS IS THE PLACE TO STAY. IT IS A BIT MORE THAN THE OTHER HOTELS, ABOUT $10 MORE A NIGHT, AND ABOUT $35 MORE A NIGHT THAN THE APARTMENTS, BUT I WOULD HAVE TO THINK THAT IT IS TOTALLY WORTH IT!

This hotel is absolutely spotless and fairly new. I will take some exterior photos tomorrow, but I am including photos of my room on this post. Great things so far about the Hotel Amsterdam:
*Clean! – Beds are new and clean, sheets are clean (fairly hard bed but good)
*The bathroom is fully tiled and brand new, nice tub – clean with a drain stopper , they have all towels needed for me – hand towel, face towel, rug towel & full length body towel, they even have a robe for me, the toilet is nice & clean & flushes well, plus…….they have a built-in blow dryer for me! (I say this as if they don’t have them in any of the other rooms here, just mine, all put here just for ME. )
*There is air conditioning in this room (Huge Bonus from what I hear – great to know for Summer Aqtobe families) + there is also a supplement heater just in case the government decides to shut off heat.
*I have a small fridge.
*Desk area with a chair for computer work.
*Armoire for my hang up clothes and a side compartment for folded clothes, with a full length mirror.
*I have internet access, via dial up, in my room. ($5.00 an hour)
*Continental Breakfast is included.
*My TV. has nearly 80 channels including several music channels (some are English at times and switch to Russian at times), fashion & home improvement (Russian). What more does a girl need?  Most of the channels are in Russian but why not submerse myself in it right!!