Day 13

It's Saturday which means no visit to the baby house. We are planning on going to pick up the girl's dresses this afternoon and should go back to the very nice souvenier store to see if they restocked anything yet! We will probably go to the airport to get Abby's ticket back to Almaty. She is leaving Tuesday :( This is my apartment building. It is hard to see the building through all of the trees. There are also roses in the front yard. They have sprinklers that are going off every morning, but the little bit of grass is pretty scraggly. It must be hard to grow much in this climate since it has the extreme hot in the summer and cold in the winter.

This is the sidewalk outside my apartment. It didn't show up well, but there are stairs about every 20 ft. Also each place does it's own sidewalk and the sidewalks between one building and the next are rarely at the same level so it is a lot of step up and step down. You really have to watch were you walk. These are some buildings in the area. The blue building is a restaurant, I think. It is newer and right next to an older building. Most of the buildings have small businesses on the 1st floor and then apartments above it. People keep the inside of their apartments nice, but rarely fix up the outside. This is due to the soviet influence where the government was responsible for fixing up the outside of the buildings. You can see the Coca Cola signs on the little store. Coke is everywhere. The Ramstore at the mall has many american foods. However they are now out of nacho Dorritos as Abby and I bought out their whole supply.

This is Madlen restaurant where we ate a few days ago. I can't remember if I posted it or not. Most of the restaurants have outside or inside seating. We ate outside. They also have a bakery here.

I am watching a Gilligan's Island marathon today. I have all 3 seasons. It has been several years since I watched any episodes of Gilligan's Island, but I watched it every day as a kid.