Day 5,6,7 - Touristy Stuff

Playing catch up because of the internet being down or 1/2 working since Sunday.

Sunday we spent the day doing touiristy things. We walked (David is saying..and walked and walked..lol) to the great Tsoom (how it is pronounced not spelled if you are looking for it, spelled with the Russian uym) department store/third floor anything you could want in Kazakhstan souvenirs store. When they say department store they mean bazaar in our terms I think (you know like a lot of booths with goods for sale). It was great, 1st floor mostly electronics, second floor any fancy name brand you can think of and of course the third floor of souvenirs (which is where we spent most of our time..lol). So to all of you back home, since I won't have time or probably the inclination to Christmas shop when we get home, we did your Christmas shopping here (now to get it all back home...lol).

Monday the Baby House was in "quarantine" as they call it and we did not get to visit long. We tried to go to the Central Museum but it was closed for cleaning of the exibits...maybe another day. So we went to Republic Square and put our hands in the hand print of the President of Kazakhstan, which according to tradition is supposed to bring you great riches and fame for the rest of your life.

Tuesday we had a great visit and mommy got to put him in his Texas outfit (because she is SICK of the red and yellow outfit of 6 days now). Ok upload is not working at 33.6 speed so I will try again later.

On a side note:
They thought we had a lot of luggage when we got here (they should have seen what we didn't pack...lol). Ok perhaps 4 check-ins (which turned into six when we left London because they have a different weight limit for carry ons than the US so the stroller bags had to be checked), two carry on stroller bags, the laptop stroller bag and a diaper bag stuffed to the brim may have been a little excessive. But in our defense two of the check-ins and one stroller bag were gifts for the orphanage and gifts for all the workers and our LMI staff here and William had a check-in plus the diaper bag all on his own. So in reality David and I only packed one check-in and one stoller bag for us...lol. Plus, you know we had to buy some duty free stuff in London and on the way to Alamty on the plane. You should have seen M's face when she saw it all. Luckily they know that we Americans bring a lot of luggage so they had a van to pick us up at the airport.



For anyone reading this and getting ready to come over, I will let you know a couple of things. One, peanut butter can be found in Almaty (even though we were told by several people it could not be). I found it at Silk Way. Two, if you are bringing new clothes for the Baby House donation or for your new child remember to cut the tags off of them and wash them. I did not know this and it got two of our bags searched by customs. This was the only thing we were questioned about by customs at the airport. They asked what the new clothes were for, we told them we were adopting and they seemed ok with that answer and let us go on our way. Then M tells us we should have taken the tags off the clothes (a little late then lol). But as my father-in-law told David, just play the dumb American who doesn't know any better, worked for us (thanks for the advice Dad, it has come in handy on more than one occasion). Talk to everyone soon, love you and miss you and William says hi.