Finally, we're in Kazakhstan!!

Ok, it's now Monday morning and we head out of the apartment which by the way is above a beauty salon, and head to the adoption agency office here in Almaty to sign a bunch of paperwork etc. We then meet up with Patty, a single woman from NYC who is going to Kokshetau with us to adopt a little boy. We get done at the office and jump in our driver's van to the local mall, we get a couple bottles of water and grab a cheeseburger at the food court before we take off for the airport. Amy was VERY upset we did not have time to stop at Baskin-Robbins for ice cream all though she had to walk over and check it out while I got our burgers. She was a bit disappointed that she didn't see "World Class Chocolate" but then again she doesn't read Russian very well so who knows. I mean why would they call it "World" class chocolate if it is only available in the US?

Anyway, this brings us to probably the most interesting part of the trip so far, can I please see a show of hands of people who have every flown on a YAK 40? Anyone, Bueller, Bueller? I didn't think so. Anyway, check out the picture I snapped of the inside of this frigging tin can with a couple jet engines strapped to it!!! By the way, just for a reference point this picture was taken from my seat which was in the last row of the plane.


Also in the picture you can't make out the water that was dripping from out of the ceiling onto the passengers for a good portion of the flight. At least I hope it was water! Apparently the locals have a good method for making this flight more enjoyable, you bring a bag full of booze onboard and ask the flight attendant, yes Virginia there is actually a flight attendant on board this "flight". I'm not sure who she pissed off to draw this duty but she was there! Anyway, you ask the flight attendant to bring you up another bottle every so often and you pass shots around to the passengers in the seats near you. Unfortunately, we weren't sitting close enough to be included in the festivities.

This is also a fun flight in that you get to drag all your luggage out to the runway and haul it up a set of stairs and stow it in the luggage compartment. So after a very enjoyable 3 hours of 140 degree heat blasting me in the face until I thought I was going to either pass out or burst into flames, we landed in Kokshetau and got to drag our luggage back down the stairs into a wind chill that must have been in the negative 100,000s or so. There was even a nice snow drift on the runway that we had to pull our luggage through to get to the terminal.

Once inside the terminal we met our driver Oleg and interpreter Inna who helped us with our luggage the rest of the way into Oleg's van, then we had about a 20 minute ride into Kokshetau to the baby hospital and all the tribulations of the trip here were left behind as we were introduced to the cutest little thing you could ever imagine. We were actually holding the little girl that is to become our daughter, Megan Caroline.