Weekend Activities

On Saturday we went to the baby house in the a.m and visited with the baby. We had to wait to get into the playroom because they were doing music/dance class with a couple of groups of toddlers. There was a man playing accordian and the kids were marching around the room. The outfit she's wearing at right is the one they had her in-you'll notice she had a wardrobe change in the other picture. Once we got into the room we were joined by a woman from Spain who is adopting a little girl. Apparently she was shown several different children before she finally found the little girl she wanted. (pics:Daddy's 'baltika' beer or peeva as they say here and a picture of Serik outside of the Tsum. One of these years we'll come to Kaz when the water is actually flowing not frozen) That evening we went to the Tsum to meet up with the Kieffers and their travel partners Gia and Ben from Kokshetau. We had dinner at Samovar (which by the way - the one by the Tsum is not half as good as the one by us) and then after dinner made our way in the dark, snowy, windy, cold to Respublika to grab dessert at the Sweet Fairy Tale Cafe. (Here is a pic of the Tsum and the 'wave' buildings that were being built last time we were here - they're right on the river) Crossing Respublika was a blast from two years ago and my days of frogger. There used to be a crosswalk where you could press the button to get across the craziness but that's gone. We crossed randomly and avoided traffic but the other two couples got stuck in the middle of the street - screaming/laughing -until they could get across. Some military police tried to say something to us after... found out that there is a cross walk that we somehow missed and you can now get fined for jaywalking - oops! Irina stayed with us both Friday and Saturday nights but has now found an apartment so we've got our house to ourselves again. Murat picked us up this a.m. (Sunday) and we went to the Peace Pyramid. It's designed to be a place where all the different religions can meet together peacefully. There's an opera house inside and a meeting area at the very top - where heads of various religions can convene in a circle. Before you get there you enter the lower area where you make a wish, take a slanted elevator up to the winter garden area where you walk up around the inside of the pyramid. There is foliage in there from around the world. Then you walk up long slanting stairs to get to the apex of the pyramid. The whole building is like a futuristic movie set sort of like a cross between Superman's Fortress of Solitude and Logan's Run. We had a tour guide who helped us out by giving us a tour in English. We were attempting to join in the group for Russian speakers but decided that even if it cost some money we wanted to hear about it all in English. This last shot is of the stained glass at the apex. Designed by a famous British Artist whose work is all over Cathedrals of Europe. Murat then picked us up and we went to buy Serik a pair of different gloves and grab lunch at the Eurasian Mall. It's cold and windy so that will probably be it for today. We might try to meet up with the Kokshetau crew later on before they leave early tomorrow a.m. Side notes: Sort of attempting to potty train Serik while we have a ton of time on our hands. So far it's resulted in his peeing on the floor. He's been cute when we snuggle he says 'follow me' and turns on his side which is his way of saying 'spoon me'. If it's I follow you then he wants us to spoon him. Cute kid. More later.

Outside of the Tsum and Leigh Ann hauling Serik after dinner Here are the crazys crossing the street :) Love the comments - we read them all!