Our Escape from the Everyday

Hi everyone! Sorry I didn't get a chance to blog before I sacked out last night. I thought I'd do 2 posts today to make up for it. For anyone who has been wondering what Kazakhstan is like outside of Astana, I have one word for you. That word is Texas. Yup, just like middle-of-nowhere-Texas, there is a lot of wide open space with short brown grass and shrub brush. And that's about it until you drive for maybe 2 hours north and then it turns into waist high brown grass (or maybe it was kasha?). Then you go another hour and it becomes waist high green grass with random pine trees thrown in so maybe we're nearing Nebraska-like vegetation now? I don't know since I've never been there but I am just guessing. Then when you have finally driven about 3 and a half hours, you finally have pine forests, windy roads, and hill/mountains. And there has only been one single village along this highway until you near the lake. The lake, Lake Balasomething, is at the foot of one of these mountains and I have to say it was really honestly beautiful. The mountains are not high but they rise out of the middle of the steppe like Kilimanjaro out of the African grasslands- like God dropped them there by mistake when he was creating the topography of the world and said "Oh well, they can have a few mountains I guess. I'll leave 'em." So we drove around for a while exploring some beautiful monuments (they love their monuments and statues here) and meandering around in the forest. We stopped off at this one monument and there was a hawk there that you could pay 200 tenge to have your photo taken holding it on your arm. I'll give you one guess as to who insisted on doing it- that's right, my Kazakh warrior of a husband Peter. That's him you see above of course. We also went for a chilly swim in the murky lake water with about a million Kazakh children. No matter where we go, we get stared at. Especially when they hear us talk. And, as we found out yesterday, especially, when we are walking around in our bathing suits. Although I don't know why they would be staring at us when there were so many fat men in speedos. That's who we were staring at. Peter, however, refused to swim and instead he got a paddle boat for Gulsanna and himself and they paddled around harassing the three of us in the water (the crazy Michigan couple and me). Baheet spent her time up at the restaurant and we joined her after changing back into our clothes. I don't know what she was doing while we swam but I'm guessing there was piva involved however because she slept most of the four hours home. That is when we weren't stopping at the side of the road in search of roadside farm potatoes. Apparently they are better than city potatoes. Oh, and she also bought some dried fish to munch on the way home. And as we drove (and drove and drove) home, we were treated to the kind of sunset that they only have in places where the sky goes on forever. It slowly sank lower and turned an amazing fire-y red just about the time our trip was done. All in all, a really nice day. Check for another post later today- we don't have visitation until 6pm because of some kind of inspection. And check out photos of the lake below. -m