49/52

"A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2014."

This week:

• last Monday we were still trying to sell our old minivan that nobody wanted to buy. Such a drag. We finally sold it but for much cheaper than hoped.
• Tuesday we had a whole day free before we left for the airport. It rained all day long which ruined some of our plans such as taking kids out to the playground to play. We did venture for a walk to the Sweet Frog frozen yogurt place but came home wet.
• our flight went surprisingly well. It was an overnight flight so the kids slept most of the time. We had only one lay over in Frankfurt and it was a quick one. The flight attendants were super nice but still we were happy to not be on the airplane anymore.
• the jet lag is a beast. Emma seems to be the only one who got over it after two days in Astana. Sonia wakes up at 3am every day and doesn't go back to bed till 9am. We take turns with Matt on who gets up with her. It seems she likes her new schedule and not going to change it anytime soon.
• we are staying at the temporary apartment for now and will be moved to the new place at the end of this month (or perhaps after all the holidays).
• Astana first impressions:
  1. it's flashy like Vegas.
  2. it's so very cold, windy and slippery.
  3. drivers are as crazy as everywhere else.
  4. it gets light at 8:45ish am and gets dark by 5ish pm.
  5. supermarkets are scarce and the produce sections are sad looking (especially coming from Bulgaria). The food overall is expensive and not as many choices as in Moscow or Bulgaria. We did find canned black beans but it was around 4 dollars a can. So yeah, getting used to that will be hard.
  6. there is no MacDonald's in Astana. My kids are devastated. I am too because that would have been an easy way out of making dinners.
  7. we went outside to take some pictures in front of the Bayterek tower. It took us 15 minutes to freeze to almost death and on the way back most of us were crying because of the cold. Needless to say we are not going out ever again until the snow melts. Which the Astana natives say is not going to happen until May.
• is it really just three weeks left of this 2014 year? I need to find a way to slow the time down.

Linking up with Jodi.