Jun 12 2010

QBP Videos

Category: Friends,Kazakhstan,VideosChrisM @ 2:41 am

So, as I mentioned in a tweet, Irina and I were invited to the Queen’s Birthday Party (organised by the British Embassy) on the 10th of June at the Radisson Hotel here in Astana. This was the first QBP since the new ambassador here in Kazakhstan took over.

A short summary would be no speeches (apparently the correct tradition for celebrating HRH’s birthday), a good local band that played a wide variety of covers, free good food (fish and chips in cones again, as well as a buffet (curries, beef kebabs, potato wedges 🙂 ) and free drink. I’ll leave the details of my mishap on the way home until another day.

The following videos were supposed to be uploaded on the night, but I was too drunk TBH. They were then supposed to be transferred via Qik, but once again the program got very tempremental. So, I reverted to YouTube.

I’ve not yet had a chance to actually watch all the videos, but I wanted to post these up tonight, as I’m away from the PC tomorrow for half the day, then giving a lesson and running an English Talking club in the afternoon and evening, then hopefully off to watch the England vs. USA football match during the night.
So it was now or at some random point in the future for embedding these clips.

Oh, and Irina took some proper photos with a real camera, so I’ll try ad post those up soon as well.

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Jun 12 2009

no photos this evening, sorry….

Category: TweetsChrisM @ 7:54 pm

no photos this evening, sorry. ambassador have his speech, then the Kazakh deputy foreign minister. a LOT more people here this year.

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Aug 10 2007

BG Charity Event – Part #2

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 6:07 am

Rather than relying on my alcohol fuzzed mind to recall the events of the evening, I actually made notes on my phone as the evening carried on, so I am hoping most of this is relatively accurate.
As I previously mentioned, we arrived and found ourselves a table. After quite a long wait, we eventually managed to order drinks and our meal. Being the incredibly adventurous soul I am, my order consisted of steak and sauce. Ira eventually decided to have the same, and we both ordered them to be medium. When the meat arrived, I am pretty sure it had stopped moving, but beyond that, it definitely seemed to be on the bloody side of rare, rather than medium, but they were tasty, so no real complaints there. Whilst the MC announced what was going on, and various videos were played, people came around selling raffle tickets; this was after all a charity event, not just a meal out. More on the prizes later. Towards the beginning of the night, there were a couple of young ballroom dancers swirling their stuff on the dance floor, though we were sat behind a column that blocked the view. Probably for the best, as the young lady did seem to distract quite a few of the men around me who did have a better view!
The British ambassador was in attendance, as was someone Irina and I had previously met at the Tex/Mex/Argentinian/Italian restaurant a few months back, who is apparently quite important within British Gas’ Kazakh arm.
Anyway, at this point I need to decipher exactly what I thought I was typing on my phone, so there will be more to come later, including Mira’s language deal with me, and her entrance to a dancing competition!

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