OK, she actually got back on Monday, but we have been busy today sorting a new PC for her mum. Anyway, her trip to London seemed to go well, and in just 3.5 days, we will all be heading back to Heathrow again. Whilst she was away, I met up with David, his wife, and another Chris. David and Chris work for a western company here in Astana, and should be here for a while. Anyway, more on that later on. It is really good to have Ira back in my arms again

Or should that be Aussie?
Anyway, I have just got back from a enjoyable evening at Chelsea, here in Astana. Chris, the other Brit has been here for just under a year, and David (see previous posts that I’m too lazy to find and link to right now) has just moved to Astana this week, coming from Moscow, via Almaty. Had a few to drink, and a little to eat, and hopefully meeting up with both of them tomorrow evening. Anyway, had a good night, and too lazy too type out a proper review of the meal this evening, so, to loyal readers, please forgive me this minor transgression. To those that have just happened upon this site, I promise I am normally capable of typing out slightly more coherent posts. If you are really desperate for details on this bar/restaurant, I’d recommend you simply search for Chelsea on this blog.

Ira will be driven to Astana airport, where she will fly to London, via Austria, for a meeting KMG has. The kittens have enough food in the cupboard, there is juice and water, the bills have been paid, and I’ve promised to not set fire to anything. Fingers crossed, all will be well
Seriously, although my dearly beloved will be away, I have enough work to do, to keep me occupied, and I’ll be meeting up with David and another Chris this Friday, as David has arrived in Astana. (I say that, but the last I heard, his flight from Almaty was delayed. On a positive note, it turns out Almaty airport has free wi-fi available, so at least I know for the future that I can distract myself next time we fly through there.)
I hope Ira has a safe journey, a not too stressful time in London, a safe return, and that I manage to keep the flat in some semblance of tidiness…

My thanks to David (I really need to confirm if he is a David or a Dave at some point), who is a nice man from Australia who has a Russian wife. He is moving to Astana, and has so far made it to Almaty, with his Astana arrival due this week. Hopefully more on him to come in the future, but for now, check out a site he passed on to me - The Daily Mash, which seems to take current news, and create a spoof story from it. The quality seems to be of a consistently higher level than the similarly themed The Onion site. Anyway, check out this “London Bomb ‘Not Scary Enough’, Brown Tells Mi5” article as an example.

Prior to a company releasing a new or revised product to the general public, they normally carry out some market research to ensure they have estimated the marketplace’s wants and needs, as well as discovering what sort of price range they should release the product with. Although I do not know much about the situation here in Astana, I do know that Almaty has a good company for such activities; a friend of ours worked for them, and ran quite a few sessions.

During the last month or so, I have been contacted by a number of people, all related to Kazakhstan strangely enough. First we had someone who has built a plane and called it Berkut (which is also the name of a vodka over here), an English guy moving to Astana who wanted some more information about satellite TV and supermarkets, an Australian guy who is moving here in December, with his Russian wife, and finally an Indian (apologies if incorrect, his surname sounds Hindu to me) architect, living in New York who designed the local Cinema City complex (he wanted some photos of it, as his current ones weren’t too good).
I’m hopefully passing the vodka on to an American friend, so the plane builder can celebrate the flight with a suitably named drink, we’re looking forward to meeting some new faces here in Astana at some point, and the architect has been put in touch with Tom, who has better camera skills than me, so should have some better shots than those captured last night at Tiflis.
Anyway, they all made contact through finding this blog, so a big thanks to the search engines out there who are spidering away

I have started reading an (English language) book Irina recently bought, that is on the country of Kazakhstan. It stated that nearly all Kazakhs can ride a horse, but to be honest, I think if you remember to include Astana and Almaty in the statistics, I’d be surprised if most citizens here are actually able to ride one, let alone own any horse riding apparel. There are a few other interesting opinions stated in it, but I’ll hang fire on posting them until I’ve finished the book.

OK, so I missed Blog Action Day, however, their quiz is still up, and after catching up with Stargazer’s latest batch of posts, I came across the aforementioned ‘What Kind Of Blogger Are You?’ quiz. The result was as follows…

Whilst I do use this blog to create an income for myself here in Kazakhstan, it was originally setup purely to let friends and family back in Britain know what was going on, as I got bored of sending e-mails. Then I started to realise there was not really a lot of information on Kazakhstan itself in the blogosphere§ from a Westerners point of view. This side of the blog led to me making some friends, both here in Kazakhstan, and also from people e-mailing me, wanting to know more. I’ll not post too much info on the latest two, as I have yet to meet them in the real world, and don’t want to assume they are happy with being publicised, but one Aussie and a Brit have made in the last fortnight, both of whom will be moving to Astana soon.

Anyway, I’m happy with this site for now, and hope that my regular readers will continue to grace this blog with their presence. To the new readers, a big ?????? and I hope you find enough to keep you coming back for more. If you do not want to wade through all the pages in one go, feel free to simply click on a category (in the left hand column) that interests you the most.

§ Before anyone throws rotten fruit at me for using that term, I’ve just checked, and that is only the 3rd time the word has been used on this site in over a year

It looks as though we may one day get a car after all. As you will know if you have read any of the older posts within the Kazakh Driving section at this blog, I don’t really relish the idea of driving in this country, and certainly not on a regular basis. However, with walking to work each morning, I am beginning to see how a car would make life a lot easier, especially if I did not go driving through rush hour or through some of the nightmare junctions they have in other parts of Astana. One issue when considering which car to get is the make - you need to make sure you can easily obtain spare parts, and that mechanics are experienced with a brand before purchasing. Although I doubt we will ever go as far as some drivers in Almaty, donning their cars in a lot of Chrysler 300 accessories. The final question is the gearbox - Irina wants an automatic (changing gear was never her forte…), whereas I have always used a manual, and worry about the perceived lack of control an automatic would incur.

So, following on from the previous Amsterdam post, onto the trip itself…
I left for Astana airport around 6am on the 21st September, feeling happy that I would be meeting up with two friends very soon, going back to a city I enjoy for many reasons, but also sad as I would be apart from Irina for the longest amount of time since we first met! The first section of the journey went well, with no problems from Kazakhstan’s sometimes over-eager airport officials. One small hitch was my inability to make outgoing voice calls once I had got to the departure gate - this had happened before though, so I didn’t worry too much, and just texted Ira asking her to call me, so I could confirm all was OK thus far. Having only had 2.5 hours sleep, I was a little tired, but there was no chance I would drop off before I got on the plane.
Once I arrived in Kaliningrad, (where Alex flew through on her recent trip to see us), the whole plane had to go in reverse through the normal procedures for leaving the airport. We left the plane and entered the terminal through a departure exit. There appeared to be three cleaners operating an x-ray machine, which looked a little odd, and some of the people in the queue ahead of me were already loudly grumbling (in Russian and Kazakh) about something or other. It turns out the cleaners security staff were not allowing any bottles of liquid larger than 100ml INTO the building. Had this been on the way out, with us ALL heading to a European country, I could understand the confiscation of large bottles of liquids. However, this was to get into the building, and the staff appeared to be concentrating on alcohol, much of which had been purchased by my fellow passengers in Astana’s duty free shop. Suffice to say separating a Russian or Kazakh from their spirits is never the easiest of tasks, however the x-rayers ploughed on, dumping all the bottles into a washing up bowl or three on the floor.
When it came to my turn, a stout lady loudly informed me there were several problems with my hand luggage, at least their x-ray machine told them. I decided to play it even dumber than in reality, and pronounced very slowly (& even more incorrectly than normal), that I could not speak Russian. She attempted to say the same thing again louder, to which I smiled, and started pulling random things from my bag. She gave up and put the bag through the x-ray machine again, and started squawking about a problem again. I decided that as I had no liquids in there, other than a nearly empty spray deodorant that I did not pose too great a security risk. After several more ‘helpful’ suggestions from myself (pulling out my books one by one, followed by the spare set of clothing, each time offering them to her), she eyed the queue behind me, and pointed me away from the security station. I gladly obliged, and took the opportunity to grab a cigarette by a bin that several other people had congregated around. There was a no smoking sign, but as everyone else was taking the opportunity for a nicotine fix where there were no cameras, and the staff were too busy to give a damn, I joined in. During the course of what I thought might be my last cigarette until I had cleared passport control in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, I observed the passengers who had had their booze nicked (various conspiracy rumours had already been started, mainly revolving around the possibility that the cleaners/security staff were having a party that evening and wanted to save their budget for other items) wait until the staff were busy arguing with the next incensed passenger, and then calmly walk up to the confiscated goods, and retrieve their own bottles. Most managed to get away in time, a few were stopped, shouted at, and a few just stood and argued until the staff gave up.
Anyway we proceeded up the stairs, into a departure lounge where we showed our tickets (for the flight we had just been on!) and passports, and waited for the plane full of passengers (minus those who actually finished their journey in Kaliningrad and so left the airport immediately) to get past the initial security checks downstairs. At this point we could see the main airport area, with its large screen with flight info on, a smoking area (ooops, I now know for the future), and a few shops. Those who wanted to buy a coffee (or even a duty free bottle of alcohol!) were allowed out of the departure (masquerading as an arrival) lounge, as long as they left their passport with the security staff present in this room. Around 30 minutes later we were all together again, and I had noted a few foreigners speaking German (it is good to know who to turn to if you really need some assistance with officials whose language you are not completely au fait with). We then presented tickets for our next flights to someone sat at a computer terminal. As this was a departure lounge, and we were arriving, the room layout meant we all had to file past her whilst looking at the screen ourselves, with the lady needing to swivel round her chair away from her computer to face us each time she needed some info. Having got past this stage, there was a three person posse waiting at the exit/entrance to the departure terminal (we were almost at the point of syncing our direction with the rest of the inhabitants of this airport by this point.) These new people each took a turn to check each person’s passports, old and new plane tickets and then allowed us in….
More to follow soon