Since Alex arrived with ChrisD’s downloads for me, we have been ploughing through all the episodes of the series we enjoyed watching in Britain.
Given our previous track record, I can not imagine Lost lasting more than a week or two, and although Irina does not particularly like it, I do not think Prison Break will last much longer either.
When the two of us are watching TV, I feed the signal from the PC to our nice big TV, via a DVI>HDMI cable, but if I am working at the same time, and Irina is at work or out, I use the little monitor sat next to my main one here on the desk. Keeps me distracted enough to not notice how long it can take me to write some posts 🙂
Jul 08 2007
Lost & Prison Break
Jul 08 2007
Pedalo Photo
A few more photos before I go and grab some dinner.
This is Irina and Alex at the War Memorial here in Astana, just before we went on to the map of Kazakhstan I mentioned before. As I said before, you may well run across similar photos to these over at Alex’s blog, especially as some of these were taken on her camera. However, she will hopefully have a few more interesting words on the days we spent, and from a different perspective.
Here we have Ira and I (modelling one of Tom’s t-shirts) on a pedalo, with Alex taking the picture. We were on the river Ishim here in Astana, and after half an hour could almost steer the boat in the general direction we wanted to go. No one fell in the water, and we did not sink any other boats foolish enough to get in our way, so we had quite a good time. From here, we went on to a restaurant. More on that place later.
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Jul 08 2007
Map Of Kazakhstan
If you have already checked out the link I gave earlier for 3D models of the buildings around where Irina works, you may be interested in an attraction Alex, Ira and I visited last week – it is basically a model map of Kazakhstan you can walk around. You get an idea of where the different towns and regions are within this country, and there is also a covered section which ‘zooms’ in on the area of Astana covered by the Google satellite map I mentioned earlier.
Here we have a tired Ira and me carrying out some very important task on my phone. Or I could have just been playing a game, can’t remember.
That is Alex, standing by the aforementioned map of Astana itself.
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Jul 08 2007
Alex Safe & Sound
We have just received a text from Alex, of Dryad Musings fame, and she is back in Britain, on the coach back to Cheltenham. So no unexpected 24 hour delays in Kaliningrad this time, which is a huge relief. Early this morning, we saw her off at the airport (they did not seem to mind her 28 kilo suitcase, luckily), and it would appear that the cigarettes and vodka did not receive undue attention at the UK airport 😉
It was really good to see her again, as we last met at Christmas. Although it was sad to see her go, we will hopefully be meeting up once more this coming December, if all goes well. We may even be able to persuade Ira’s parents to come and visit England with us!
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Jul 08 2007
Astana Day 2007 #2
Here we have a shot of the stage in the daytime, to give you a better idea of how it looked on the day. In the background you can see the Presidential Palace.
That (under the yellow awning) is where the real VIPs (the President and his associates) sat for the evening festivities, though the concert itself was only accessible to those lucky enough to know someone who could get their hands on some tickets (big thanks to Ira’s Dad for sourcing them 🙂 ).
Again, the photo does not really do it justice, but there is a sample of the fireworks that were let off to celebrate the President’s birthday.
The last photo from that evening, here we have a photo of Alex taking a photo of the Baiterek Tower.
Jul 08 2007
Astana Day 2007 #1
Here is the first post on the evening we all spent out at a concert to celebrate the President’s birthday and also the day Kazakhstan celebrates it’s capital city, Astana. It has now been nine and a half years since it replaced Almaty as the capital city. The evening started off with a walk from the in-law’s house to the area where the Presidential palace is. Alex got her first real taste of the Kazakh system of non-queueing. Even though we were going to an area where only a few people had tickets to get into, so we could all sit and watch the concert, there was the usual crush, as dozens of people tried to get through the metal detector etc. We had a pregnant woman faint next to us, big fat blokes trying to squash everyone through a small gap between the policeman and barriers.
Anyway, enough of the typing, onto the photos…
This was spectacular, there were two people suspended from a crane, doing ballet type moves in time with the music. There were no harnesses or a safety net; unfortunately I missed grabbing a shot of when the woman was just holding on the man, without her own rope…
That is a shot of the stage, with one of the bands that played that night.
Finally (for this post at least), we have a shot of the laser show, although the camera does not really do it justice. I hope to upload a video of some of the Concert, including the Rio carnival!
Jul 08 2007
Alex On Her Way To Gatwick
As I type this post out, Alex should hopefully be on her way from Kaliningrad to Gatwick, after two weeks out here in Kazakhstan. When she gets back, she will hopefully be making a few more posts on her new blog (Dryad Musings). Although you may find a few of our pictures are duplicated, the actual content of the posts should be quite different, so please do not skip any of her future posts if the photos look the same 🙂
Once I have had a chance to catch up with a few things, I will try and write a little about what we actually did whilst she was here, and I have a couple of videos to edit and upload for posting later on.
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Jul 08 2007
Two Weeks Holiday At An End
Since Mid-April, I have been attempting to generate an income through blog advertising, and compared to a standard Kazakh wage for working at an office, for example, I am currently doing pretty well. As you may have already read here at this blog, the last couple of weeks we had Alex (from Britain) over to stay with us. She is now heading back home, so I shall be returning to ‘work’ and also hopefully writing a few more personal posts over the coming days. Thanks to those readers that have still been regularly checking back, I do appreciate your time…
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Jul 07 2007
Familiar Voices In A Strange Land
The other night, Alex, Ira and I went out for meal in a restaurant near the river. It was a lot busier than the last couple of times we had been there, and a few patrons seemed to have problems remaining perpendicular to the ground. Anyway, about half way through our meal, I swore I heard someone speaking in English, but I couldn’t make out the specific words. Searching around for the likely culprit, we noticed a table without any Kazakh looking people, and I kept an ear out for any words that wafted our way.
Eventually, I gave up being subtle, and just asked someone from their table if they were indeed English, when they passed us. Turns out it was an office outing, and indeed there were some English speakers there. If he ever happens to read this, I should probably apologise for the grilling we gave him on his life over here, it was just quite unusual to come across a fellow Brit 🙂
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Jul 06 2007
Alex’s New Blog – Dryad Musings
Alex has now setup her blog at her new domain – www.DryadMusings.com. When you get a moment, check it out, and if you happen to know anything about CSS, you could even leave her a message about sorting her Internet Explorer rendering issues.
You can find her post on the Birthday Celebrations in Astana , if you would like to find out a little bit more about what has been and will be happening to celebrate Astana’s 10 years as the capital of Kazakhstan and also the President’s birthday
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