Wednesday at 5:40pm we leave the flat for the train. A very stressful departure as Lynne described, we just didn’t have enough time after Milan’s arrival (I’m making the name change official in all of my communications). As soon as he got to the flat, it was basically time for us to leave. It was really hard for Jaden, but we got to the train, and he was very happy and surprised to be met by his friend Ruston at the station. Ruston is a great kid, and we really hope to be able to have him visit us for an exchange program when he is in high school. Anyway, as the train pulls away from Arkalyk, Jaden is crying saying “bye Arkalyk” and I think he’s crying because he’s sad about leaving his mom, but it’s also that he is going to miss Arkalyk and he’s sad to leave. I didn’t have the heart to question him about this, wondering what does he possibly think he will miss about Arkalyk where his only playground was the glass strewn rocky, muddy, 20 yard by 20 yard area in front of our flat where he would play soccer or monkey in the middle with some of the kids in the neighborhood? He feels like he made “lots of friends” which is a big part of it, but in reality there were only two kids that he spent more then cursory time with (Zhana’s son’s Darchon and Ruston) – it’s really interesting the perspective he has of his time there versus the reality, at least from my vantage point. By 6:30 on the train, we’re out of town and into the endless Steppe of Kazakhstan, and Jaden is fine, ready to play games with the friend he spent most of his time with in Arkalyk, me.
This train ride was so much easier than the first one. The main reason is that we were in the right time zone, so when the sun set, we watched a movie on my laptop (Robots – for all you parents out there, if your kids haven’t seen this one, its one of the best kids movies I’ve ever seen and Jaden thinks it’s hilarious). After the movie we went to sleep, and Jaden didn’t wake up until about 8:00am, so a full night’s sleep versus the 3-4 hours we got on the train ride in. We arrived in Astana at 10am. Our flight to Almaty was at 3:40pm, so we had a lot of time to kill, which was a common theme on the journey. Our Astana coordinator took us to the downtown area and we visited a few sites and had a nice outdoor picnic lunch of the tuna sandwiches we packed.
Astana is a really interesting story. The President of Kazakhstan decided about 10 years ago or so to change the capital of the country from Almaty (the only real city in the country at the time) to Astana to create a second major metropolitan area. So Astana is this completely planned city with an incredible amount of new development going on. Everything has been built in the last 5 years, including a world class international airport that is two years old, a new Presidential residence (the building with the dome structure) that is used to meet world leaders (because the President and most of the politicians still choose to live in Almaty), new office buildings (the gold structures are two examples), deluxe condos, new 
buildings forthe Ministries of Education, Transportation, Health and so on and so on. We went up the big tourist attraction, which is a tower that is the highest building in the city specifically built to provide the view of the city, and from there we could see the old, the new, and the future (on the diagram showing the completely planned city that will be complete in another 5 years). There is a ton of money flowing into Astana, mostly fueled by the fact that Kazakhstan is sitting on a huge supply of oil and they are starting to realize the economic benefits. So anyway, we then head to the airport and get there around 1pm for our 3:40 flight. Enough time for me to drill through all possible options to get Milan home with the Lufthansa office at the airport. There are much better fares available from there then trying to book him from home, so that was time really well spent, and it gave me some ideas to change Lynne’s flight as well to save her from the multiple connections we were about to endure.
Departure from Astana at 3:40pm, arrival in Almaty at 5pm where we are met by Ugin, an elderly coordinator (actually the father of the main Almaty coordinator). Ugin tells me he speaks English fine, and his English isn’t bad, but is still the typical “yes” to a lot of questions he really doesn’t understand, so I was never quite sure what the answers to my questions were. Ten hours to kill. Ugin is prepared to take us on a tour of the city. Almaty is a real city, over 2 million people in the metro area, and as Ugin says, still “really the capital of Kazakhstan”. We drive through the city, and there is a lot of traffic, and not a lot of “scenery”. Since I’ve heard that the city is surrounded by beautiful mountains (can’t see them today as it’s overcast and foggy) I suggest we take a drive up as I’ve read they’re only about a half hour away (turns out, that is without the traffic). It took Ugin awhile to figure out what I meant, but he finally got it and we headed up towards the mountains, where the famous skating rink is, and beyond that the ski area, which has over 3000 feet of vertical and over 600 inches of snow per year! Driving up towards the mountains we go by the most beautiful area I’ve seen in the country so far, with mansions behind gates on both sides of the road for about 3-5 miles, some really attractive looking houses in wooded areas. Then we went through a gate ($2.00 entry fee) into the park area of the mountains. Our destination was this famous skating rink that I had read about, I thought it was indoors, it wasn’t, it’s a huge outdoor stadium with a speed skating oval. I can’t imagine how cold it is there in the middle of the winter, sitting in the stands watching the “excitement” of long track speed skating in sub zero temperatures. I have to assume there’s a lot of vodk
a being used for heating purposes. By now we can see 14,000 foot peaks and it is really beautiful, definitely worth the ride. It didn’t make sense to go further up the hill to where the ski area was. Not skiing in Kaz is one of my few regrets from the trip, although we had our chance 2 months ago.Almaty strikes me as a modern and hip city, a part of Kazakhstan that is more like the western world, while I think it remains foreign to a lot of the rest of the country. Most people in Arkalyk haven’t been to Almaty, and I think most of them would be shocked at the traffic, the pace, the variety. The difference is really striking to me as I think about the many people in Arkalyk who have never ventured out of that very small city/town.
Now we arrive at Almaty airport at 10pm, 6 hours before flight time. Somehow Ugin finds this room that is titled “for women and children”. This room has a women caretaker and about 5 cots and a sleeper sofa and private bathroom. It is specifically reserved for women and their children who are waiting for departure. The room is empty and Ugin convinces the caretaker to let us stay there. She agrees but says she’ll have to lock us in so no one knows we’re there. She’ll be back to wake us up at 12:45am. I wonder what I do if she doesn’t come back. First of all, I don’t have an alarm clock, so will I get up, and then, if I do, and I’m locked in, will I just break down the door? Hmmm. This is a clean and private room, so much better than our expectation of crashing on airport chairs for these hours, definitely my biggest concern for the whole trip. This is a complimentary service of the airport, but Ugin tells me he told the caretaker we would give her some $, which I expected of course. He says to give her 200-300 KZT (about $2.). I only had one KZT bill left, it was a 1000, which is about $8, plus about $3 in coins. So when we left (she showed up as promised), I gave her the rest of my Kaz money. She insisted I shouldn’t give her any money, but I would have no more use for this currency, most likely for the rest of my life and I was happy to “tip” her an amount that was probably about a day’s pay for her. Waking up Jaden was really hard. He only had 2 hours of sleep and he didn’t want to wake up. At 75 pounds he’s now too big to carry and I still have all of our luggage at this point, so I force him to get up and he’s definitely not happy. He’s crying and just on the edge of control. I get him through check-in and to the gate, and now we have about an hour and a half until our flight, so we find a good row of seats where he can lay down until its time to board. Again I have to wake him up, which he’s not happy about, but he gets on the plane and quickly falls back asleep.
We leave Almaty at 3:40am headed for Frankfurt (7.5 hour flight). We land in Frankfurt at 7am or so and have 2 hours until our flight to London. Jaden is doing fine now, we both slept almost the entire flight. Our flight to London leaves on time and we arrive in London at 9am. Now we have our next layover, as we don’t leave London until 3pm. After going back and forth, we decide, yes, let’s take the airport express train (15 minutes) to downtown London and spend the time checking out the city. I’ve never been to London and was really interested to at least see the city. Jaden was psyched for his second double decker bus tour in Europe (first one was in Berlin in early March). This was a great decision, so much better than sitting at the airport. But good thing everyone spoke English as we needed some help navigating the tube (underground trains) to get to where we wanted to be for a bus tour. We saw some of the sites and then the guide said we could hop off the bus and catch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, so 
I decided that we should check out this thing I’ve always heard about. That was a cool experience, although we were too late to get the best viewing areas near the gate and 75 pounds on my shoulders was rough. At this point, hunger is setting in for Jaden and the clock is ticking towards our required departure time back to the airport. We hop back on a bus and get off for a transfer to the train station and a quick lunch. A minute later I ask Jaden where his back pack is? Oh no, it’s gone! This back pack has all of his activities for the flights, but more importantly his stuffed Cow and Mickey that Jaden has slept with since he was 2 and 4 respectively. Of course he is freaking out. To make a long story short, the bus company – “The Big Bus Company” – had a great staff, and they were able to recover the backpack. It killed the last hour of our tour, but we got the pack and had a fast food lunch and made it back to the airport without having to stress too much.
On the flight from London to Chicago Jaden watched the same movie twice and I watched a few good movies. I got almost no sleep and Jaden didn’t fall asleep until about 4 hours into the 7 hour flight. So when we land in Chicago he doesn’t want to wake up. I mean literally, he won’t wake up. We’re the last ones on the plane and he’s screaming and crying and telling me I’m the meanest daddy in the whole world for making him get up. I finally get him off the plane and we have to go through passport control and customs. He’s still out of control, hitting me and crying loudly, that looks great for the passport officers, why is this kid screaming at you? Please Jaden, please, calm down. We get through. A dear old friend of mine who lives in Chicago is planning to greet us at the airport as we have another 2 hour layover. Larry and his daughter Jessie bring Jaden’s requested bagels for us, our first “American food” in two months. But Jaden isn’t ready for people. He is dead tired, and sleeps through most of the brief meeting. Now of course, I have to wake him up again. This time, Larry offers to carry the back packs and I carry Jaden. After a few minutes, Jaden wakes up enough so he can walk through the airport to our departure gate. He’s asleep before takeoff and wakes up 5 minutes from DIA. We land at 9:30 where Lynne’s sister and her family (Jaden’s cousins) are there to pick us up, what a wonderful sight seeing Hilary at the baggage claim area! I figure Jaden will sleep on the way home and be in bed by 11pm, so maybe the time change transition won’t be too bad. But no, once in the car, Jaden starts talking to his cousin Bailey and they talk all the way home to Boulder. After calling Lynne, we have breakfast at midnight (noon Kaz time) and Jaden is wide awake. I’m ready to crash, so I do. I don’t know what time Jaden falls asleep, but its 5:30pm on Saturday and he hasn’t awakened yet. So the next few days will be very interesting as Jaden will be on Kaz time, but I’m feeling fairly adjusted to Colorado time.
It is so nice to be home, but so bittersweet. Having Lynne and Milan back in Arkalyk is really hard for both of us. Its not home here yet in the true sense of the word. That will be in early June, until then, we’ll be more than happy to be here, but we’ll be longing to have our whole family, our new family together, here, in beautiful Boulder, Colorado.
Peace,
Bruce
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