Where Golden Eagles Roam

This day was our return-to-Astana day. Bur first, hotel breakfast featuring BACON. Holland being super cute at the airport. Holland was MUCH better behaved on these return flights. Only the occasional hunger squeak. Although I had planned on reading the NYT, my neighbor struck up conversation with me and we discussed topics ranging from sports (he was jealous that I had wrestled with Randy Couture) to Kazakhstan's imports/exports. He works for a Dutch oil/gas company, but I had a hunch that he was putting out feelers for his next job. After we parted, my parents asked if I'd invited him to English Club. Augh, no! But I told him that I went to the same church as Stephen R. Covey, so maybe that'll go somewhere.

Good morning from Akatau! Ok, so most of my comments on the bleakness of the city were premature. After walking all over the city, my impressions changed. Downtown is in the center (north). Holland practicing standing. Whitney arranged a walking tour up through town, so we strapped babers onto the front pack and took off.  Not much of an official sidewalk existed, so we meandered on the locals' path. A positive note of walking is getting to really take in the localities. Here we watched kids playing puppyball. And here we see a desolate-looking playground. In truth, we'd seen many kids playing there (and some wrestling/fighting) the previous night. Whitney scheduled our first stop to be.... a big ship monument! We don't really know the significance, except that maybe it's the symbol of the city. One remarkable thing about Aktau is the many roses! I was really impressed with the many rose bushes we saw in public areas, as well as the streets lined...

This morning we headed to Aktau, which is on the Caspian Sea... Basically the purpose was to put our feet in that body of water. Secondary objective was to see a city off the beaten path. Apparently it is so not-a-destination city that when my parents told Kazakh friends of our plans to visit, they'd say "Oh.... why?" I've been told that the city mainly exists to serve the oil and gas industry, and as a jumping off point to visit Islamic pilgrimage sites ("bring a live goat for an offering, leave the next day with leftovers."). Based on guidebook descriptions, it's a pretty bleak city where a Ukrainian poet was sent in exile. Sounds delightful. Holland slept well on the first leg to some totally remote, tiny layover airport. The next flight..... she wasn't so happy. As our plane prepared for landing, we looked down and saw lumpy creatures gleaning the desert. Are those.... camels?? Our drive from the airport confirmed our worst fear...

The weather has been very temperamental. Yesterday we sweated and risked sun burn, and on Sunday we had snow. Church was at 12, so I finished my talk in the morning (I borrowed heavily from a Mother's Day talk I gave in my home ward and added a story from Elder Eyring's General Conference talk) and we walked to church at 11 in the chilly wind. The Kazakhs, who dress their babies as eskimos even in 80o heat, sure must have thought we were crazy as we walked with Holland in a baby carrier and only a blanket. Church was pleasant and spiritual. Well I assume it was spiritual; I was stressing through most of sacrament meeting (where I passed) because I was thinking about giving the second talk. Whitney played an arrangement of The Spirit of God, which was of course beautiful. Then second hour was Gospel Doctrine/Essentials, and then that was it- no 3rd hour. The counselor who presided works for the embassy, so it was insightful to hear about his career path (he was previously a...

This day started out as every day should: more Beaver sports!! We try to limit screen time for Holland but make a special exception for Beaver (/Cougar) sports. Afterwards we visited an outdoor (Saturday)/indoor (every day) food market. Outside were three or four 100' rows of stalls of folks selling raw and smoked meats, cookies, honey, and produce. It might have felt more like a farmer's market, but several of the stalls appeared to be selling the same setup; sometimes it was hard to tell the difference from one to another. Perhaps they have the same distributor? Whitney and I had a fun time selecting cookies from one booth (a few of which were fairly tasty!). My parents bought a big bag of potatoes and onions, and a smaller bag of strawberries. Unfortunately we walked around with the produce for the rest of the day so the strawberries resembled a pile of mushy goo later. We perused the stalls inside, which mostly featured the same goods, except perhaps with...