Life (and almost death) in Astana

We left Kokshetau yesterday to begin our journey home. We decided to leave for Astana a couple of days early, so we could spend a day sight seeing. The drive from Kokshetau to Astana was nice, and gave us a look at what life here in Kazakhstan is really like. Once we arrived in Astana, Gia and I went into the hotel that had been reserved for us by my friends the Hammonds. Once we figured out how to get inside we discovered no one spoke English and unfortunatly Gia and my Russian is really lacking. We had Yuri the driver come in to try and help, but his English is also very lacking. Yuri decided to call Inna to help us out. After about 15 min we mostly worked it out between Yuri, Inna, and the very unhappy lady at the front desk. Gia and I continued to enjoy our "go with the flow on new experiences" time here. About 45 min later the guys show up in the second car, we split up the couples since 24/7 for 3 weeks is pretty hard on a couple :-) We paid for our rooms and went up to freshen up for dinner.
Chandra and I had already made plans meet at the Tsum store at 5:30. We decided to go on out to find the Tsum and look around. We made our way out to the main street go under to avoid traffic and found the meeting point. We went inside and found Pizza and Piva (beer). We decided that since no one had breakfast or lunch to split a pizza. While we waited there we ran into Chandra, her husband Kurt, and their little boy Serik. Serik is only a couple of weeks younger than Rhys and he is also from Kaz. It was great to get our hands on a little Kazak cutie to help our hearts until we see Rhys. After chatting for a few minutes we walked down the street to have dinner. It was really good and we noticed Astana is worlds diffrent than Kokshetau. The buildings are huge, everything has been built in the past 10 years when the capital was moved from Almaty to here, it is much more metropolitian than Kokshetau as well. We also noticed it is much windier, therefore much, much colder. After dinner we walked over to a main street where there are Internet cafe's and a pastery shop. Everything was going very well until we hear Chandra say "this part is like frogger" and see them running across the 6 lanes of traffic. Once we figured out what was going on, we had gotten stuck on the center yellow line with traffic coming at us from both sides. Gia and I were screaming, laughing in fear with tears running down our eyes. Ben was yelling at Gia and Marc was standing there also in fear. Once we made it across we were met by Chandra taking pictures of us and the Military Police yelling at us. As if we didn't know we were idiots for doing that. We made it to the dessert shop for a wonderful piece of cake and some coffee. The Hammond's interpreter had come by to meet them and then their driver showed up. We walked home, finding a very nice crosswalk, and stopped by the "Mapket" (market) for a few items.
Today we decided to go out to a souvenier shop and then to the Astana aquarium, which has the claim of being the furthest auarium from any ocean in the world.. We discovered early this is not like walking around in Kokshetau. We walk all the time there and it is cold, but the wind is not as brutal. We walked half way and decided to take our windburnt bodies into the Ramstore for a reprieve and a nice warm brunch. It was time again to go out into the cold hard world and make our way to the Aquarium. We had to walk past some construction that made us go down below a bridge, this blocked the wind for a minute. Back on the top of the bridge, the gusts of wind caught us screaming in pain. We finally made our way the 2 miles, with Marc holding the map, to find ourselves at the destination. We had a great time, and on the way out all agreed to track down a cab. Luckily, right out of the door a taxi sat in the parking lot. We were very grateful and enjoyed our ride home. It was 1000 tenge well spent (about 8 bucks). The tempature today was not supposed to get above 20 F and who knows what it was with the wind chill.
We might try to find an Internet cafe and rest up for our midnight pick up for the airport. Our flight leaves at 5 am Almaty time and we get into Charlotte about 3 pm Monday.

We didn't get a chance to show pictures of our last visit with Elle before leaving Kokshetau, or a few shots on our journey to Astana, so we added them here, plus some pics in Astana. We still don't know when we are travelling again, but will let you know ASAP.