Ben about town

Hello all. (Hey Stork, great name for a blog, but Karla came up with the same thing about four days ago. I had just not gotten around to posting.)

Apartment living is not as bad as I had thought it would be. This city is bustling ,at least our street. There must be a huge population density here. For example, on the first floor of our apartment, there is a ‘convenience store’. It has milk, bread, beer, vodka, wine, butter, soda, water, candy, chips and a whole lot more stuff I don’t know in a 15 foot by 20 foot room. There is another identical store across the street. A one minute walk away, I know of another. There could be lots more, but since I don’t read Kazakh, I miss out . I usually just walk up to the door and look in the little porthole window to find out. Yesterday, I found an appliance store and bought a garlic press. There are not many plate glass fronts.

For any future adoptee parents (faps), I like this apartment and location. More on that in later posts.

Right now, I have a walking range of about a ¼ mile. Reason why is there are supermarkets about a quarter of a mile from us in opposite directions. These are called anbars (in Russian, it looks like “ahbap”). They all have blue fronts and are easy to identify. I don’t know if it is a chain or what, but I see them everywhere. If I walk west, my street ends at an anbar and tees with an even busier street. The business center is on it. I don’t know why they call it the business center, Karla and I went and it was a bunch of expensive clothing stores. Maybe it is where the business people shop.

If I walk east about 1 minute from our apartment, I come to a market on the corner. It is huge. It is three stories plus a basement. It has about 40 stores in it with toys, clothes, and whatnot. Attached to it is a bazaar. It is an open type flea market. I’d say there are 80 different vendors here. Some are even in a heated building, others with a roof, and still others totally outside. You can get anything from a toilet seat to a carrot. This is where I hang out. This is also where I get my sum sa.

There are a group of six women who sell meat and cheese. There are three on the right and three on the left. I call it the gauntlet. When I first started going they would jabber and try to solicit me. I don’t understand how it works. It is six identical cases with identical foods. I don’t know if they work together or what. Now I wave and they all wave back. I think they like me. They fit right into my idea of a stereotypical Russian woman. The one gal has a full mouth of gold teeth. None of the women understand a bit of English and I know maybe 6 Russian words now.

We woke up this morning to 4 inches of new snow. It was actually kind of pretty and refreshing. Everything had been melting and it just felt really dirty and drab.

By the way, in the picture with the little girl with the umbrella , she is standing next to a cigaarette stand. Marlboros are a $1.00 a pack. The only two cheap things I have found here are cigs and vodka.