Yesterday afternoon with Cooper in the Ergo and city map in hand, we decided to test our luck with the transit system in Astana.
We had planned on doing a little souvenier shopping in the old part of Astana since we hadn’t had much luck finding keepsakes in the new part of the city.
In Astana the buses all seem to be numbered so after asking around in our limited Russian, we were able to decipher that #10 would get us to where we wanted to go. We boarded the bus to find out that we should have instead taken the #10 bus in the opposite direction.
After some time we were able to finally make it to this cute little souvenier shop called Talisman. For the most part we have found it very hard to find any stores that sell a lot of traditional Kazak items. We’ve asked many locals and the best that we got from them was that the Talisman store was our best bet, and it didn’t dissapoint. We saw many of the traditional clothing and items that we had seen in Kaz pictures as well as worn by some people in public.
We decided to fill our stomachs before we purchased the whole store and were very happy to discover that just across the street was TGI Fridays.
How many people back home can say they ate at a TGI Fridays in Kazakhstan. Well we can now 🙂 The food was pricey but good. We did have one funny moment though. I asked if refils on coke were free and they said no, so I went back to our table. They must have understood it as I wanted one anyways because they delivered one to me some time later even though I was just asking. It reminded me of the time a similar thing like that happened back at Cafe Alina while in Lake Burabay.
Anyways, a little later the manager dropped by and in her very limited English asked, “Who gives free refils” to which we replied, “In America”. She then mentioned that today they would give a free refil for us. When the bill arrived we discovered that we had been charged for the refil. No big deal, but after paying for the bill the manager approached us with two free Cokes in cups to go. Of course at this point we didn’t really want them but graciously took them anyways. We later laughed it off as another moment of misscommunication as what had happened with the bus earlier.
We did manage to get some shopping done (mostly Tanya) because it was starting to get a little late and Cooper seemed a little tired of waiting around on dad’s back (translation: he was getting a little wrangy).
It was time to go so we managed to ask around and this time pick the
#117 bus. This turned out to be a big mistake but only because we were packed like sardines in it and I just happened to have a less then happy kid on my back.
After what seemed like an eternity we were able to get off at our stop and then calm was finally restored after arriving to our flat, having a quick snack and then bedtime for liitle exhausted Cooper.
We both then had a moment to ponder that today’s bus rides had most likely been another first for Cooper 🙂
Today’s post is hopefully our second last before our trip home. We should know within the next 24 hours whether or not our final paperwork will be able to be in our hands in time to make Thursday’s flight so we can be home in time for Thanksgiving.
We will be praying very hard for that to happen.
Life with Cooper 