Do you want a Hookah?

Well, today was an interesting day. We got a call from our translator at 6:50am saying she was going to visit her parents and her son (who was visiting them) today and she wouldn't be back until Monday. That made us a little nervous since today was our first official day of bonding and we wanted to hear what the doctor said about Kaz's fever. We figured we could borrow someone else's translator if we had to though. When we arrived at the orphanage, Kaz was just finishing his breakfast cereal and we were amazed to see him drinking out of a coffee type mug! Our poor boy still had a fever, although slightly lower. The doctor, after a lot of gesturing and looking up words in our dictionary finally got another translator who told us it was just a cold. Kaz got a dose of meds and then a nurse came in and they gave him a needle in his bum. We found out he can cry. After that, they gave him to me to comfort and he cuddled right in again. Michael and I sat in his baby room and just held him for about half an hour before they came to take him to bed. By that time we had lulled him to sleep.

Our driver was gone when we got out, but it turns out he was inflating Michael's basketball (much to Michael's delight!) He also drove us to several different stores to find a map of Astana. (This took us looking up map in the dictionary and pointing it out to him!) He is very jolly!

It had rained today (it didn't rain as much as you would think from the photo, it just doesn't run away very quickly) and was actually cooler, so after shooting a few hoops, Michael used his fireman training to positively ventilate the apartment to cool it down!

This is a common sight - saw this one on the way to supper.

We went for supper with the two American families who have been visiting their children at the same time as us. We enjoyed getting to know Meghan & Tony and Annette & Marwan. We went to Ali Babba's (a outdoor restaurant) where we sat in a booth that is a platform with low table and cushions! We ate lamb - Michael lamb kabob and me a traditional meal with roast lamb, rice and carrots - very, very tasty! Then we ordered three hookahs (apple, strawberry and grape) - one for each couple. At that, our waiters eyebrows rose! Apparently, one is good for four people!! We had lots of laughs and interesting conversation. Michael caught the hang of it, but I kept inhaling too much and coughing! The funniest thing is, who would think that I would ever try a hookah?!!!!!!

After supper: L-R Michael, Jennifer, Tony, Meghan, Annette, Marwan