From Winnipeg to Almaty

We are going to go back to the beginning of our journey to start off. When we left on Thursday, July 12, Sheba knew something was up. She whined and jumped into Jamie's (Aunt Sam's) car so there was no room for Michael! He had to pull her out by the collar and when he sat in the passenger seat, she tried to sit on his lap! (M says "and whined like a little school girl"!) Once in Winnipeg, we went looking for travel backpacks and a vest with lots of secure pockets. We found the backpack, but couldn't find any vests. We checked in at the hotel and while I ordered pizza (which took 1 1/2 hrs to arrive and was quite tiny!), Michael and Jamie went on a beer run but came back with a vest instead! It had a handy zipper pocket on the inside which took up the whole back where we put all the cash we had to carry into the country. The only way to get at the pocket was for Michael to take off the vest, so we felt quite secure.

Us at Wpg airport with Jamie trying really hard not to blink!


Our flights were quite good and we met some interesting people from all walks of life. We always seemed to be seated near children! We learned that the big planes offer bassenettes for infants if you sit in certain areas. To get on our flight from Frankfurt to Almaty, we had to walk quite a ways & board a train to another terminal before we got to the check-in. On all other flights, families with children and business class got to board first. On this one, it seemed to be first come first served. Then we found out why, we had to board a bus to take us out to an open area to board the plane!

Picture of plane speed and elevation, and how cold it can get at that height!

When we arrived in Almaty, Kazakhstan, we stood in a long line to go through immigration. I was a little nervous, but need have been. They didn't even look at us, just took our picture and stamped our passports. Thankfully all our luggage arrived and we went to find our driver, Oleg. He is about our age and very nice. Oleg is very laid back and likes to joke around. He led us out to his car (before this he said "You have a lot of bags and I only brought a small car"!) which turned out not to be so small at all. It was a Honda CRV! To get to it we weaved through the traffic, following Oleg while cars all around us honked and passed within inches of us. As we see more of life in Kazakhstan, we find out that this is completely normal! I got in the back seat and Michael in the front. I had no seat belt, and you all know how I am about wearing my seatbelt! (Michael says anal!) I really, really wanted one too as he made up his own lanes and weaved in and out of other lanes, without signals or much room to spare! We made it to the hotel where we checked in (at 1:00 AM Kaz time) with Oleg promising to return for us at 11:00. We were feeling quite fatigued since we only got to bed at 2:00am because we were searching through all our bags for our alarm clock and because of the 11 hour time difference!

We were up early before our alarm clock went off in fear it may not go off. Jennifer and I went down for buffet breakfast (included with our hotel stay) and ate many new foods not knowing what some of them were. Most were quite tasty - no coffee, just tea - blah! We got all of our bags into the elevator, but had to stack up our suitcases to make enough room for ourselves! Oleg was right on time to pick us up and after another hair raising drive, where a bus rear ended a car right beside us, we made it to Almaty airport.

Oleg (right) and me (left - in case you forgot what I looked like) in front of Almaty airport!