Sick day - :(

Our day started off with a full breakfast because we usually only get lunch around 2 pm, and Jennifer knows how grouchy I get if I miss breakfast and eat lunch late! We cooked up bacon (beef), eggs, hashbrowns, and yummy bread. Over at the Ram store they have these loaves of bread shaped like footballs that taste just like homemade bread. I don't think they eat pork here as I have never seen any ham or bacon.

We were supposed to get picked up at 9:45 am, but our driver seems to be very punctual so we decided to go down at 9:40 and he was already there cleaning his car. Tomorrow we will go down a little earlier yet, so we can get to see our little man longer.

I thought it was going to be a little cooler out because it had rained some early in the morning, but it was as hot as ever. I have the Astana forecast on our favourites and they called for 90% chance of rain - turned out it was sunny and hot up until 5 pm. It was a little cooler today - only 34 celsius. Yesterday it reached a high of 36 I believe. Finally, when we went to do some site seeing on foot, it decided to rain. Kind of refreshing, except after it quit, I don't think it was any cooler out as one of the billboards on a building showed 31 celsius with high humidity.

Now getting to the title of our blog for today, we were changing Kaz and he was not very happy. Actually, it was the first time he was fussy, but didn't really cry, only whimpered a little bit. We found out real quick he was very hot, so we checked his temperature and he had a fever of 38.4 celsius. It was kind of sad, but at the same time we thought he was too happy a boy, and we weren't sure if he could be fussy. Anyway, we changed him into a diaper and no clothes hoping it would help make him feel better. They gave him some medicine to lower his fever and I think after a bit he felt a little better. Jennifer held him and he cuddled right up to mom - which looked like that alone made him feel a little better. Understandably, he wasn't his usual alert self, but it was nice to see him bonding with Jennifer as he spent most of half an hour focusing on her face and touching her face. We stayed in the feeding and changing room only and were told that we would have to cut our visit short. A doctor was supposed to come and check him out and then finally one of the caregivers took Kaz from Jennifer's arms. It was very cute, because as the lady took Kaz from Jennifer, he fussed and extended his arms to her to show he really didn't want to go.

So we only got to visit about half an hour, and all we could think about today is that we hope it is nothing serious and that he is better tomorrow. We did manage to get another picture of him that I think we could share.

Guess whose cute little feet?

Now getting back to where we decided to go for a tour on foot, we thought closer to six it would maybe be cooler but turns out it was only more humid. And of course now it decided it should rain which normally should cool things off, but not here. Also, I am wearing these running shoes made by adidas that are very comfortable, but they have one flaw. They have 360 degree ventilation so if I walk through 1 cm of water my feet get wet.

We decided to walk north along the river on a very fancy walkway with fairly new interlocking paving stone and along a fence that had animals designed into it. I guess when Jila was here they were painting the animals a gold color (fence is a black color) so they would stand out more. And this fence goes on as long as the walkway and we have never been to the end of the walkway. I would say the majority of their sidewalks are made of the interlocking paving stone, with a lot of old ones that looked perfectly fine being replaced with a newer design of stone. Yes, Jila was right when they said there was lots of construction and refinishing of everything. They are definitely trying to give the city a new look.

We walked into many different shops and to my dismay, none of them had air conditioning, I think most of them had to be at least 35 celsius inside. I literally started to feel ill from the heat when we were inside one in particular - I don't know how they could work in there. We were on a mission to find a map of Astana (after the incident the night before) and had even written down the Russian word for map. But being a minority it was not that easy. We stopped at a store that sold everything just for kids and it had many interesting items, especially the toys. However, because it was in the business section, the prices of many of the items were fairly high.

Here is Jennifer at the kids store and you notice her good looking friends. This was the only picture we would take in here as we were told we could take no pictures in the store - I guess we could be spies!


At this time it was getting close to 8 pm and I was getting a little hungry and we thought we would grab something small to eat. When they say Winnipeg has a lot of restaurants and eateries per capita, it is true. And here, at least where we have been, it is just the opposite. However, I would say the number of banks per capita is very high - everybody must want your money or something. We managed to find a place that looked like it sold takeout as I was not sitting in a cooking hot restaurant- but now came the fun part - we had to order something. We looked at a menu that was sitting on the counter and of course it was all in Russian. Finally, after using our "I don't speak Russian" in Russian, a waitress that had limited english came to our rescue. So we ordered a pizza that only cost 1000 tenge which turned out to cost us less than $9 Cdn.

We made it back to our apartment to ear our late supper and it was very good except it had tomatoes on it. And I don't like hot tomatoes, so I picked mine off and put some on Jennifer pieces. Oh, yes I'm writing the last part of this at 3 in the morning so excuse me for grammar errors (Jennifer is also up). I guess we are being frugal because our internet time is four times the regular amount between 2 and 8 am.

It is still very warm in our apartment even though it is raining outside, there is no wind to help cool things off. Well at least the wind is not in the right directions to cool things off.