Typical Weekend Update

2-27-2010

It is Sunday night and it has come to my attention that my blogs have fallen behind. After my caffeine overload I spent Friday night tossing and turning in bed and completely unable to sleep. I woke up early on Saturday morning for church and spent the whole day being groggy from not getting enough sleep. One cup of coffee at a time—lesson learned. In spite of the grogginess, Saturday turned out to be a very fun day. After going to the main Russian-speaking church, I realized that Kazakhstan actually has a real Adventist community, with a big central church. It was a good experience even though I had to try to listen to one of our friends translate through a whisper in the midst of the crowd. Because I couldn’t hear very well, I did not take much from the service, but I loved the good music, and the bright familiar faces. Even though I didn’t really know anyone, you always feel that sort of familiarity when you are surrounded by people who have similar beliefs—at least I do. After church Emily and I headed up to the mountains with a few local friends. We didn’t do any strenuous hiking, just climbed a gigantic flight of stairs, had a picnic on a little bridge, and messed around in this snowy valley and listened to the river. I love the mountains. I was in desperate need of some fresh air and some time away from the city. After getting all wet from playing in the snow we journeyed back into the sea of pollution. We split up near this big hotel and I knew exactly where I was at. Since Steven didn’t come along I was all by myself and was thrilled at the adventure of trekking through the city alone. I made it to a bus stop but I didn’t really feel like waiting for a bus and I wanted to walk. I’ve gotten a very good idea of how this city is laid out and have come to be able to navigate pretty well. I walked all the way down this main road and absorbed all the new surroundings, or things that I hadn’t paid attention to while riding on the crowded bus. I kept quiet and felt like I blended in as a Russian pretty well. I started to get close to Panfilov Park (the park that Steven and I walk through everyday on our way to work—the park that is crawling with police) and it became less of an adventure and more like an everyday walk. Luckily, as I was worrying about the police-saturated park, a 25 bus rolled by and I ran to the bus stop to catch it. I hopped on and after a couple stops I popped out at the far side of the bazaar. So new adventure struck as I meandered through the big and overcrowded market, taking the time to see things that I never paid attention to before. I had fun resisting any sort of rush and just took in my surroundings. As soon as I got home I changed into some dry clothes, washed up, and made pizza! Since we could finally afford cheese we decided to take some Laposhka, and some of our left-over tomato sauce and create a good ol’ taste of America. Once the pizza was ready Steven and I sat down to the final part of our Lord of the Rings trilogy! It was a great night. Afterwards, I was extremely tired and ended up reading and getting to bed until long after I wanted to. It turned out to be a great day.

Today wasn’t filled with grandness like yesterday, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I woke up really late today—around one in the afternoon—which was great in the sense that I caught up on all my lost sleep, but not so great in the sense that I was robbed of a large chunk of my day. I wasn’t too upset though. I woke up and did some reading in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and some corn flakes. After this I felt like cooking so I made some fresh, homemade tortillas, and couldn’t stop there so I went on to make little brown sugar crepes. I love to cook I just wish I knew how to do it a little better. From there I watched an episode of House on the internet, fooled around a bit more, made some soup for dinner, and watched another episode of house. It turned out to be a perfect lazy day. Now, before I go to bed, I will prepare for exam week like I should have done earlier today.

I am going to go ahead and stop here and post this before my internet cuts out again.