This ain't no bread line!!

Alright where to begin..

After leaving the computer place on Friday we headed to go get our passports back from the registration place. We arrived about 10 minutes before 6:00pm the time we were suppose to get them back. The place was packed, actually thats an understatement, it was like we were going to go watch some huge sporting event, except there was no orderly line ups to get int it was a chaotic mosh pitt/mob. Tyson looks to me and says, "i am not getting in line right now.. " so i said alright, i'll measle my way in im small enough i'll just slip through the gaps, im more aggressive in nature then tyson is anyways so i can do this. I spoted some guys speaking english which i manage to get up to because if someone moved out of a space, i just quickly made my way in. Before no time i was up in the front by a huge German guy and a larger scottish guy who works over here. Ther was some pushing at this point, however the passports had not arrived yet so people were still relatively calm. So i was having a nice little chit chat with these 2 men while bracing myself in a wide stance for stability and elbows out making sure i stood my ground. At that point i was thinking.. this is probably what it was like back in the 1900's fighting your way through in a bread line. But the worse was to come.. Through the glass windows the passport people came with boxes and boxes of passports and registrations and then the mob went CRAZY!!! Peoples hands were in the air with there papers, people were screaming in russian, it was nutso.. at this point i was still protected between the 2 men and we figured since the german guy was at the front we would hand him our papers so he could just get all our passports. Well the 2 men succeeded but when it came to finding mine the women at the window first coudln't find it so i was trying to point to her to and say its the black passports, Canada, canada.. repeatedly. She then found them after about 2 minutes of people trying to shove papers in this ladies face, the screaming was getting louder and i was being bashed up against a railing. Apparently in the process they had lost one of our reciepts that proved that we had paid for the registration. At this point the lady was trying to tell me that in Russian, but like i understand.. she was getting frustrated.. i was getting frustrated because of all the people yelling at me in Russian and trying to get there papers to the lady. Finally the lady threw our passports under some counter and continued with the rest of the mob. At this point the pushing was unbearble and i was stuck and couldn't get out. Finally i just pushed my way through and made it out alive, with some bruised ribs. It was pretty much the worse thing EVER!!! I wasn't even mad about the fact that it was pushy ok, i was, but i was more disappointed that i had not succeeded in getting the passports and i didn't understand why. So i managed to pull myself together after a few angry tears of wanting to yell back in Russian "you ANIMALS"!!! and we waited till the line died and they were about to close. When we got back up there, an english speaking women had came to help the other women out and then we find out that they think we had only paid for one passport registration, but we indeed did pay for 2 but they lost one of the recipts. So finally after the lady didn't really know what to do, she just handed us our passports. This is beaucrazy at its finest!! I miss Canada when this happens!! Being stuck in corrupted central asia is sometimes hard, but Europe will come soon enough. I'll let Tyson go write the rest now, im a little wound up now.

On Sara's mob story, all I could do was watch the mob get more and more worked up as the passports weren't going through the glass quickly enough. Anyways I am proud of how Sara handled the situation, as it was a difficult one, and when we went over the event on the way to dinner it was very clear she did the right thing. We had dinner at the PBC again, which wasn't so bad and then retreated to our apartment. The next day we finally had a chance to sleep in and Sara took full advantage of this, while I woke up with the street and market around 7am, and watched some baseball. We then went to find out prices to send our gifts home, as everything we've heard about using the local land postal service is that you are just as likely to recieve your package by throwing it into a river and hoping it ends up in Canada. We went to the Fedex place which only sends express express shipments, guarrenteed 1-3 days anywhere in the world, while impressive, the rates matched and we couldn't afford it. The man was very helpful in trying to get hold of someone else, however with it being Saturday not many shops were open.

We then went to try and figure out train schedules and rates but no travel agent would help us at first and the ticket window only had a schedule in Russian. We eventually by accident found a community based tourism information center, where we asked about possible side trips on the way to Astana. Nothing turned out to be really on the way, and even if you took the 12-14 hour train ride to one of these side destinations it was a bunch more driving and required guides and etc. before you got to the places recommended to visit. So after thinking about it for a while we decided that our best option was to get all our shipping, resting, photograph copying, and sightseeing done from a base here in Almaty and then take the 24 hour train to Astana for just less than 72 hours (to avoid having to register again) before catching the train to Moscow. So after making that decision we were more relaxed as we didn't have to rush around trying to see things anymore, and enjoyed some cinnimom buns (Sara) and donair (Tyson) while we heard stories from the German guy we'd met the day before. After buying some more groceries including 17% fiber crackers we took the rest of the afternoon off to read and watch tv.

Today we strolled through the market across from our house which was as large and busier than the Sunday market in Kashgar, however the prices were very high like everything else here, so we just strolled and watched our belongings. After that we tried to find the military museum, and we think we found it, but it may have not been open or something. We got some more great pictures of propoganda posters from in the lobby anyways. We ate the lunch of sandwiches (brown bread, cheese, and salami) that Sara had made this morning while watching thre specticle of kids feeding pigeons.

Tomorrow we'll try and send our gifts home, copy pictures, and find some english books to read.

Tyson and Sara trapped in Kazakhstan