One month!!!

I have officially been an ex pat for 1 month now!!! Man time sure flies...when you have no idea what you're doing?

So pretty much a quick sum up, Thursday of last week may have resulted in me getting extraordinarily pissed upon discovering that on Friday 1) a parent of one of my students would be spying on me because her daughter is not showing 'progress' 2) I will be getting a new 8 year old boy student of an unknown level of English, and my only direction was 'find some fun lessons and games, but it will be a hard lesson for you'.

As you might have noticed, I survived Friday perfectly fine- I have no idea what the parent thought of me, but I have only had her daughter like 5 times and I just help her with her hw, a different teacher is the one working on raising her English level. I did what I normally do and tried to not think about it (as I was instructed to do by everyone, thanks by the way :D ) and my boss wasn't mad so I figure it must have been fine. My 8 year old boy thankfully understands English amazingly, and I had a few colored flash card game things I had made before-hand, which I had to make a bit more complicated because he is pro. An adorable little mullet child. Hopefully he wasn't just really tired that day or something and is always fairly calm and nice (fingers crossed!!!)

SOOO Sunday, ah today, is Teacher's Day which is a pretty legit holiday in the ex sovs area. So since we don't work on Sunday anyway, Intellect took us out Friday to this restaurant that had to be crazy expensive (like 20 of us too, the teachers and the office girls) and we ate these bell pepper salad, spicy beef and pepper salad stuff, and chicken salad and bread to start (like on a table of 4 girls, you just grab what you want). Then there is this Mongolian grill-type deal outside, where you fill up a bowl full of veggies and meat and rice or noods and they grill it up for you and bring it to you!! And we could have as many as we wanted! And we were drinking wine, and we had coffee with this apple struedal and strawberry ice cream dessert! Seriously had to be so expensive. Oh and we got gift bags of tea and chocolate :D BUT the most important part of all of this: I ATE HORSE!!! It was one of the meat choices. For those of you who don't know, horse is a traditional Kaz dish and everyone said you have to try it while here. Apparently horse sausages are really popular too, but generally horse is pretty expensive. So yup...I ate horse. I can't believe it hah. It was actually good too, better than the lamb in my opinion. SAD!

So we left that place reallllly late, we sat around forever just talking (and everyone was forcing me to speak Russian, yeeeea :D ) and then we were singing Elvis and Whitney Houston songs very loudly haha, and then Danielle, TV (boss) and I walked home since we were overly full and we live in the same general area. Well, I had to take a taxi from their houses, but still. Oh and the taxi guy informed me that I should find a husband here in Kaz so I don't have to get a taxi at night, my husband would just drive me. A great reason to get married!!

So Saturday I woke up, eh not early ha who am I kidding. Well I think it was around 11 and I was still full from eating so much yesterday, so I decided I would just go trekking. I had been wanting to go to Panfilov park (memorial to these 28 guardsmen who died in WW2 defending Moscow, and also a memorial in general to the civil war) and see the eternal flame and to this cathedral, Zenkov, which was built entirely of wood, even the nails. I guess there was an earthquake (a 10 on the richter scale!) in 1911 and it survived! Oh yeah side note, apparently every 100 years or so a 10 earthquake happens. And the last one was 1911...

So I trekked there, passing the Astana/ Old square, and taking tons of pictures of course. I was asked directions by random women passing by like 3 times, and I was actually able to answer because I am learning the streets now! It was really cool. I found the park without even using my map or anything; Almaty is just easy to understand or something. The park was huge and really pretty and very green, and the cathedral was amazing too. I forgot how nice the insides are, all gold and with tons of icons and candles. I also forgot that women cover their heads and hair inside them, so after sneaking a few pictures I got outta there quick! There were a million brides running around with their giant wedding parties in tow, photographers and food everywhere. I had somehow also forgotten brides take pictures at all the famous historical sites...there was literally a line of brides waiting to pose putting flowers near the eternal flame. Hilarious. Then walking around I accidentally found the Green Market and ЦУМ (yup, one here too), which were the last 2 main things I was supposed to get shown the location of, and then I stopped at supposedly the best pizza place in Almaty since I hadn't eaten all day. I wasn't very impressed, I think I'll still give Il Patio a shot.

Anyway so then I got home hours later (it was a very far walk!) and I was going to take a shower but the water was scalding hot and the color of rust, so I decided to wait. While waiting, I was talking to my friend who lived here before and she was telling me I should go to these pubs, and that she used to go by herself all the time. I was asking if I would look like I'm trying to pick up guys or something going alone by myself at like 10pm, but she said nothing bad ever happened to her and that it's really fun and you can meet people easier. So I decided to do it. I showered in normal-colored water and got ready, and then got a taxi to this street where 2 bars are. The first one, I walked in and it was a lot of people at tables with one guy at the bar, and a band playing a barely-passable version of a Maroon 5 song. People were swaying/dancing around, but Idk...it didn't appeal to me. So no to the Guinness Pub. I pretended like I went to the wrong place and asked if there was another bar nearby (which I of course knew there was, my back-up plan) and she pointed me in the direction, no harm done.

So bar number 2, Guns n Roses bar...haha. I walk in and it's very lively and there is a band playing that is actually really good, there are a lot of people dancing or sitting at tables with hookah or drinking and a lot of people at the bar. Much better! So at first the bar was crowded and I sat at this really small table by the bar, and was immediately approached by a (most likely drunk) guy asking if I speak English, gave me a thumbs up when I said I'm American, said he was from Turkey and 'I like you!', while pulling my hair back from my ear to whisper that to me. I said 'Ok....I need a drink.' And got up and sat at the bar and just left him at the table. I sat by these 2 Kazakh girls and they started talking to me, one in English and one in Russian. The only semi attractive my age-type guys were the bartenders- the place was mostly foreign guys who were like 35 or older, and girls that looked my age to around 40 that were Russian/ Kazakh. And some reeeaaallly funny guys dancing around to the band drunk and Idk the whole thing was hilarious. And the second band that came on was a crazy American man with huge hair as a singer, and he played things like James Brown, it was pretty much great. Oh and also ghost busters...like what the heck?? I was cracking up. I talked with a few other people, one asking if I was from the Peace Corp saying he knows people here in the Peace Corp, but mostly I just talked to the girls and we danced a bit. Then the second band was done, and these very scantily clad sparkly girls climbed on the bar and started dancing like right in my face, so I started to get up just to back up a bit as to not be staring up their skirts and Turkish guy was back, saying 'Oh don't leave, don't you like me?'. 'I don't know you.' 'Oh, because I like you. Stay! Sunday is tomorrow, a holiday.' 'I'll be back next weekend probably, I'll talk to you then.' 'I'm going to the UK tomorrow for business, please, I am staying in the hotel near here, you can stay too'. I just laughed in his face and left. I wasn't even planning on leaving at that point, but that was enough hah.

So I go outside to get a taxi, and this car of 2 Kazakh guys pulls over. As we are driving back, I realize they missed my turn and I started to get worried they were going to like, go kill me in an alley way or something. So I ask where we are going. They then inform me they don't know where one of the crossroads I live on is. So I am directing them where to drive!! It was freakin hilarious, and I felt awesome knowing my streets well enough and directing them in Russian hah! Then they of course started the whole where are you from, you are beautiful, are you married convo and I was just talking my head off. That is one thing I like about taxis, lots of speaking practice! Especially when what should have been a 10 minute drive turns out to be like 25 hah. So I get out after telling them I don't have a cell phone so they can't call me, and I go up stairs, elated that I survived a night at the bars alone, and even more than that, actually had a really good time! :D