Vote for Pedro! In Almaty

We made it to Almaty just after midnight in the wee hours of Sat am. It is very pretty here, mountain peaks just outside of town and pretty trees and flowers in town. After the first leg of our flight, we did get our visas at the Newark airport via a courier named Pedro so he is our favorite person in NJ now. We wanted to hug him. So the title above refers to a character in Napoleon Dynamite if you have seen that movie. We got to the Hotel Kazkakhstan late and and slept hard. this morning we got a walking tour of Almaty with Mika, Gulnara's daughter and exchanged money, went to the internet cafe. We had a very nice breakfast at the hotel and ate lunch with Tatyana, hamburgers and french fries, very American. We took a long jet lag driven nap and then are out now using the internet again and going to a restaurant at the hotel called Guns and Roses. We will post pics when we are using our laptop and not the internet cafe because can't figure that out right now. The Russian I took in college is helpful. I can sound out a lot of the words on signs. My speech is not so good though. Just the basics.

We are missing our Collin like crazy already and can't wait to see him again. Many thanks to Jennifer for keeping in touch and taking such good care of him.

We drive to Taldy Korgan tomorrow morning to our apartment. We get to go to the Baby House to meet "Danny" after that on Monday. I can't believe we are finally here! Gulnara says he is waiting and excited to meet us too.

We'll sign off for now. It is a little surreal being here but exciting to be so close and in a new country. We'll add more with pics tomorrow! Jac and Ed