Jackie O stopped by Mario Pizza for lunch. Chicken soup and a side of fries. Our last meal at Mario.
Here are a few more faces as I glided by a busy bus stop this morning.
Cooling down outside the entrance to our apartment. Hi Bodil! (inside joke)
Nastia and Cecelia on the boulevard. We are on a lunch and shopping expedition to finish up a few needed items on our way out of town. We will miss our afternoons with Nastia. We hope she can visit us in the USA soon! (Good grief, I am so tired of my red jacket!)
While Cecelia and Nastia are in a shop, here is a shot of the local street scene. The woman on the left is buying some milk from seller number two after sampling a bit from both ladies, and bartering a while. A litre is about 50 cents. The young people on the right are washing the Karaganda crud off this VW Micro Bus. It was agonizing to watch them grind off the dirt layer by layer without a hose.
This evening the WPA gang, Al and Sara and Will and Julie came over and we had dinner and some good conversation. We have enjoyed hanging out with these folks and plan on keeping in close contact. We've already started nagging them to visit the great Pacific Northwest and we really want them to visit the cabin! It was a fun night and Katja and Artome really enjoyed it too! They are all here for a while longer. Sara and Al are out of here in about a week and will return later in April. Will and Julie are here until April 29th. We will be e-mailing them from home as they count their days down!
Will is a natural with kids. Julie is too! They will all be wonderful parents!
Al enjoying some chocolate ice cream. The ice cream here is fabulous!
Artome entertaining Julie and Sara and Jim showing Will our photo album from home.
Well, tomorrow is our last day here in Karaganda, and although this is what we have been waiting for, it does feel a bit odd! We will spend most of the day packing and perhaps go on one last walk around the neighborhood. It will be fun to put stuff in a suitcase and actually pack the laptop away. (Don't worry website junkies, we wll post (or try to) from Almaty!)
