We've arrived Folks!

Two 8 hour plane rides and one 5 hour layover and we're finally in Kazakhstan! For someone used to flying in 1960s era Southwest planes, it was the lap of luxury! TVs on the backrests! Who would have thought of such a thing. Also, the restrooms were on the lower level so we had to take stairs down to them. I've never been on a two level plane before! Although it's cruel to make you walk through the "royalty" seats in first class to see all the leg room they have! And how much butt room! :) Anyhow, the flights were all great and uneventful.

We arrived at our hotel in Almaty at 2 AM and just finished our first Kaz breakfast of bread, jam, fried pancakes, potstickers, and oranges. I caused a minor flood in the bathroom trying to figure out the shower head but everything ended up okay. :) I'm also surprised at the number of Western style cars in Almaty. VW hatches, Camrys, stuff like that. Germany had almost all VWs. Which made sense once I thought of where we were :).
-Ken

So, we fly to Semey around noon today. It takes a few hours to get there and then we have around 30 minutes to get dressed before meeting the orphanage director and the boys!!! We're going to have quite a time trying to iron our clothes that we had to pack in our carry-on (which ended up being too big to be a carry-on and had to then be checked at the last minute- thanks to John and Irene for their smaller carry-on that we had our most important items in!!) Anyway, we are happy and healthy and very excited...

Oh, plus we are traveling with a couple from Ohio so we have buddies in this travel process!! Oh, and we bought some delish. chocolate at the duty free store during our Frankfurt layover. Just had to tell you that oh-so-important thing. :)

We're at the hotel's business center right now. It may be a few days before we have our internet set up in our apartment but we'll try to hurry up with it so we can post again.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers!!
-Jenny