Monday, September 18, 2006

Odds & Ends

Have you ever had a grocery bill ring up as 3000? Tenge that is! :) Yes, this happened to us here in Uralsk but it is actually only equivalent to maybe $24 US. The exchange rate is 125.5 tenge to $1 US. We exchanged $300 and received 37,000T plus. Anyway, it’s interesting. We were able to eat lunch yesterday for about $5 and supper for about $10 – this totally depends where you go; there is definitely the other end of the spectrum! We’ve mostly been eating in our room – bread (fresh baked for maybe 40T!), cheese, yogurt, and tomato. Those have been our staples so far along with the tuna we brought. We feel like we are very busy and don’t have much time to mess with eating. :)

We are posting a picture of a ginormous ring toy! We found this quite funny. We put the chair and my shoe in the picture to give some perspective.

Driving here is, um…scary! Lines on the road seem a bit optional. Lots of honking and weaving in and out of traffic. The other day, our driver put on some rap music (in English) and was be-bopping to it; he clearly does not understand English or he would have been embarrassed. :) We think this may be the only rap song you can actually understand every perverted word and concept in it! It was vile! Thankfully, no more rap so far.

Igor, the main driver/attorney, talked to us about our cars and wanted to know if we are good drivers :) and what kind of cars we own. He pointed to one on the road and said it is made in Russia and is “no good.” He also explained to us that the Russian police only want money but the Kaz police are good.

1 comment:

Joe and Gina said...

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us and with others. Hopefully, I will be joining you soon. God Bless you and your family.
Gina from Kentucky