Many Flights Later.....

Friday/Saturday/Sunday - 24th/25th/26th November 2006

No doubt life has continued on without us since we said goodbye to Ust-K last Friday morning and that Groundhog day is alive and well...

We by now have arrived home okay and right now it is 5.30 am on Monday morning and Declan has just left for his first day at work in over 4 weeks and it is a perfect time of day for me to get my daily fix on the computer with no distractions!!! the joys of being on Kaz time still!!

Sue, am sure by now has been reunited with her Mum and hope she had a pleasant flight and enjoyed the luxury of the Hyatt!!! We thought of her when we departed from Air 'Astana in Heathrow.... Am sure Room 702 is a bit of a letdown from the Hyatt but do hope the previous occupiers left it in good nick!!!!

Aine & Alex, thank you so much for keeping our big suitcase in your room and do hope it is not making things too cramped for you - maybe you can make a table or a footstool out of it! also I do hope that by now Sue has finished ironing little Alex's laundry and has left them up to you for safe storage!!!

So, our flight did not leave Ust at 9.30 due to weather. Got some lovely video of the front of the airport and it was such a pity that my camera was out of action as it looked so lovely in the snow.... good job I will get another shot at it though... We had quite a long wait in Ust and everytime Declan asked they said 'No, the flight has not left Almaty yet!! What ever you get from sitting on cold iron seats for hours I am sure I have got!! Moral - remember to bring a coat that covers your tail end when you sit down not a short 29.99 euro jacket from Next. Alfiya told me to bring warm clothes when I come back and I said ' Actually, this jacket has been really warm and she said 'Not for you - for the baby!!' Oops!

It was heaven to actually finally get on the flight. We had one scary moment as we arrived in Almaty and Sue, I think you would have been converted!!! Almaty, on coming in to land was foggy, dark (possibly more snow on the way) and I watched as we came in over a motorway? and across some fields and then just over the runway - We were just ready to touchdown and I had my two feet stretched out in braking position and had braced myself for touchdown when the flight took off up into the sky again - Know that the National Geographic channel immediately sprung to mind and I had a quick flash of the three watching Flight whatever from Ust to Almaty in time to come. (We have had only one English speaking channel _ National Geographic and have seen many programmes of doomed flights over the last three weeks!) Back up into the dark sky and it was 15 minutes before I spotted that motorway? again. Glad to report that we did touch ground this time amid loud applause from the other passengers - which always strikes me as rather premature as taxi-ing in is one of the most dangerous times although it felt so good to hit the runway. Felt strongly once again that it would have been a real advantage to have learnt Russian as we had no idea what had happened but it was scary - and just so you know that it wasn't 'over-dramatic me' Declan admitted afterwards that he WAS seriously worried!!

I presumed that the flight was not allowed to land last minute due to weather, and funnily enough 15 minutes later it had actually started snowing heavily so conditions were even worse but Declan was behind two English speaking guys as we headed for passport control and had to ask them what had it all been about - They said that as the pilot was coming in to land he saw another plane coming towards us and therefore made the quick decision to take to the skies again!!! Find it hard to believe despite all the National Geographic but.... was glad to be on terra firma and not so glad to think we had two more flights ahead of us in the following day, not to mention all the flights we will have before we finally return here at Christmas.

Aida was not there to meet us, after a while of repeatedly saying 'Nyet, spasibo' to the different taxidrivers, who were clamouring to taxi us to wherever. Aida did come and brought us to the now familiar Berkhana. We got a room for 13,000 tenge and it seemed luxurious to us - decor, full fridge - which yes, we found out you must pay for! We had asked Aida before we booked in could we go to the Tsum and she seemed horrified that we would venture out in the very pretty snowfall - well, I thought it was. We acted like we were old pros - no problem - had walked there from the same hotel only a few weeks ago and would find our way no problem. In the end she offered to drive us and we would walk back, and so she left us amid warnings that Almaty was not dangerous for her but was for us and to be careful!!

Just, in case you think that was our fill of drama for the day there's more - Sue, where were you when we needed you?!! About 7.30 we headed back with our shopping to the hotel. or so we thought! Everywhere looked fabulous in the snow, lights, shopfronts that are all the more enticing and special after having spent three plus weeks in the industrial city of Ust-Kamenogorsk! However, the downside of that is that everywhere and I mean everywhere looked exactly the same as the previous street and before long we were LOST in the snow in Almaty.. Did more walking in the next hour than I have done in all the time we have been in Ust!! Declan did a very good job, despite not having excelled in the Russian language accquisiton of the previous weeks and whipped out the Hotel Berkhana card many times and having followed umpteen different directions we eventually stumbled across the hotel. We had been circling it all the time, more or less!

And there's more - decided that we would stay with the familiar and end our last night in Almaty as we did our first - a meal in the Cigaro Club. Of course it is only a short walk from the hotel and that was a big factor in our decision. I was looking forward in Sue’s absence to showing off all the Russian I had learned since I was there a few weeks previous - however I did not bargain for the fact that I might be able to speak a little more but still could not read enough to decipher the menu and also the fact that they assigned us the English speaking waitress and therefore I stuck with Spasiba and P-Va bolshoi for Declan and mallinki for me!!

Our short walk to the restaurant was lovely and of course the snow was still such a novelty but had just said to Declan 'next time, we are here I will be wearing my snow boots' - (at present in Aine & Alex’s room), when I suddenly disappeared halfway down into a hole in the pavement... Luckily I had been holding onto Declan and he looked at me as if to say 'What are you doing?' Obviously the snow had hidden all the uneveness in the footpaths and there was a big pothole which was full of water, top part frozen over and then topped off with a lovely covering of snow and I went right through it, about 6 inches of freezing water - Lovely!!!! Continued bravely to the restaurant (not much point going back as I only had the one pair of shoes with me and was not going to walk in the snow in my suede boots! Suffice it to say, the meal was really lovely, and if you order stuff on a skewer and they bring it with a small bowl of something white, which looks like and has the texture of sorbet, it does not taste like sorbet and you are not meant to eat it but wait for the laughing line of waitresses to come and set fire to it so that you can finely turn the skewers in the flames before eating them!! Am sure you don't need to be told that it was Declan's starter but it was me that decided to try out the bowl of 'Sorbet'!! Ah, well, it is an adventure!!

We miss little Alex and wonder what it is like for him when we don't turn up every day or if he even notices!!
It is great to be home and strange also. We had an uneventful flight the next day from Almaty to London and then quite a wait before we could get our flight to Shannon.

We felt grubby and in dire need of a shower when we finally arrived in Shannon and Declan picked up a car at the Hertz desk. We knew Declan's sister Martina, her husband and their two boys had kindly driven the girls back from Ballinasloe so that they would be at the house to meet us. When we arrived the front door was covered in large printouts of Alex and us and posters. It was lovely! Inside they had flowers and wine and of course the girls. Elena got real shy and teary when she saw us and hid her head in Declan's shoulder for a long time. It was so great to see them and I guess was the reason why we managed to stay up till after two am... I also was unable to sleep the following morning and was up early but did go to bed reasonably early last night.. will take a while, I guess.