A Happy Birthday

I just celebrated a b-day and I celebrated it Russian Style. Russian Style means you bring your own cake and snacks to work and share them with all your colleagues. Because we have had so much trouble with buying a chocolate cake, I thought I would go for something that looked very chocolate and not worry about the price and go a little more top end and pray that it tasted good. Well, once again I got skunked on the cake. Right after Olga read the Russian label on the box I had a good laugh. I thought the flowers on the top of the cake were made from chocolate but they are prunes. The label on the cake said Prune Cream Cake. No one complained and the whole cake was eaten and no one saw the humour in it except the nurse and me.


This is our office--Olga and I work in here doing the books, registering all the new students, collectioning tuition and giving the guys money for all the errands they do for the school and the teachers. The other girls are Irena, Ludmilla, Olga, Assem, Gulmira and another Olga. It is like a pre-requisite to get a job here--have the name Olga.

On Sunday night, some friends stopped by kind of unexpectantly--I just happened to have made a pretty large--very kid friendly dinner--pizza and macaroni and cheese. They brought cake, beer, a present and flowers. The day was complete--lots of good conversation and lots of humour and laughing. Brock is from Wisconsin--he is new this year, Kyle is from Texas and he hangs out in White Rock every summer so he is now a Canadian Texan, Wendy is from New Zealand and Malu is from the Phillipines--she teaches at another International School in Almaty. A bit of a motley crew but always a good time had by all.