More Scenes in Almaty

A few more things in the city. I know one scene is our living room but I just wanted you to see how huge it is--especially after living in a trailer for the past year. The picture of the mountains--Dave is leaning out of our kitchen window to take that picture. There was fresh snow that morning. It has melted again but that was a little scary b/c those mountains are pretty close and we are not ready for snow yet. It is very warm here--we have worn shorts every day and at night it doesn't cool down very much.

We went on a tour of the city with teachers last weekend and this is a Russian Orthodox church. It is one of the only wood structures in all of Almaty. We did step inside and most of the women had on head coverings and the priests were dressed very much like you would expect of Russian Catholics with the full head dress and robes.

The last picture here--camera didn't go off on time--but the usual way of getting produce to the market--load up your Lada. It is crazy what they will put in and on top of their vehicles. They drive like they have no fear. When you see an accident here--it is bad but surprisingly for how fast they drive here there are not that many accidents. We just bought a car on Friday so we have been taking the city bus--now that is an experience. It costs about .40 and the kids go for free. The bus drivers are nuts and pray that you get a seat or at least something to hold on to b/c this is going to be the fastest you have ever gone on a city bus that doesn't look very safe and is quite often seen broken down on the side of the road. There are no set times for when the bus will show up--it will stop where ever you would like it if you can get the driver's attention and sometimes if he doesn't feel like stopping--he won't. I always left for work at the same time and I don't think I ever made it to work at the same time.