April 19, 2008

It seems like we just landed but are heading to the airport already.  We finally got to bed around 2:00 am Kaz time and had to get up to meet Nikolai, Oleg's driver, by noon.  We had breakfast at the hotel and headed to the airport for a 2:00 pm flight.

When we got to the airport they told us our luggage weighed too much.  We were offered the option of going to customer service and paying with credit card and receipt a "lot of money" or we could just pay them cash and it would cost less.  We chose to pay the less cash of $60 US dollars.  The money was very quickly scooped up and put in his pocket.  The flight to Petro was four hours in a very old twin engine prop plane.  They did not seem to care if you wore seat belts or not.  There were about a dozen passengers on the plane.  Thankfully when we arrived in Petro all of our luggage was there.

Upon arrival we were greeted by our translator Maria and our driver Sasha.   Maria is probably early 20's and speaks Kaz, Russian, German and English and is absolutely gorgeous.  And she is sweet as can be.  (Nick wants to adopt her!)  Sasha does not speak English and is probably 40 to 50 years old.  We were surprised to see our driver was going to fit 4 people and 6 pieces of luggage in a very small car.  Somehow he managed, although some of the luggage got the front seat while Maria, Nick and I got the back seat.

We went straight to our apartment, about 20 minutes from the airport.  We were told the inside looks much better than the outside and these are considered very nice apartments.  The cost is $75 US dollars per day.  Petro is about 200,000 population.

We dropped off the luggage at the apartment and were taken right to the grocery store.  We picked up enough items to hopefully get us through a few days.  We then returned to the apartment and did nothing as we were exhausted and looking forward to a full night sleep for the first time since leaving Orlando.

The Hrenko Family

Adoption Journey to Kazakhstan

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Petro Apartment

Entrance to Petro Apartment

Playground outside Petro Apartment

Main street of Petro Apartment

Another pic of the Petro Apartment