A day, a night and a day (and a night and another day)

A day, a night and a day(and a night and another day.)

Much better than expected. That’s the long and the short of it. In summary here are the things that went well:

Short security lines everywhere.
Nothing taken from us in security. Whew!
The boys never whined, complained or had tantrums even when really tired.
Plenty of water and food.
The Ratatouille in Vienna airport was really good.
Discovered and ate “Mozart balls” recommended by Candace. They’re little round chocolate truffle balls. YUMMY.
Had time for a bus tour of Vienna. Wow!
Obviously made it through customs in Astana. The wait wasn’t too bad. We met another couple from adoption ark(Al and Paula) and chatted. They are lucky enough to be going to a small town where they will staying at the orphanage they are adopting from.
Survived WWII era plane ride from Astana to Petropavlovsk.
All of our bags made it the whole way and they were under weight limits so no extra charges.

The only stressful moment was getting the tickets squared away for our flight to Petropavlovsk. I bought them online before we left so I had an eticket confirmation. The lady at the air astana desk sent me to check in and then after waiting in line, the lady at the check in desk freaked out because we needed a paper ticket. So I had to go back to the airline desk(100 feet away.) They got yelled at by the check in lady for passing us along with no ticket. They were kind of confused about how we had already paid for the ticket and once they got it, the computer system wouldn’t work, so they had to hand write five tickets. Back at check in, it took way too long to get the boarding passes and get through security even though we were the only ones left to come through. Guy went through security first and made it to the bus to tell them we were coming. I got through security with the boys and headed to the gate only to be confused and panicked that I couldn’t find Guy. He was already through the gate door (which was very obscure) and holding the bus for us, but not `allowed to run back up the stairs to tell us where to go. The airline personnel had already abandoned the doorway so the boys and I were confused, I was freeked out and no one spoke English. Finally, Guy managed to stress to the airline lady that he HAD to back up the stairs to get us because he knew we would be lost up there. Whew! We made it to the bus and then carted out to the old WWII plane. It took about an hour for my cortisol levels to drop back down and relax, but I recovered and enjoyed the flight.

When we stepped off of the plane in Petropavlovsk, we had definitely entered another world (as if the plane wasn’t an early indicator.) But, truly everything here is reminiscent of oppressed Russian type of living interspersed with a changing economy and technology. As always though people rise above and our translator, Igor, was an instant reminder that laughter, kindness and friendship make everything else easy to deal with.