New Pad

Well, we are on the move, but this time just across town. While our first place was adequate, we decided that we would look around for more comfortable digs. After looking at approximately 12 places with a slew of real estate agents (more below), we found what we hope will be our home for as long as we live in Tashkent.

After living in what Jeanette called "a bachelor pad" (not that there's anything wrong with that!), we thought we would seek out more modern furniture, a bigger kitchen with more storage, a better location and toilets that worked at least half the time (TMI?). Jeanette's wonderful teaching assistant (full-time, for any teachers in the crowd) hooked us up with a real estate agent, gave him our budget and needs. After a few days, we set out on our search.

The most interesting thing you notice right away is that every place you see comes attached with at least 3 real estate agents, the landlord, the landlord's representative, a middle-man and some unidentified guy who stands around talking on his phone and smoking a cheap cigarette. If you think we kid, there were 9 people present when we signed the contract for our new place.

After looking at some of the good, the bad and the ugly that Tashkent has to offer, we settled on a Soviet-style high-rise apartment. Two big bedrooms, "modern" kitchen with dinette area, family room, and a huge formal living room area that we will only use for get-togethers. Pictures are posted below.

While we love the space, one of the best features is the location. We are less than 100 yards from Bon! Cafe, our local coffee/bakery hangout. And right above Bon! is Semo de Roma, one of the Italian joints we frequent far too often. A mini-market, pharmacy and the Mirabod bazar are all right outside our door, so we are never far from a bottle of Sarbast beer, bananas or laundry detergent.

Our hip new kitchen and dining area

We actually love the colors

Family room

Formal living and dining room

Master bedroom

Bathroom--exciting, eh?

Family room and entry way

"Do you live in a 3rd world country?" or 50 pounds of cheese

We are back from winter break. Surprisingly enough it only took us 20 minutes to get through passport control and customs at the Tashkent Airport, not the normal 2-3 hours. This seems to be some sort of record among our colleagues. We’ll see what happens next time.

One thing that people do while they are away from Tashkent is to stock up on things that are unavailable here or are expensive, like good red wine, cheese or certain products from the drug store. Like others, Jeanette and I bought a few items while we were in Maryland over break, enough to fill an extra suitcase for the return trip. On one of our purchasing trips to CVS (local drug store), we placed so many bottles of contact lens solution, packets of Emergency, multi-vitamins and ibuprofen on the counter that the clerk asked Jeanette, “What, do you live in a 3^rd world country or something?” We both chuckled, realizing that we do live in a pretty unusual place, even if we would not call it 3^rd world.

We arrived in Tashkent early Saturday morning, and had a get-together with colleagues to share stories. Like us, the elementary principal and her family did some shopping. One day they went to Wal-Mart to purchase some cheese, cheddar cheese specifically. As they stood in line, the clerk proceeded to scan their items. And after scanning 50 pounds of cheese, turned to them and said, “Ya’ll sure do like cheese, don’t ya’!” Indeed they do, and with 6 people in their family, they ended up with more than 50 pounds in their 11 bags. Needless to say, they did not get through the airport in 20 minutes.

UN Day, Halloween and an exploding blender

We just had UN day at our school, a fantastic weekend event where families set up in classrooms to tell others about their home countries. It was amazing to see how many countries were represented. I even got to speak some Czech!

I think we have mentioned that we are much more socially active here and that continues. We went to a Halloween party, something Jeanette and I have NEVER done before. Jeanette went as a pack of plain M&Ms and I went as M&Ms with nuts. Funny, right? Totally Jeanette's idea. We spent the night drinking, eating and playing Guitar Hero. It turns out that we both are pretty good at it.

We bought our first piece of furniture, a kitchen storage unit. After putting it into place and reorganizing, I (Paul) decided to make dinner. Plugged the blender into our voltage regulator, flipped the switch and heard a pop. Looked at the regulator and saw that I had plugged it into the 220, not the 110. Undeterred, I moved the plug and flipped the switch again. This time we got fireworks and smoke. I think it was an omen telling us that we should continue to eat out.

Break in Istanbul

We just returned from a great week-long break in Istanbul. Below is a link to photos for those interested.

Istanbul is a fabulous city with a great deal to do. We spent most days wandering the streets checking out the many mosques. It seems that there is a minaret for each person in the city. We visited some cisterns and used the public ferries to catch the view from the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. We also spent time hopping between Asia and Europe.

When not getting our daily 10,000 steps, we lounged at too many local tea and Turkish coffee shops to count. We really enjoyed the Turkish coffee, at least once we learned not to drink the fine grounds at the bottom of the cup. Our gastronomic adventure also included eating some of the best food we've had since our trip to Peru. While kebabs are VERY popular (we even ate some, gasp!), being a vegetarian was extremely easy. Some of the best eggplant dishes we've ever had. And last but not least, Turkish red wines are yummy! We were introduced to some new types of grapes, our favorite being Okozguzu which means large bull eye (or bullseye) in Turkish. While not giving away exactly how much we drank, let's just say that our red wine fix was met.

Now it's 8 more weeks of work. Then we are off to Prague, Austria and Munich for winter break to do some cross-country skiing and more red wine drinking, of course!

https://picasaweb.google.com/coffren19/Istanbul2011?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Upgrading to Business Class--Uzbek Air Style

You're on your way to the airport, dreading the flight back home in economy class. No leg room, no food, and someone in front of you who MUST recline for the entire trip. "None of that for me this trip," you say to yourself. So, you decide to ask about upgrading to business class. You approach the ticket counter and ask for an amount. After consulting with the computer and his fellow ticket takers, he replies. Alas, the cost ($800) is well outside your alloted budget and you resign yourself to the fact that it's going to be another long trip home.

But wait! This is Uzbekistan Airlines and anything is possible. You decide to speak to the flight attendents as you board. "Is there a way to upgrade to business class?" you inqure. "Follow me sir!" she replies. And off you go to see the Business Class attendent who informs you that it is indeed possible, even at this very late stage, to upgrade to the land of luxury. "Take a seat!" she says with a smile, so you find a comfortable place in the empty cabin.

As you get comfortable and buckle your seat belt, the attendent arrives with the emergency landing "folder". She leans in close and whispers "100 dollars. Put it in here!". You extract the bribe, nay upgrade surcharge, from your pocket and do as you are told. The next time she returns, you wave the folder and offer your best thank you in Russian (Spasibo) and off she goes. Pillow, blanket, drinks and a hot meal of salmon, potatoes and green beans follow. Well worth the $100, you think, and enjoy the flight home.

But as you wait to depart, a little surprise awaits. As your fellow passengers depart on the right hand side, you are whisked out the other side with a special escort. You have no idea where you are in the airport but follow anyway. Your colleague, and fellow business class "upgrader", begins to worry, but you assure him that this must be part of the upgrade package. Then your escort takes your through security, the wrong way, and the metal detector dings and beeps. Now even you begin to consider that something not so benign may be happening. But the optimist in you wins out and you assure your friend that all is well.

"Down this hall," your escort informs you and you follow. "Now down those stairs," and again you go. "Now open those doors!" she says. You pull, but the door is locked. So you try the other, again locked. It seems that your friend is right and the next stop is the room with two chairs, a table and a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. But then, like magic, someone opens the doors from the other side. "Come!" he says and you go. As you go through the door, you breathe a sigh of relief as you are now first in line at the Tashkent passport control and customs line well before the other passengers on your flight arrive. And this alone, as anyone who has been through the Tashkent airport knows, is worth every cent of your 100 dollars

Car buying - GM customer service

A friend and I (Jeanette) decided to go to the local Chevrolet dealership this past weekend to buy cars.  You know what it's like when you walk on to the lot.  The sales guys are fighting each other to see who can nab the next customer.  Well, not exactly.

Urshka and I had done our homework.  We knew what models we wanted and a pretty good ball-park what the new prices should be.  As we stepped on to the lot, we wondered where the cars were. Oh, the showroom!  We entered and saw exactly what we wanted: a cute little blue Spark for me and a snazzy black Matiz for Urshka.  No sales people had yet approached us, but we noticed several men standing around.  Eventually I asked one of the men - does anyone here speak English?  Guy at the 2nd desk.  OK -  we went to the second desk.  He didn't speak much English, but we both know enough Russian to get by, so we mixed it up.  Already I am wondering why the sales people weren't swarming - we are foreigners, and everyone knows we are filthy rich!

Oh.  Forgot to mention that the cars in the showroom were locked.  We asked the guy to look at them and told him we wanted to buy.  He said "Come back in January."  No, no.  We have money and we want to buy now.  "No cars now.  Come back in January."  How about those cuties on the floor?  They even had the prices marked!  "No.  Those are the bosses.  Come back in January."  We asked if we could be put on the waiting list - a few locals had told us that such a thing existed, but they assured us that if we were waiving money that we'd jump the line.  "No list. Come back in January.  Maybe on the 3rd."  We persisted a little bit longer.  Long enough that we had a nice look in the cars and the salesman asked us what color we wanted and told us about the features, what the differences in the models were, and explained gas mileage expectations.   We ultimately left, completely degected. We were so ready to spend!

Back at school, I asked our local contact and he said even with his connections we can't get a new Chevy.  He let me know that even if we returned in January, that would simply be to get our names on next year's list and we should expect to wait 3 to 6 months from then to get a car.

Just for giggles, I wrote to GM customer service and told them my woes.  GM North America was kind enough to point me to GM Middle East.  GM Middle East was kind enough to point be back to GM North America.  I just sent my final 'customer service' letter back to GM N.A.  Yes, I was polite :)

Now, I've decided that I'm going to the car-bazaar with coworkers and the local contact guy in a few weeks.  I wonder what I'll be driving.  Lada, Zhiguli, or Volga anyone?

Beetle Mania

As Paul and I left for work Friday morning, we saw a lovely beetle outside our front door.  He was a nice shiny silver gray and about 1.5 inches wide and close to 3 inches long.  That evening, I found his cousin on my bathroom floor - he was slightly smaller and very black.  Paul came to the rescue and deposited beetle in the toilet.  Just to be safe, I put a kleenex on top of beetle, but he was determined to live and attempted to use kleenex to climb out.  Yikes!

We flushed as he was approaching the rim.  Unfortunately, our water pressure isn't that great so I stood guard for a few minutes waiting to flush again.  Before the tank had filled, I watched in horror as beetle crawled back into the bowl from the drain pipes below!  Two kleenexes this time - totally drenched with water so there was no way for bug to escape - and two flushes later I left the bathroom with some confidence that Mr. Beetle was gone.  On my midnight run, I did put my glasses on see clearly and inspected the whole room carefully.  This time I got off easy.

I wonder what I'll do the first time I see a scorpion in our house.  I've seen little ones at friend's houses and I'm convinced that our water heater space looks just as cozy.