Last Day

Today is our last day in Kazakhstan. We decided to go explore on our own and ended up going to Tsum, which is kind of like a mall. First floor is electronics--cell phones, gadgets, etc. At the cell phone kiosks they have lists displayed of all the cell phone numbers available and you can pick your number and they scratch it off the list. Kind of funny. The second floor of Tsum is mostly clothing and the third floor is souvenirs and housewares. So we did a little shopping and then continued on to the Green Bazaar, which is the big bazaar in town.

The bazaar was much like the one in Taraz but cleaner, not as dusty. As in Taraz you can find pretty much anything. We stumbled upon the meat pavilion again--same stuff: sheep heads, intestines, etc. You've seen one sheep head you've seen 'em all :) As we left the bazaar we caught a whiff of something wonderful: chocolate. We remembered that yesterday Katya told us that the biggest candy company in the country was located nearby so we followed our noses around a few blocks and dead ends until we found it. What fun! They have a candy shop attached to the factory and there was a line of about 20 Kazakhstanis waiting for their weekly purchase. They buy in bulk. I counted roughly 150+ different kinds of chocolates and candies plus about 20 kinds of cookies. Yum! We bought our share and continued on.

Our guidebook told about a restaurant called RVS (PBC in Russian) that plays on the kitsch factor of the Soviet era. So we walked all over the place trying to find it. After many wrong turns we were finally on the right street but couldn't locate the address so figured RVS had gone the way of the Communist party. As we were about to give up, what appeared before us but the restaurant. We went in and were greeted by a waitress. She asked us in Russian what we thought was how many in our party. We said, "Two." She said, "No." Hmmmmm...were they playing up the Soviet customer service? We tried again and asked, "Lunch?" She said, "No." Then she pantomimed "Smoking?" WE said, "No." So she pointed to the non-smoking room and gave us menus for the lunch that theorectically didn't exist. The restaurant was perfectly Soviet: you hear one thing (no lunch) but the reality is totally different (we had a salad and pizza). The interior was very retro: photos of Trotsky, Brezhnev, Stalin on the walls; busts of Lenin everywhere; Soviet style murals; waitresses in CCCP t-shirts. The menu was totally un-Soviet: pizza, salads, even vegetarian burritos. The waitresses give you Soviet reproduction postcards as souvenirs when you pay the bill. Fun!

We came back to the apartment and are finishing packing. The movie 'Bottle Rocket' was just on TV--one of my favorites AND shot in Dallas. Sam is going to pick us up at 1:30 a.m. to take us to the airport for our early morning flight. So I guess this is it for now! We'll be seeing all of you back in the US soon.