Day 11: Saturday

Saturday. It's a normal day, and marks the completion of my first week in Kazakhstan. First impressions: there is a lot to take in. Me and my friends decided to do some homework together and then hit the town, and we got a large group of people convinced to come with us after homework, so things were lining up to be quite exciting.

Yesterday was a technology discount day, and my host family bought an iron as well as an ironing board. It was also laundry day and the day to buy groceries, so all chores were done. Typical for a Saturday, anyway! After breakfast, me and Adilbek walked down to the bazar to get groceries, and Adilbek got me some strawberry ice-cream. We grabbed some raspberries and found out that black raspberries (not blackberries!) exist, and got some of that as well. By the time we walked back home, it was already time for lunch.

For lunch we had pelmeni soup with some camel's milk. Out of fermented cow's milk airan, fermented horse milk kumis and fermented camel's milk shubak, I'd have to say that the camel's milk takes the gold. It was still sour, like airan and kumis, but had the best taste and feeling over all, albeit a bit thick, like watered down yogurt. Then, Adilbek went out, Assel did some laundry, and I studied in front of the new television, that was showing survival shows at a much higher quality than the previous television.

Soon enough, it was time for me to leave for my friend's house. At the bus stop there was this small Kazakh toddler, who kept peeking his head from behind a sign and looking at me. It was too cute and I nearly died while waiting for the bus (figuratively). 

At Monika's house, we worked on homework and ate some food that we bought at the shopping center nearby. After about an hour or two, Monika's host mother came home along with her host grandmother and children. We had dinner together and it was pretty delicious! For dinner: plof (плов), basically fried rice with sheep meat. 

Afterwards, we left to try out a bar that Monika's host mother suggested and met up with the rest of the group at a nearby cafe. This was an open cafe, meaning there were to windows or doors, but still an 'inside' area, that was just like an extended porch. The soccer game of Mexico versus Korea was playing and we watched it for a bit and talked together before half of us decided to go to the bar.

All of my friends went through smoothly, but they asked only me for my age and it turns out that the bar is actually only for 21+, so I joined up with the other half of the group back at the cafe and looked to get a taxi home. It was already 11 pm and I live about 35 minutes away from the bar, so one of my friend helped me to get a yandex taxi (like uber) home.

Now I will sleep.

Day 11