Good Bye, Kazakhstan!

Leaving Kazakhstan took some time and effort in times of pandemic. Our flights kept getting canceled, and we were never sure of the day of our departure. We were booked on Lufthansa flights on July 1st which was canceled and then rebooked for July 3rd. That flight was also canceled, and we were finally rebooked for Turkish Airlines flight leaving on July 2nd. And even then we weren't 100% sure the flight will happen. It was going to be the very first international flight out of Nur-Sultan (Astana) since they were stopped at the end of March due to closing the borders because of the pandemic. 

Our major problem was our dog Yuki. Turkish Airlines, as it turns out, was the only airline allowing pets in the cargo area during the pandemic, so we were very grateful when they announced that they would open the flights out of Kazakhstan and to America in July. To get Yuki ready, though, we had to get her travel passport (a bunch of paperwork stamped by certain government agencies allowing her to leave the country). It had to be done within 3 days of her leaving Kazakhstan. Thankfully the government agencies responsible for that paperwork opened up again just a couple of weeks earlier. It took us a few hours of running around spread over two days but we got it done! Yay! Our dog was legal to leave!

Another problem was to pack our 6 years of life in Kazakhstan into twelve 50 lb bags (two per person), we ended up with 13 bags after getting rid of a lot of things. Not too bad!

The night of our departure (which was around 2 am) we went to the mall across the street from our campus to have our last dinner in Kazakhstan. We all got different Kazakh dishes like plov, fried pelmeni and others that we came to love so much.

Then it was time to gather our stuff and to say good-bye to our apartment that was our home for the past 6 years.

This was our master bedroom. The biggest bedroom I have ever had!

Our master bedroom from the window.

This was the twins' bedroom. It was the smallest one of the three bedrooms in our apartment and the smallest one I had ever had!

This was Nika and Lina's bedroom.

Our living room and the smallest kitchen ever!

Getting ready to leave.

Our life packed into 13 bags!

We were quite a sight arriving at the airport with all of our luggage and a dog! Yuki was a celebrity as always, and a few Kazakhs wanted to take a picture with her. Even though she was a Shiba Inu and not an Akita, a lot of people in Kazakhstan thought she was like Hachiko and always wanted to pet her.

 

Spencer is at the counter in his red hat checking us in and us taking the entire space.

We checked in without any trouble, just had to pay extra for our dog. Then we took Yuki to the cargo area and went trough the passport control and to our gate where we met up with our friends, the Thomas family, who were also leaving Kazakhstan and onto their next assignment in Washington D.C. area.

Girls playing card games with April Thomas, entertaining themselves while waiting for the flight way past their bedtime!

With the Thomas family.

Flying with friends is fun!

Our plan was to fly to Istanbul and then after a short layover to fly to Los Angeles. From Los Angeles the kids and I would fly on Delta to Salt Lake City, and Spencer would rent a van and drive Yuki and our luggage to Utah (pets were still not allowed on domestic flights due to the pandemic). However, our plan came to a stop when we arrived to Istanbul and discovered that our flight to Los Angeles was CANCELED!  

We spent the next few hours figuring out our next move, mostly just waiting for the officials to decide what to do with us. They finally offered to put us on the flight to Washington D.C. the next day which we decided to take even though it would put us on the wrong end of the country. We did have to spend the night in Istanbul though. The airport arranged for us to stay at a hotel in Istanbul but we needed to get visas to exit the airport. After another hour of walking around we finally got our visas (they wouldn't take any cards just cash, so our kids came to the rescue and let us borrow cash from them. Of course, if they didn't let us, they would be spending a night at the airport instead of having an adventure!). 

Not happy! Ours was the only flight canceled that day.

We picked up our dog from the pet holding area (which also took an hour, and they almost gave us a cat instead of our dog due to some miscommunication) and then an airport shuttle took us to the Hampton Inn Istanbul Zeytinburno Hotel (very close to the Old Town) and paid for our stay there including our three very good meals. The hotel was pretty empty, just with a few customers from around the world, mostly stuck like us due to canceled flights. The staff was extremely nice and took good care of us.

Our 3 course lunch at the hotel.

Kids enjoying their meals.

After dinner we decided to walk around a bit to see the area. We were very close to the Sea of Marmara (part of the Mediterranean Sea) and we ran into some ancient fort. Not very many people were out, things were still pretty closed down all around us but the evening was very nice and it felt good to get out for a bit. Now we can add Turkey to the countries we visited even though it was not our plan at all. At least not at this time.

On a walk in Istanbul. Lina fell asleep at the hotel and missed our little adventure.

Ancient fort is behind us.

It looked like those wall were stretching for miles

Yuki zoned out at the hotel.

Yuki was a trooper. She was very happy to be with us and was acting like a world class traveler! That dog is a great travel companion!

The next morning an airport shuttle took us back to the airport where we had to go through some additional steps to check our dog back in but things went pretty smoothly. We were all checked in, booked our hotel in D.C., and on our way to America! Finally!

Istanbul International Airport was the busiest airport we've seen during our travel during pandemic, and as you can see there was plenty of space.

In D.C. it took forever to get though customs. Spencer was flagged and was interrogated about why he was coming back to America. Never mind that it is his country. We waited for him and when he was done, we were allowed to pick up our luggage and our dog. They didn't even check any of Yuki's paperwork. Spencer rented a van, loaded it with our luggage and Yuki, and took us to the Hyatt Place hotel nearby. He got up in the middle of the night to start his long drive to Utah which he made in just 2 days! That man rocks! The rest of us went to Ronald Reagan Airport in the morning and took a Delta flight to Utah. We got to Utah on the 4th of July, and it was good to be finally home.

Waiting with our luggage outside of Dulles Airport for Spencer to get back with the van.

Breakfast at the Ronald Reagan Airport at the only place that was open and serving food.

Empty airport, nice but so strange. 

After a crazy 2 days of travel Spencer made it to Payson, Utah. And Yuki made it with him!

We certainly felt blessed making it across the world in the midst of a pandemic. We made it on one of the only flights that went out of Kazakhstan, we were able to get our dog out with us (a lot of others didn't get their pets out), and even though we had some extra adventures (kind of our thing at this point in our lives) we made it safely. NU was great to re-book our flights, and Turkish offered great service. We will always remember moving across the world at the height of COVID-19!

Our Christmas Trip to Utah - Part 1

For the second time in the six years (at least going on six) that we have lived in Kazakhstan, we decided to travel during winter break back home to Utah.  The University will pay for two trips a year, but we liked staying in Astana and celebrating New Year with Babushka on the quiet campus. We also love our family and we had the need for Nika to take exams for her BYU online high school, so we braved the winter weather again.  We also took advantage of the extra trip to bring back things that we won't need so we have less to bring back when we come home to move to Texas in the summer of 2020. (Well, Yulia took advantage and packed a bunch of stuff.)

Our trip changed from the time we booked the travel in September to when we were flying out.  We were supposed to fly Astana-Frankfurt-Chicago-Salt Lake City.  The itinerary was changed (we suspect because of changes to flight schedules from Chicago to SLC) to include a stop in Denver after we landed in Chicago.  In both itineraries we had tight connections (1 hour in Frankfurt and just under 2 hours in Chicago).

We started early in the morning - leaving for the airport at 2:30 a.m. on 11 December).  We were worried once we checked in because the flight tracker showed that the flight from Almaty (Lufthansa flies from Frankfurt-Astana-Almaty-Astana-Frankfurt) was late.  We were happy when we learned that the flight had left on time.  It landed in Astana on time and we boarded with no problem.... and then the auxiliary power unit (APU) went out and we were plunged into darkness.  Long story, short, our flight was delayed by about 40 minutes taking off.  We resigned ourselves to a rough adventure of missed flights and delays.

We made up time in the air, though and landed only about twenty minutes late in Frankfurt.  We also arrived at the Z terminal - the same one our flight was out of.  Joy! They made us completely exit the security zone and re-enter security during shift change. Misery!  By the time we got through security, the boarding time for the flight was at its end.  We ran (literally) from security through the duty free and down the concourse.   The doors on our flight had been closed, but they opened up boarding because our family of six plus one other family arrived just then.

United had already begun the process of re-booking, so they broke me and the families itinerary up and gave us new seats.  We were told we could sit in our original economy plus seats, though, so we boarded.  We had to kick out some opportunistic passengers who had moved into our empty two rows of seats. They were unhappy, but they were our seats and we were not going to back down....

Our flight to Chicago left a few minutes late, but we landed in Chicago on schedule.  At the same time as four or five other international flights.  The immigration and customs lines were all understaffed and we were herded into one mega line that it took us 90 minutes to get through.  When we got through to the baggage carousel, we were missing one bag - the one bag that had all of mine and Yulia's clothes.  We went through and went to recheck our bags and we were told to go directly to customer service.  We had missed our connection to Denver.

It took about twenty minutes to re-book us on a flight to San Francisco and from there to SLC.  We went to our next terminal and through security (with a few adventures) and then picked up some lunch/dinner to eat as we waited 2.5 hours for our flight to San Francisco.  Long story short - we made it to Salt Lake 7 hours late and our bag and our rides (my mom and sister in law, Shellee) were there waiting.  All's well that ends well.  We were in Utah.

At Astana Airport waiting for the first flight.

In Chicago.... looking loopy after 24 hours of travel.

The Mountains of Utah.  It was warm and snowless in the valley mostly, but the mountains are awesome.

After resting for a couple of days, Nika started her testing at the BYU distance learning testing center.  She got A- on most of her exams (in Algebra 2 and English she got As on the exams), but earned As in all of her classes.  While she was taking exams, I was working at the BYU library.  There were some books I needed for a paper I am working on - so I got the books and used the scanners there to scan the chapters I needed.  I also did some writing.

In summer 2018 we met with some of my high school friends.  Nika and Dan's son, London correspond via gmail still and they told us we should all get together.  Dan and I arranged to meet up before his family went to California for Christmas.  We went to their house for Sunday dinner - delicious tacos and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  We had a great time visiting and catching up.  Dan gave us a signed copy of his latest book - The Star Shepherd.  I am looking forward to reading it still - I haven't been able to get it away from the girls yet.

The kids trying to pose (one of Dan's girls is missing from the picture because she was down with flu that day)

The grown ups (in my hands is a signed copy of Dan's book)

On Tuesday, December 17 we went to Salt Lake City in the afternoon after Nika had finished her tests for the day.  Last time we went to the US we went to see a Jazz game.  The girls really liked it.  Rather than doing presents - since we are trying to avoid accumulating more stuff - we offered the Jazz game for a Christmas present this year.  The kids jumped at the chance.  We got tickets in the second row of the second level in a really nice location on the court.  We also wanted to go and see Temple Square.  It wasn't really "Christmas feel" when we walked through since it was still light and there was no snow.  We did make it to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and saw the big Christmas tree, some carolers, and the "Light the World" service vending machines.  It was a nice little visit.

Then we went across the street and had lunch before walking down to the Vivint Smart Home Center to watch the game.  The kids and I all got through security and were scanning our tickets and I looked around and Yulia was missing.  She was stuck at security.  She wasn't allowed to bring her big camera in with her.  Our car was parked half a mile away.  I ran it to the car while Yulia and the girls browsed in the team store.  When I got back, we all picked our Jazz gear, paid for it, and then found our seats for the game.

The Jazz were playing Orlando.  The team won - in an exciting and fun game.  Last time we watched, they also won.  But Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell didn't play in that game.  In this one they did, and we had a great time.  The experience was worth it.

Salt Lake Temple

Watching the carolers

Alexandra

Polina and Veronika

The whole family

We had fun buying some vaccines!

Temple after we ate and were walking to Jazz game.

Beautiful night view of Temple Square.

Walking to the Jazz game.

Comparing foot size with Rudy Gobert!  Rudy wins!!!

Jazz Uniforms through the ages.

Tip off!

Girls watching the action.

Yulia and I in our Jazz gear having a fantastic time.

Trip to Uzbekistan Part 2 - Bukhara

For our second full day in Bukhara (October 1), we divided the day in two.  During the first half of the day we walked to see the sites that we hadn't yet seen in the downtown area.  In the second half of the day we arranged for a taxi driver to pick us up and take us to three sites on the outskirts of town. The day was beautiful - around 75 degrees or so and sunny and we had a lovely time.

Arabic writing on a plate on display.  Versus from the Koran were inscribed everywhere.

We walked back to the area of the Ark, and just around the corner to the prison.  The Zindon.  We hiked up the steps and paid to take a tour of the prison complex which really made us appreciate modern jails that are not in the form of pits into which prisoners were thrown for months and years on end.

Zindon jail from the outside.

Up close view of the fort.

Our climbing prisoners!

Scenes of prisoners.

Punishment!

A museum of different tools they used for punishment/torture from the late 19th and early 20th century.

The pit for the debtors.

Enjoying a bright sunshiny day!

We next walked to the Bolo-Hauz mosque.  It is still a working mosque.  It has a lovely pool out front (that they were repairing) and beautiful wooden columns and wooden porch.  This mosque was still working during the revolution when Bolshevik troops came to occupy the city.  We really enjoyed the spirit of the place and tried to be as respectful as possible since there were people coming to pray.

Taking a picture in front of the mosque.

Looking at the front of the mosque with its decoration and columns. 

Papa and Lexa.  I injured my elbow in our bathroom the first night!

After the mosque, we walked down through a park (with a Soviet style "Luna Park") to an old mausoleum from the 14th Century: Buyan Khuli Khan Mausoleum.  The mausoleum was made of bricks that were really interestingly done.  There was a lady there who was trying to make people pay to see it, so we just peeked in and looked at the outside. It was worth it and the park itself was very lovely.

Park complex.

Walking down the avenue.

Mausoleum.

After the mausoleum, we walked back through the bazaar to give the girls a chance to do some souvenir shopping.

These lovely outfits and cloth are famous.  Sophia and Veronika bought outfits for their souvenirs.  Lina bought a neat wooden box.  Lexa got a bracelet and some other small jewelry.

Musical instruments for sale.

Nika looking at the instruments.

Lexa resting in the shade.

After resting for an hour at our hotel, our driver came and picked us up.  The first place he took us was the Bakhautdin Naqsband Mausoleum.  It was outside the city a ways, but one of our favorite places.  The complex had a mosque, a madrassa, and lots of gardens.  It had a very sacred feel to it and we really enjoyed being there.

beautiful inlaid tiles with some different colors than usual.

Mausoleum.

This was the actual mausoleum.

The miniature tower like the one in downtown Bukhara but shorter.

Walking through the complex.

Beautiful garden pathway.  There were lots of people here.  It is a site of pilgrimage for Sufi Muslims.

The complex had a pond that had geese, ducks, and swans swimming in it.

Our next stop was the Sitora-i Mokhi Khosa, or the summer residence of the region's emirs.  The residence was modeled after the summer palace in St. Petersburg, but on a much smaller scale.  It was built a few years before the Russian revolution and is being restored as a museum complex.  There were different displays, including a collection of vases, a collection of clothing, and other interesting items from the life of the emir.

Outside view of the residence. Porches on a smaller scale.

Inlaid with stone and metal. Fake Fireplaces.

Vase collection.

Different items from the emir.

This was a tower from which they could watch swimmers in the pond.... and keep an eye on all the Emir's wives.

Pond at the palace.

The last site we visited was that of Chor Bakr.  It is the burial site of a couple of 10th century holy men and has a  few mosques, an extensive cemetery and various areas where pilgrims used to be accommodated. We liked this site, but it was at the end of a long day so we didn't stay too long.

Down the walkway were various doors that led to courtyards with burial grounds.

Grave sites within the complex.

After we had visited all the sites for the day, we stopped at a little cafe near the Chor Bakr site.  It is the area that is supposed to have the best "Shashlik" or lamb kebabs.  We were the only non-locals there and they sat us outside by ourselves.  We ordered salad, bread, and shashlik.  It all was very delicious.  We arrived back at our hotel at around 5:30 p.m. or so and spent the rest of the night resting our weary bones.  We felt like we had seen the sites in Bukhara and we had a wonderful time doing it.