A nice walk in the snow

It snowed steadily all day Sunday, and was extra chilly and windy to boot. Not exactly the day for a good two hour stroll around the city... and yet that was exactly what I ended up doing. I met up with Bektour and we took a marshrutka (mini-bus) to the western part of the city center to walk around. Unfortunately, like last time, we got together in the early evening, so it wasn’t exactly good lighting for photographs. As such, I didn’t take any, but I now know of even more places where I’ll have to return when it’s sunny. And when the weather’s warm enough for my fingers to manipulate my camera! We walked around the Philharmonic, through a couple of parks, and past several allegedly corrupt universities where one may as well pay a bribe and purchase your degree because you wouldn’t learn anything by studying there anyway. We also found our way to the ghost train of Bishkek – a short spur of abandoned railroad that crosses one of the city’s main thoroughfares on a rather fancy bridge, connecting two now-defunct Soviet era factories. We tried to visit what is now a rather large botanical garden (supposedly it has plants from all countries and regions of the former Soviet Union), which covers what was once an unbelievably huge mass grave from the 1930s. (A famine? A purge? Hard to know.) Despite the rather craptacular weather, it was really a good walk. And now I have all sorts of places I must return to for photographs!

snegariffic!

Sneg means snow, and today it's snowing away. I should be planning my lessons for tomorrow, but instead I've braved the elements to come to the internet cafe in order to share the miscellany of my past week with you.

On Wednesday, I got to pick up my official certificate of AIDS-lessness

I decided to rearrange my bedroom in an attempt to make it more homey.
Not sure that I succeeded.

I removed the rather gross rug from my living room/kitchen floor. This picture was taken after I'd swept THREE times. I kid you not. It was filthy under there.

So filthy, in fact, that I had to get on my hands and knees and attack the floor with cleaner.

On Saturday, some of Katie's friends (Katie is a fellow teacher at TLS) made plov. They're from the city of Osh in southern K-stan, and claim that therefore they make the best plov.


Plov. Yum.

Our plov-eating party

My favorite Russian chocolate ever... readily available in Bishkek!

I caught Bagira mid-yawn. Don't let her scary teeth fool you... she's a sweety.

In Memory of Misty

One of my mom's cats, Misty, died this weekend.
Rest in peace, cutie.

I have my suitcase! (And other news)

This past Saturday, I spent nearly the entire day working on my lesson plans for Monday. Luckily, the levels of the classes I teach go in order (Elementary 2,3,4, Pre-Intermediate 1), so next month when everyone moves up a level, I’ll only have to plan lessons for Pre-Intermediate 2; I’ll be able to recycle the lesson plans from the previous groups. Of course, this means that this month – in addition to having a morning class – I am spending an absurd amount of time planning lessons. I can only imagine how exhausted I will be by the end of the month!

Sunday I finally made it to downtown Bishkek. I was meeting someone in a café downtown, and at that point didn’t know how long it would take me to make it down there... as such, I left very early. As it turns out, downtown Bishkek is approximately a 30 minute walk from my apartment. As I made it to my destination with about an hour to spare, I decided to walk about for a bit and take some pictures. All of the information I’m providing below regarding the pictures is based on information in Lonely Planet, so if it turns out any of my facts are incorrect, blame this guy: http://www.deanstarnes.co.nz/ as he wrote the section in my guidebook on Kyrgyzstan.

The first thing of note that I came to when I reached downtown Bishkek was a large square with a statue honoring martyrs of the revolution. One assumes they mean Ye Olde Soviet Revolution, back in the day.

Continuing west down Chui Prospekt, I came to a park in which this thing stood. Lonely Planet claims that it’s Pushkin, but it is most definitely NOT Pushkin, so I don’t know what to tell you.

Not Pushkin.

While pondering non-Pushkin, a man thundered past me on a pony which looked way too small to be racing around bearing someone of his stature. Mom, this shot’s for you:

After leaving the area of non-Puskin behind, I made it to Ala Too Square, which used to be dominated (as were all central squares back in Soviet times) by a gigantic statue of Lenin. He’s been replaced by what my book labels as the Erkindik (Freedom) Statue. It’s really too bad that the sky was so hazy. On a clear day, one can see the mountains from the square (I’ve seen pictures...), although I could barely make them out. You can’t see them at all in my photos.

In addition to the Erkindik Statue, Ala Too Square is also home to the Kyrgyz Flag, which remains under armed ceremonial guard. I personally found it odd that a flag warranting two armed guards would be so small.

Located directly behind the Erkindik Statue is a historical museum. To its right sits a group of large stones, most of which look like nothing more than, well, large stones. However, on some, one can see that they have weathered carvings, giving them features. These stones are balbals, which Lonely Planet defines as centuries old “Turkic, totem-like stone markers.”

Not far from the balbal garden is the statue of Lenin, who was relocated to a less prominent position after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I didn’t actually make it over to Lenin, as at that point I realized I needed to be heading back if I was going to make it to my destination of the evening on time. (Turns out I needn’t have worried; I got there with several minutes to spare.)

My destination was a restaurant with the unlikely name of Fatboy’s, located in central Bishkek. There I met up with Bektour Iskender, who blogs here, in addition to running this site (sadly, both sites are currently down - oh, internet reliability in K-stan) and a variety of other fabulous things, and who is completely awesome. We had Turkish plov and... burritos! I have no idea how this is possible, but the burritos at Fatboy’s tasted like real burritos. This seems to never happen outside of the US and Mexico... and yet somehow I found myself eating a genuine burrito out here in Central Asia of all places.

After dinner we did quite a lot of walking around Bishkek, looking at architecture and prostitutes and whatnot. There were definitely some interesting places that I must go back and photograph in the daytime. (No, not the hookers, the architecture. Jeez.)

On Monday I had my first classes of the year, and I must say that it was quite nice to get back into teaching. It’s amazing how much I actually enjoy doing it, and my classes here are fantastic. Unfortunately, after six hours on my feet I am exhausted, and want nothing more than to collapse into my bed. (Melissa - are your feet swollen? Because by the end of the day, mine are, and I rather suspect it’s your fault. And I used a picture of you to help teach, “She’s pregnant. She’s going to have a baby.”) Thus far the most amusing answer to a question that I’ve received was to the question of “How long is our class?” I was going for either 80 minutes or one hour and twenty minutes, but received the answer of “About five meters.” I have several ethnically Korean student and one Korean citizen student. He’s in probably 9th grade, and currently lives here with his uncle and cousin, but spent last year in Daejeon with his family. I spoke a little Korean to him and he broke out into the biggest grin. Awesome. I do wonder why exactly he got sent off to K-stan to live with his uncle, though. For Gwen and Diana: I have a student who is EXACTLY like Scott! Not only does he look just like him (despite the fact that he doesn’t have a Korean surname), but he acts just like him and they have the same insane sense of humor. He’s about two or three years younger than Scott, but if he were in Korea I’d bet money that they were related.

Tuesday, in between morning and afternoon classes, several of the other teachers and I got to go to the national AIDS center to be tested. Apparently, one must have proof of being HIV-negative in order to register, and Kyrgyzstan only accepts tests done here in K-stan. The AIDS center was one of the most depressing places I have ever been – miserably cold (where was their state-provided heat?), dark and prison-like. The blood-drawing itself was quite sanitary... although then my syringe-full of blood was squeezed into an open test-tube on a rack next to several dozen other un-corked test tubes full of blood. That was rather disconcerting, and I would’ve loved to get a picture; however, I suspect that would’ve caused numerous problems.

After leaving the AIDS center, I went to the Turkish Airlines office, which was FINALLY open again after the winter holidays. Inside there was a New Year’s Tree (like a Christmas tree, only without the Christ part), and underneath it a huge pile of suitcases – and my giant red backpack was among them. Yay! I have finally been reunited with the rest of my things. Life is wonderful.

Other randomness - Nursing Cats:

Bagira is always “nursing” on Grey Cat, despite the fact that not only is GC not Bagira’s mother, but Bagira is the bigger of the two cats. In some ways it’s really quite endearing. However, sometimes Bagira just starts slurping away so loudly and enthusiastically that it’s rather disconcerting!

I got an explanation for why my apartment is so freakin’ weird and un-apartment-like: it used to be two of the classrooms for the school! This thing is in my living room / kitchen:

Shkaf enough for ya, Mandy? Ok, so it’s not wall encompassing or anything but... You might notice from my reflection how I am not wearing my fabulous warm and fuzzy leopard print pajamas mom got for me before I left. Instead, I’m wearing a tank top and shorts; it’s damn hot inside. Kyrgyzstan suffers from that same oddity of Soviet-era engineering that plagues Russia: state provided heat. This means that it is inevitably turned on several weeks too late, way too hot (and un-adjustable) throughout the winter, and will undoubtedly be shut off several weeks before the weather warms up. So for now, in the dead of winter, I’m lounging around my apartment in my summer jammies.

I have yet to have any Kyrgyz food. Instead I keep finding Russian foods that please me to no end. Like the chocolate – Russian chocolate is here! Oh, happiness. And in addition, look what else we’ve got:

On the left we have the Kyrgyz take on Korean Cabbage. While it’s slightly different from its Russian counterpart (more herbs and peppers), it is nothing at all like kimchi. On the right we have carrot salad, which is *exactly* the same as it was in Russia. Yum.

Look what this isn’t. It looks like doshirak, it tastes like doshirak, but it ain’t doshirak. At first I thought that perhaps the doshirak people decided to give their product a Russian name (doshirak means lunchbox in Korean; lapsha means ramen in Russian), but upon closer examination, this stuff is produced in Moscow, not Korea. Boo.

An extra large sirok with sgushonka! Need I say more?

I don't really have time to be blogging....

I just finished my very first class here in Bishkek, and it went quite well... and I have a few hours before my next classes. What I really need to be doing is planning tomorrow's lessons and eating some lunch, but of course, I'm in the internet cafe instead. I took a bunch of photos yesterday, but I don't really have time to post them here and to blog about them, although I promise I *will* get to that soon. Meanwhile, you can look at all of them here (click "next" to get to the next image), or you can simply check out the few below and patiently await the arrival of the rest of them.

The London School
The bluish-grey building on the left is the school,
teachers' apartments are in the grey building to the right.


My classroom!


Mountains in the distance


Again with the mountains.
I can't wait to get a shot on a clear day!

Anyone want to do me a huge favor?

Because my internet access is so limited, slow, and not free, I'm suffering from a severe news deficit - and I've only been here a handful of days. If any of you itunes users out there would be willing to download (it's free!) Talk Of The Nation and The Diane Rehm Show and send them to me once a month, I'd love you forever. My address is Jane Keeler, The London School, Baitik Batura Street 39, Bishkek 720005, Kyrgyz Republic. Thanks!

Frustration.

Well, I guess it was a good thing that I got the ball rolling on my lost suitcase in Istanbul... They actually called the school last night from Istanbul to confirm that I am in Bishkek and to tell me that the suitcase would be flown in that very evening. They confirmed my address, and claimed that someone would deliver it to me. I was looking forward to having the rest of my things today, but it turns out that everyone in Bishkek associated with Turkish Airlines is on vacation until Tuesday! The people at the airport claim that I have to talk to someone from TA, and as they're all at home for the holidays, I seem to be out of luck. Until Tuesday, theoretically. Grrrr.

Yesterday I learned that technically, we’re not allowed to have pets in our apartments, even though the school is aware of the presence of these cats and of the fact that I agreed to take ownership of them (if you will) from the previous tenant. However, not having cats seems to mean not having an indoor litter box. As long as they go outside to do their business, and as long as I pretend to not actually have cats, it seems ok. Bizareness. The grey and black cats, which have apparently lived around here for quite some time, seem to have no problem with going out and frolicking in the snow. The tortie's a tad more sensible, and nips back inside at the first chance she gets whenever I’ve put her out. How could I have the heart to turn this adorable fuzzball out into the snow?

This morning I was scheduled to meet with the school's director at 9am for somewhat of an orientation, and to sign my contract and whatnot. Luckily I got up a couple of hours early, because it turns out that I'd managed to set all of my clocks and watches to an hour behind the correct time. So at what I thought was 8:20am, one of the staff knocks on my door and asks if I remembered that I had a meeting at 9am. I thought this was just a friendly reminder, until she said, "Can you come now, then?" I was so confused. And felt pretty foolish once I figured out what the problem was. Not the best of first impressions.

My first 24 hours in Bishkek

My first full day in Bishkek was not too eventful. I awoke feeling incredibly hungry, as I hadn’t had anything other than triscuits and peanut butter cups since my breakfast in Istanbul. After getting dressed I walked next door to the office of The London School, and one of the staff members took me to change my dollars into soms (the local currency) and showed me around a nearby grocery store. Look! Kefir, pineapple juice and beer cheese!

After lunch, I went back to the school (it’s located in the same building as my apartment) and was given a tour. I have my own classroom on the second floor, which is cool. I won’t have to be lugging all my stuff from classroom to classroom. I’ll be teaching an extra class in January. They’ve promised me an extra $150 for that, so I suppose it’s a good thing. The bad thing about this extra class is that it’s at 9:00am! You know how stellar I am in the mornings and all… I’m hoping that this will just be for the month of January, although the extra money will certainly come in handy. From what I gather, my five classes will all be in the lower levels of English skill, which is the level I’ve taught the most. My schedule (at least for January) will be MTTF (no Wednesday classes), 9:00-10:20, 2:30-3:50, 4:00-5:20, 5:30-6:50, and 7:00-8:20. Whew!

After going over my schedule and teaching procedures and such, I found “my” cats – they were left by the teacher who used to live in my apartment. I’d agreed to take care of them before she left and I arrived. Anyway, they were frolicking in the stairwell and totally thrilled to come inside my apartment. They promptly made themselves at home.

Grey Kitty (I don't know its name...)

Bagira

Lucy

I would like to say that I did something with my day yesterday, as I had no obligations and as it was quite beautiful outside... but after going to a nearby internet café (that’s where I’m blogging from, by the way) and buying some things for my apartment, I came home and crashed. I’m feeling quite rested today, and I hope that I’ve finally kicked this jet lag thing. We shall see. Keep you fingers crossed that my bag arrives tomorrow!

Part Two: From Istanbul to Bishkek

Istanbul was fabulous, even though I only had enough time to explore the neighborhood where my hotel was located. I awoke, well rested, and went downstairs for my free breakfast. Now, I’m not normally a breakfast person, but the breakfast buffet at the Gunes Hotel was excellent: pastries, breads, eggs cooked every which way, fruits, veggies, and a huge selection of cheeses. I consumed an enormous amount, especially for me. Which turned out to be a good thing, as I didn’t get another meal until over 24 hours later. Thank goodness I packed triscuits and peanut butter cups!

After breakfast, I called Turkish Airlines, and received some very good news. My backpack had been located – still in Chicago – and they promised to have it delivered to The London School in Bishkek by Friday. Fingers crossed that it shows up!

I packed my things and checked out of my hotel room... and still had three hours before the bus would arrive to take me to the airport. I left my bags with the concierge and set out to do some exploring. I wish I’d known I was going to have free time in Istanbul; I would’ve come prepared with a list of things to see and do. Instead, without any maps or knowledge of the city, I simply started walking. It turned out that my hotel was located in a residential/shopping area, and not within walking distance of anything historic and/or touristy. Nonetheless, it was an excellent walk. The weather was the perfect temperature for wandering about in just a sweater and scarf, the sky was a brilliant blue and the sun was gleaming. I felt perfectly safe, and everyone I encountered was quite friendly. I *definitely* want to come back to Istanbul at some point in the future. Below are some random photographs from Istanbul, mainly of mosques. Never having seen a mosque in real life before, I felt the need to photograph the ones I found.

Istanbul from an overpass near my hotel

At 2:00pm, the shuttle bus came and took me to the airport. In contrast to the previous day’s shenanigans, checking in was simple. Even though I had time to snag something to eat in the airport, I was not yet hungry after my enormous breakfast, so I simply loaded up on water. I assumed that on a five hour flight, we would have some sort of food service. But alas, no. Whoops. Other than lack of food, the flight was pretty nice. It wasn’t crowded at all, and I had enough space to stretch out across three seats and sleep comfortably. We arrived in Bishkek an hour early, although someone from the school was there to meet me. He drove me to my apartment and dropped me off.

My apartment is HUGE. Rather barren, but huge. Here are some pictures:

This is the first thing you see when you walk in the door.

The first door to the left leads to the bedroom

At the end of the long hall is the bathroom

To the left of the bathroom is the living room / kitchen.

Another view of the living room / kitchen

The view from my window.
I also have CATS. Three cats, to be exact. I’ll have photos of them and the school and stuff later. Right now, I think I need to go take a nap.

Part One: From Jacksonville to Istanbul

I should know better than to fly American Airlines. I don’t normally, however, as AA and Turkish Airlines are international partners, and as I was flying Chicago-Istanbul-Bishkek on Turkish Air, flying Jacksonville to Chicago on AA seemed the thing to do. Ever since my very first international flight (to Ireland, back when I was 12), I have had problems with AA every single time I’ve used them. How is it they’ve managed to stay in business? I should also add that I’m feeling more than a little peeved with Orbitz right about now. Surely they should’ve updated me about... well, you’ll see.

The problems started when the check-in clerk in Jacksonville couldn’t provide me with boarding passes all the way to Bishkek, nor could she check my bags any farther than Istanbul. She seemed quite confident in her explanations of *why* she couldn’t, and how I’d just have to re-check my bags and get my next boarding pass in Istanbul, and how it wouldn’t be a problem. In hindsight, I suspect she may have been talking out her ass.

The plane out of Jacksonville was seriously delayed, which meant I had to run full steam across the Chicago airport in order to catch my flight. I was the very last person to board the plane, and was already having doubts about whether my bags would make it. Then, after all my airport sprinting, we sat on the tarmac for over two hours before takeoff. Of course, as I was mainly relieved to have made my plane, I wasn’t too bothered by this. The flight was quite pleasant, and as it wasn’t full, I had plenty of room to stretch out once we were airborne.

We landed in Istanbul two hours late – which didn’t bother me, as I knew I still had a three hour layover even with the delay. International transfer passengers (like myself) were instructed to go to the transit desk upon deplaning. I figured I’d get my boarding pass for Bishkek and instructions on what to do about getting my luggage checked all the way through. What I didn’t expect was to be told that THERE WAS NO SUCH FLIGHT TO BISHKEK on December 31st. I was told I needed to purchase an entry visa for Turkey ($20), go through customs, pick up my luggage, then go to the ticket counter for more information.

So I did all that. Except for the part about picking up my luggage, because only one of my bags was there. I guess this is why you don’t buy nice luggage; yes, my brand new, red, awesome (and expensive) backpack that I bought in South Korea didn’t make it. While this was pretty stressful in and of itself, I’ve lost luggage numerous times before, so I know the procedure pretty well. (And the Turkish Air lost luggage people were way more friendly and helpful than the bitchy old man in Moscow’s Sheremetevo.) I filled out all the necessary paperwork, and got the numbers I’m supposed to call to check and see if they’ve found it yet. They even claim that they will send it to me in Bishkek; far better service than Aeroflot and their suitcase warehouse.

After dealing with all the lost luggage rigmarole, I stood in line at the ticket counter. While up until then, everyone with whom I’d dealt on the entire trip had been quite pleasant, this woman was, unfortunately, rather bitchy. She seemed to think that I was simply insane for assuming that I had a flight to Bishkek on December 31st, and was somewhat confrontational about the whole thing. Finally, she did a search for passengers with my name. She said that I was booked on the January 1st flight to Bishkek, but there was a problem with my ticket, and I’d have to go to the ticket sales office. What kind of problem? “Some kind of e-ticket problem.” She either could not or would not be any clearer than that.

I was having stressful fantasies about being forced to purchase a new ticket at the ticket sales office in order to actually make it to Bishkek. Luckily, the woman at the ticket sales office was very nice. She explained that the December 31st flight to Bishkek had been canceled, and that my ticket had been transferred to the January 1st flight. She also said that Turkish Airlines would pay to put me up in a hotel overnight. Yay. She gave me a new e-ticket receipt, and said that I could use it to check in the next day.

Turkish Airlines set me up with a room in the Gunes Hotel (http://www.guneshotel.com.tr/), and the staff there was excellent. And by excellent, I mean super friendly, attractive young men. The room was pretty nice as well, although I swear the bathroom was bigger than the bedroom! (Sadly, while the hotel has free wireless internet, apparently my computer claims that my wireless network device is not installed. Bah!) So there I was in Istanbul for 24 hours, on New Year’s Eve of all days. I actually thought about going out and finding something to do with my evening... but I made it as far as the nearest grocery store and back before collapsing into a much needed sleep. I awoke a good hour after Istanbul had rung in 2008, watched CNN for a bit, then slept straight through until morning.

The hotel toilet had this scary device which, if turned on, blasts a violently strong stream of water sluicing between one's ass cheeks. While I did check to see if water really came out of that strange tube, I didn't do it while sitting on the toilet - I was frightened!

Look - Turkey sells kefir!