Sunday in Almaty

We all woke refreshed this morning. It is nice to have all the amenities a big city has to offer.
The Hotel Kazzhol is very nice and not too expensive. They have a large business center that charges 400tenge for 30 min online. It is a little pricey for me, so we found an internet cafe that charges 350tenge for 1 hour. The breakfast buffet also comes with the room and is really very good. The beds are fairly soft and the room has a small fridge too.

This morning we went for a walk to get Alina's passport photos redone. She was too smiley in the other ones they had done in Taraz. We found a large department store that is very like a mall. It has an internet cafe on the 3rd floor and a large grocery store on the first floor. There is even a Claire's Boutique=)

We are going to have a very easy day today and relax. We are still feeling a bit tired from the long night we had waiting for the train. The train was nice in that we could relax and lay down. We had a two bed compartment. I had Alina sleep on top of me (she really likes to cuddle and prefers to be touching me). The bathroom should be used sparingly. It is pretty gross. We went in armed with wet wipes. To flush there is a pedal on the floor you step on and a hole opens up and you can see the tracks through it. Yuck. We weren't sure when to get off the train, and were surprised when a lady came by and shooed us out saying "Almaty!" We stuffed things back into suitcases and started to get off. A man came into the car we were in and introduced himself as Nikolai. He was there to help us. He took us (the Robeys were with us as well) to the hotel and went through our documents. Later, Oleg came to help us fill out more documents for the embassy appointment.

That's about it for now! Alina is getting anxious to get moving so we are going to go to the grocery and then back to the hotel.