We've arrived!

What a long journey this has been, and we're only just beginning! We left Winnipeg on Sunday, delayed by an hour due to the weather (what was that? freezing rain, blowing snow?) I was feelng sick with nerves - saying goodbye to our families was so hard. I kept it together until we were leaving for security, and was felling better by the time we were boarding the first plane.
Once we arrived in Montreal, we grabbed a bite to eat, and had a chance to get to know our traveling partners better. The flight from Montreal to Frankfurt was long -neither of us could get any sleep. Our layover in the Frankfurt airport was almost 5hours long. We then took a Lufthansa plane to Kazakhstan - what a nice plane that was - we had a bag with water, socks, ear plugs and an eye mask to help sleep (if you could). Unfortunately it wasn't a direct flight. We first landed in Astana, stayed on the plane for an hour while they refueled, then went on to Almaty. The flight from Frankfurt to Almaty took 8.5 hours - longer than flying overseas to Germany! Needless to say, I am so sick of planes!
We stayed in Almaty for 2 days. Flying in we saw beautiful mountains (even though it was 2:30 am, the moonlight was bright). We were driven to the Kaz-Zohl hotel. Along the way, I ws surprised to see all of the fancy car dealerships, and along the main street, all of the "working ladies" holding our signs (advertising, I guess). Almaty has a population of 2 million people. We were staying downtown, and first thing in the morning, we were able to see the mountains from our window. By mid morning, however, the smog was so bad they disappeared from sight. We walked around a bit, but the air pollution was really bothering me. Traffic was also unreal - to cross the streets, people just walk in front of the cars, and hope the drivers stop -usually there are a lot of horns blowing, and brakes squeelng. The drivers don't adhere to lanes, they weave in and out, drive in the middle, into on-coming traffic, and sometimes onto what I thought were sidewalks. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed - I'm not as adventerous as Dave.
On Thursday February 20 (I'm so mixed up on dates and times it's not funny any more), we went back to the Almaty airport to catch our flight to Uralsk. We didn't have to pay any overweight luggage fees (I'm giving myself a hugh pat on the back for being so organized and efficient with the packing - I'd only been planning it for how many months?) Boarding planes here is different - they don't call you up by row, or any any order - they announce the flight, and you are herded into a group like cattle, and it's very man and woman for themselves. We were crammed into a bus, where we stood squished like sardines for 20 minutes, then driven out to the plane, where we boarded from outdoors. Astana Air has really nice planes - much biger than the Air Canada flight we took to Montreal! It was a 3 hour flight from Almaty to Uralsk. With the time change, we are now 11 hours ahead of home. We landed at the airport, which looked like it was in the middle of an open field. We exited the plane outdoors, and had to walk acros the icy tarmak to the airport building, in the dark, with blowing snow - it wsa fun. The airport itself looks like something out of the 1950's - a small pretty empty building with dim lighting, and no heat - we were freezing. The luggage came into the room on a small belt - the room was so small you could only fit 3 people deep in the room - not good when you're trying to manouver 4 bags and 3 carry ons. We met our translator Katerina, and were driven about 40 minutes into town to our hotel.
Geographically, Uralsk is in continental Europe, and there was a boarder guard checking vehicles as we approached the bridge that separates the country. I'm impressed with how pretty this city is - all of the bridges are lit up with differnt colored lights, and many buildings have colored spotlights illuminating them at night.
We checked into the Pushkin Hotel, our home for the next couple of months. I'll give more details when I get a chance. For now, please know that we are safe, tired, but excited for the next phase of our journey to begin.