Morning peace, evening fun

11:55 PM - Mike here

The kids went to bed less than an hour ago, as we had a late night "out on the town." A few days ago, Chris (of another adopting couple) met a man name So Jun (not sure I'm spelling that right). Chris was out and about, and suddenly heard this Kazakh man speaking flawless English to Ena, his interpreter. Turns out that So Jun is an American of Korean descent who came to Kazakhstan two years ago on a peace corps mission. So they arranged to meet for dinner, and invited the rest of us out. So there we were tonight on a street-corner seat, eating awesome Shashlyk and drinking good beer, talking about everything. There were nine of us altogether, including three children.

Tucker and Nastya (Chris' daughter) had a lot of fun running around in circles (Nastya is ten), and Mia ate salad and flirted with anyone who would engage. All in all, we had a great time. We really needed a night out.

OK, so we weren't keeping a "low profile" tonight. But there's only so much "low profiling" one can do before going postal. We'll probably meet So Jun again at his favorite restaurant in a few days. A friend of his owns the place.

This morning, we enlisted the help of Sveta and Alexander to take us for a drive. The best part of the drive was when we visited a little town made up of hundreds... no, probably thousands of dachas. These are little summer houses. Shacks, really -- most of them. But this little village was out in the country a bit -- maybe 20 minutes outside city limits -- and I can still feel the involuntary deep breaths I took just walking around in the peace and quiet.

We were hoping to accompany Chris, Nastya, and Ena to a lake nearby for an overnight getaway, but we're probably going to decline after being advised against it by Sveta. I guess there's a slim chance that someone could ask us for papers, and since the paperwork on Bacha hasn't been finalized yet, we could get the Director of the baby house in trouble. I don't understand it, but we're unlikely to take the chance at this point.

Linda is sounding worse. She's had a nagging shallow cough for several days now, and tonight's little excursion to the cafe didn't do her any good, as it was a bit chilly. Even the blankets provided by the restaurant didn't completely help. She's also wrestling with a nagging hip problem which she's had before. I keep thinking that we should try and enlist Onisis Louca's help -- he's a chiropractor. At the least, Linda's going to try and get a thorough massage soon.