Weekend Play by Play

On Friday, I received the first shipment of my belongings from the United States. It was mostly clothes, shoes, files, and accessories for my laptop. Unfortunately, I didn't think to pack any food in this shipment-- the pallet of macaroni and cheese and peanut butter I bought from Costco are still on their way. Nonetheless, I'm excited to have some variety in clothing beyond what I brought with me on the plane (some of the clothes got a little mangled-- Mom, when can you come by to help re-iron them?).

On Saturday, I went to a housewarming party for someone I met through work, and it turned out to be a great time. Among the guests were a Swede, two Slovaks, two Serbs, a few Russians, a few Kazakhs, an Argentinian, someone from France, someone from Switzerland, someone from Japan, and Herman the German. I was the only American (and fortunately for me, the language of common understanding was English). I was pleasantly surprised to see that there is a laid-back element to the "professional" crowd that I'll see often at work functions. Most of the people wore jeans, some brought their kids, and we just sat around and ate, drank, and talked-- about non-work stuff. I'm excited now about the social scene over the next two years. I hope also to develop some friendships among the non-ex-pat crowd, but I can tell it's going to take longer. I think that local/Kazakh social circles are a little more closed to outsiders.

This morning (Sunday) I hitched a ride to church with one of my colleagues. It was a Pentecostal church--the people were very friendly, but it's a little non-traditional for my tastes. It was also a wake-up call for how far I need to go in my Russian language skills-- I understood about 20% of the sermons (they had two sermons). Although we never learned any "Christian" words in our language training, I'm pretty sure they were speaking in Russian, not in tongues. I'll have to keep exploring churches--I know there's also a Baptist church in town, and a Nazarene Church.