Blog - Second Day in Kazakhstan (2008-02-14)

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Second Day in Kazakhstan (2008-02-14)

Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-02-16 15:25:40 GMT. Updated: 2008-02-27 23:43:09 GMT.

I woke up in good time, had a shower (still avoiding what might be an emergency cord), and went down to for breakfast. Having learnt from yesterday's mistake, I put my bread through the toaster twice, and also discovered where they keep the butter. I also noticed that they offer pancakes, so I might not bother with the bacon and eggs tomorrow. That's assuming I have time for breakfast - my flight leaves at 08:20, so I assume I have to be at the airport at 06:20. I had a table to myself this morning, which meant that I didn't get to chat to anybody, but that I could update my blog while drinking my tea. I know I'll be bringing my own tea bags next time I come to Kazakhstan, if not my own kettle.

I got back to my room at about 08:10, which gave me about 15 minutes before I had to go down to reception. When visiting customers, I always like about quarter-of-an-hour to sit down in my hotel room to shut my eyes, and collect my thoughts. This worked OK, and I sat down in reception at about 08:25. At about 08:40, the driver still hadn't turned up, so I asked one of the birds at reception to call the bird who arranged my hotel (the Engineering Manager was on holiday). There was no answer, so I asked the reception totty to call her mobile. She said that they weren't allowed to call mobiles. I couldn't use my work mobile (it still wouldn't make outgoing calls), and I didn't want to use my personal mobile (because I didn't want her to know the number), so I went up to my room, and used that phone. She said she'd speak to the transport manager, and call the hotel back. Ten minutes later, I called her again, and she said that she'd called the hotel, but "they couldn't find you". Gimmeration - didn't they think about calling my room? Anyway, I went down to reception, and waited. Ten more minutes later, there was still no driver. Worried that he might have arrived while I'd been in my room, I called using my personal mobile. The woman answered, but hung up after about 30 seconds, and which point a reception bird handed me a telephone. Apparently, the driver was stuck in traffic, and would arrive soon. None of this gimmring around annoyed me - it was their time they were wasting, not mine. I eventually arrived at about 09:35. I managed to communicate to the driver that I needed him to let me in, and he said he would park. I waited for him, and we went inside. He opened the door to his offices, but they were on the ground floor, and I knew I needed to be on the first floor. He didn't understand me, so let us in anyway, and pointed me in the direction of some top totty who spoke English. Excellent! She didn't know where I should be, but I explained where I should be, and she took me there. I asked whether I should get a pass, but she said that there was no need. This upset me a bit, because I didn't get to perve at the reception totty, but never mind. The attendees for today's course were waiting for me, I made my apologies, went to get a coffee, and then started the course. To be continued when I have re-charged my PDA.....

Continued..... There was a Scottish bloke on the course, who took me for lunch, and also took me down to the river so that I could take some pictures of the river, and the fishermen making holes at least a metre deep through the ice, so that they can sit on the ice, and fish. I was up for going down there after I'd got back to the hotel, but he, like others, said it wouldn't be a good idea to wander around on my own, even at about 5PM. This idea of not wandering around to experience a new town seemed wrong, but all the foreigners that I had asked about it said that I shouldn't, and only the locals said that it wasn't a problem. I decided to be sensible, and not risk being attacked. He also said that the water wasn't safe to drink, and I shouldn't even use it for brushing my teeth. Oh well, it was a bit late for that! Apparently, I should have been given a list of dos and don'ts before I arrived, but I didn't get one.

Before leaving, the Scottish bloke sorted out my lift to the hotel, and my lift to the airport in the morning. He also introduced me to somebody else who was going to be getting a lift to the airport in the morning. This made me feel happier about trusting the transport. My plane was due to leave at 08:30, but I was assured that leaving the hotel at 07:00, and getting to the airport at about 07:20 would be OK. This seemed to be cutting it a bit fine to me, but the other bloke catching the flight said it would be OK.

Back at the hotel, I was glad that I didn't have a headache, maybe I was getting used to drinking coffee, hot chocolate, and no tea. When I got back to my room, I found a receipt that I think said that I was being charged for two juices. I decided to discuss it with some reception totty when I went down for dinner. Before then, I watched some more BBCWorld - the two news articles that caught my attention were an elephant in Australia being pregnant, and a greyhound owner who is suing William Hill for £4m for not stopping him from betting. Good luck to him. I then decided to try to find some other English language channels. The first programme that I recognised was Dawson's Creek. It was excellent being dubbed into Russian - I could perve at the totty, but not have to pay attention to the depressing storylines. I got bored of this fairly quickly, and then found the Discovery Channel. It didn't have the type of programme that I expected on the Discovery Channel - it had a programme about some bikers building a bike for Bill Murray. I got fed up with this fairly quickly, so tried using the bidet. I couldn't figure out how to use it, so decided to go down to dinner instead.

The woman at reception said that the receipt was for the mini-bar. I hadn't even found the mini-bar, so knew that I hadn't used it. She said that she'd sort it out. I saw a notice at reception saying that the restaurant was reserved for Valentine's Day meals. I checked out where I'd eaten last night, and it wasn't reserved, so there must be another restaurant that I didn't know about. I had two Amstels with my meal, which was more filling than yesterday. While trying to copy and paste some text, my PDA crashed. This wasn't a problem, because, after losing a lot of data when I was in Oz, I now save each day of my blog entries as a separate Dataviz document, so that the most I could lose is one day's entry. This time, I didn't lose any data at all.

I then went to the bar, and realised that it was the night-club tables that were reserved for Valentine's Day meal, but that the bar was open as normal. There was nobody smoking at the bar, so I ordered a beer, and started updating my blog while sitting at the bar. Towards the end of my drink, there were people sitting either side of me smoking, so, despite wanting another beer, I wasn't going to prop up the bar any longer. I then remembered the mini-bar. I wouldn't normally have drinks from a mini-bar because of the cost, but I fancied another beer, and it wasn't as if my company wasn't making enough money from my trip to Kazakhstan.

Despite finding the mini-bar, I still couldn't find any tea-making facilities. I then remembered that somewhere I had an element that would boil water in a cup. I'll have to find this when I get home, because the bloke who took me to lunch today said that some people got charged extra for electricity when the hotel realised that they'd brought their own kettles! I then started wondering whether a USB kettle existed, and how long it would take to boil a cup of water. I doubt it would work, but I'll have to work out how long it would take.

Drinking Corona, I continued updating my blog until the battery on my PDA ran out of power. I put it on to charge, and started watching the Discovery Channel. Yet again, it didn't have the types of programme that I expected from the Discovery Channel - How It's Made, and Dirty Jobs. Anyway, this kept me awake until about half-twelve, when it was time to go to sleep. I didn't bother trying to use the bidet, because I reckoned I'd probably end up with the tap stuck up my jacksie, and I didn't want to explain that to my insurance company!

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