Initially this blog was composed of my traveling woes but then my friend pointed out that I already had a really negative blog and to add another is unforgivable soo in response this is just a quick story (because it must be told) and the rest is about vacation.

I got screwed over by an old Kazakh driver who took me to the wrong town, even after I told him I needed to go to Ushtobe in order to catch my train, instead he took me to Tekely, where there is no train station. Seriously though, my Russian needs work but I don't think Ushtobe sounds anything like Tekely. All in all, I ended up loosing over 5,000 tenge and had to spend 20 hours on a cramped old Soviet bus instead. Lesson learned: When I loose my temper my Russian improves dramatically, and if you sit on your luggage, it effectively communicates to the other person that you a) will not allow them to take your belongings and b) you will not pay 800 tenge when they take you to the wrong town. :)

On a lighter note, I arrived in Ust, ran to work that morning, attended some "meetings," met with some of the volunteers, and made the rash decision to join them at Blue Bay. Hey, I was completely stressed after that incident and I came back only to find my organization still had no work for me, so I just decided to go on vacation. Nothing like a little R & R to put things in perspective. We rented a dacha on a large lake in the mountains (kinda like Lake of the Ozarks but with less people, less plumbing, and the mountains are bigger (so really only the size is the same:)) Anyway, there were 7 of us who went (5 guys, 3 girls, all from the EKZ) and we just hung out on the beach, played volleyball, drank, ate, read books, and did a little bit of hiking.

Blue Bay is considered a resort so while I have been living here for 6 months and feel I have a fairly realistic expectation of resort, Kazakhstan though still manages to catch me by surprise. I think the "resort" part was the 20 stall bazaar we past on the way in. You could rent jet skis (is that one word? Sorry Liz, I forgot all of your lake lessons you taught me,) though, and we even saw someone water skiing. There was a banya (which we did take part in) and a cafe plus karaoke (no such thing as a good vacation without the karaoke (no we didn't do that.)) Or if you want more local experiences I recommend sitting on the beach watching drunk old Russian men in leopard print speedos tipping over paddle boats (yep, just like the ones at amusement parks in the States) or you could have Russian enforcers (he said he was a boxer from the mafia hhmmm...) come ghosting (visiting) with their pet albino rat.

All together, vacation was really good, pretty expensive, but definitely worth it. :)