Sunday, September 9, 2007

A quick recap of Sunday

I did some chores around the hours - swept, laundry, blog stuff, etc. in the morning. Afterwards I went for a walk to the teal church that you see in the photos. It is a Russian Orthodox church, and like the other yellow church that you saw, is a good example of architecture in the tsarist era. Also like the yellow church, (its name eludes me now), the teal church is one of the few buildings to survive the 1919 (I think) earthquake. I went around 12 or 1, so church was getting out. A majority, at least 50 percent, of the people were older, grandmothers, etc. I assume the younger crowd hasn’t gotten into religion yet because of communism. Sometime, next weekend perhaps, I would like to visit the mosque here in Almaty. It is the central one for Kazakhstan. Evidently, if the Muslims go to a particular place in western KZ three times during their lifetime, that is equivalent to one trip to Mecca. Interesting, don’t you think?

Nearby the church there was a nice park with kids playing and people talking. There also was a small market. The people are smart; they know that lots of people go to church and that after church is a good time to get them to buy things, or give money if you are beggar. I bought some green and red peppers. They are funny shaped. Not the usual shape we know. They are more like the large version of the skinny hot peppers we see at the grocery store. At first I didn’t realize there were the non-hot type and avoided buying them. But over the past few days I have seen people with bags of these things, so I figured they can’t be the hot ones.

I made an excellent rice dish with them yesterday for lunch. Very good meal. In the afternoon, I tried to read but ended up taking a nap. I also graded a few papers. I took another walk before it got dark to Ramstore, a nearby large store/grocery store – sorta like Wal-mart. I mentioned this large store in my other email for getting drugs. I explored the options there a bit more and discovered that I will be able to make Mexican food, if I can find tortillas, and that they do sell soy sauce there. But I have a feeling the stock changes constantly, so I think I need to buy it while they have it.

After the walk, I made my bellinis. They were tasty and I had a few leftover ones for breakfast this morning. I then watched a bit of LOTR2 on my computer. I had forgotten how much I enjoy the Ents!

Alright, that is it. I’m off to school soon.