Privet, While we enjoy our cream of wheat:

Privet,

While we enjoy our cream of wheat:

Initially I was met with a brief wave of culture shock when we arrived in Almaty. The locals seemed brusque and jolly, and as we groggily ascended into the mountains we learned a bunch of interesting facts from Perry, a peace-corps volunteer who came to Almaty to help out with our trip. He served as a bridge into the culture of Kazakhstani youth and provided a bunch of useful cultural information about Kazakhstan. Most interestingly, he told us that downtown Almaty was built along a fault line and that an earthquake could completely decimate all of its structures. The last time that this occurred was in 1911 (just an interesting tidbit).

My initial awkwardness toward our Kazakhstani peers wore away as the night went on and our roommates made a dance party, a mountain-cabin discoteca. Through an activity that knows no language barrier we were able to properly acquaint ourselves with our Kazakhstani counterparts and found a bond that will hopefully grow throughout the rest of our trip.

We had a layover in Kiev and arrived in Almaty 36 hours after departing from JFK. We’ll write more about this later—Dos vidania.

-Yair