Spring Has Arrived

Is it unique to Nur-Sultan that a sure sign of spring is that they begin power-raking the walls of the mall (look close)?

As has been the case since I arrived, the weather here changes almost in sync with Saskatoon - melting and >0C temps began within days in both places, and it's now a great walk to and from the office every day. Might be a little nicer at this end at +20C today.

Work
The work end of things is humming along well with new and interesting developments every day

I'm slowly...very slowly...starting to catch the odd word as my colleagues ramble along in Russian. I have an hour every Tuesday and Thursday at lunch with my tutor Marina, and it's truly back to basics. Unfortunately, all Russian verbs are conjugated like French, so it's that much more difficult (spelling and pronunciation of the end of verbs change depending on singular and plural, and all nouns have a gender - think "I broke the chair" and "They have broken the chair" - but for EVERY verb). Feel like a kindergartner learning to put key sentences together:

Food
...Is still awesome. A couple of investors came through town from the UK, so we arranged a lunch meetings with a couple of staple Kazakh dishes - baursaks (basically unsweetened donut), samsa (triangular dough with beef in it), lots of vegetables, and plov (rice pilaf).

Yes, the meat in the pilaf is horse...and it's great. It's taboo in North America, but as it's been explained to me here, like any animal that's consumed, they're bred for food and riding horses/pets are completely different. It's among the cleanest meats because they only drink clean water and eat clean grass by their nature (unlike say a cow that will eat and drink everything). As the UK guests put it: "ok, whatever you've gotta tell yourself..." In my travels I've eaten all kinds of random things, so I eat based on whether it tastes good or not...

Restaurants tend to be themed around one cuisine, not like an Earls or Moxie's where you get burgers, Cajun, Asian, Indian dishes in one place. But the menus are thorough...take this one from a Chinese restaurant - it's the size of a magazine.

While there's a ton of selection and according to my colleagues, even for normal weekend meals there is usually more food laid out than there is space on the table, people are not overweight. I personally chalk that up to better metabolism by virtue of the fact they are continually eating. Breakfast...second breakfast (a real thing), snack, home for lunch, afternoon snack, supper, second supper. I signed up for a service that delivers me fresh cooked meals every night for the next day, and there's a lot of food (this is one day)!

They take your age, weight, etc. and give you a meal plan for your ideal calories, so I get this every day (works out to <$20 day - expensive by their standards, but I don't have to think about cooking, so it's nice...). Important note from the company is that you must eat in the time ranges, which are continuous! I still take a day off each week and hit the Sunday brunch with a nasty desert bar...

...and I do break the rules with the odd $1 beer. I grabbed the "BeerKahn" one night (awesome name), and was confused to be a little buzzed off one tall one, but turns out it was 10%! Colleague remarked the next day that people work such long hours, they don't have much time outside the office, so when they drink, they need to get drunk fast.

Back Home in Canada

Just after leaving on March 24, the Saskatoon Stars AAA team won provincials, and a week later, won regionals vs. Manitoba, so it's on to the Esso Cup in Sudbury over Easter!!!

Pretty big once-in-a-life event for Haylee - something I hated to be missing, but was happy to see it'll all be live streamed by Hockey Canada. However, after mentioning the big win to the CEO (who is Kazakh, but understands the importance of hockey to Canadians), he said it was something I couldn't miss. So off for a week to work from Sudbury, with the last minute ticket purchase resulting in a few extra miles next week on a trip through Minsk, Warsaw, Moscow, Toronto to Sudbury, and a return flight through Toronto, Berlin, Warsaw, Minsk, Moscow to Nur-Sultan (to arrive at 5:45 am and get right into work for board meetings...) Not going to complain about the journey when the company is being so accommodating. Once back, it's hectic, with the release of an annual report, quarterly trading update, 3 days of national holidays and then an investor conference in Barcelona...madness, and next trip home will be June.

Other randomness
- I was looking out my window at work, trying to decide why the paved parking lot looked so odd...yeah, it's all paving stone. In fact there is a TON of paving stone here. When work has to be done or freeze-thaw messes up the ground, they just pull up the bricks, level and put them back.

- Decided on a hobby and brought a set of drums back...stuck with digital so the neighbors don't kick me out...

- Got a birthday present from my team - Dombra key chain and a tie and cuff-links set in the Kazakh "pattern". That pattern is everywhere here - monuments, benches. They asked what the Canadian equivalent would be...guess it's the Maple Leaf!

- The view out the window at work speaks to the wide gap between the rich and poor in this country (Kazakhstan is the richest central Asian country) and speed of development. A poor village still sits in a field with the city growing around it! Looks like Warman (sorry Warman).

Go #StoonStartsAAA!