Yesterday was a “vanilla” day compared to the night before when I captured this pinkish sunset from our southern balcony looking to the northwest’s pink sunset. Actually my thoughts yesterday dealt with our KLM/Northwest tickets home for the summer. It will cost us, for round trip airfare, a whopping $2,500 each!!! We went to the main office to pay but KLM doesn’t accept the national bank card with tenge money. They will only accept cold, hard cash in tenge OR our dollars by way of Mastercard credit card. Will we EVER get home from this place known as the “ends of th earth?” Today, I hope to nail down our airline tickets with its itinerary, it just seems too much to pay but we have family and friends back in the U.S. we MUST see. If only our university paid for at least some of this ticket, but no, we are on our own. Thinking these dismal thoughts it is important to reflect on why we are here teaching as we watched the waning pinks diminish to darkness from our expensive balcony seats of our flat in Almaty.
