We arrived in Bishkek at 4am on Monday, August 5th. This was after travelling for twenty hours over three different calendar days. Also, for some reason, Turkish Airlines only flies into Manas International Airport in the middle of the night...arrivals are either at 2am or 4am.
It was an uneventful 4 hour flight from Istanbul to Bishkek, but I lost my glasses on the flight from NYC to Istanbul, which I was hoping would not some gesture of cosmic symbolism. Since my wife can't read Cyrillic yet and hasn't had the stringent 4 hour course of Pimsleur Russian CD's that I had, I was happy that she had my contact lenses in a carry-on so that I could see past the tip of my beard.
Manas airport, however, was a decent one with more English signage that I had expected. Getting luggage and getting out of the airport was a bit tense - somewhere between the order of the line loving North Atlantic and the full steam aheadedness of South Asia. A driver from the school was there to get us, the temp was in the mid 60's and the sun was coming up - perfect. The drive to Bishkek, heading south towards the mountains, was mostly farm land and fields. The guesthouse, Philomen or Philomene was on a side alley near a giant leafy boulevard that I think is Erkindik Street, but there are no street signs here. There is a local puppy who bounds about and everyone, from children up to the biggest dudes are terrified of him.
Traffic does actually stay in lanes and obey traffic lights, although there are occasionally three foot wide sink holes that drop five feet into the sewer, so again, Krazystan is a somewhere in between place. We took our son to a playground of sand and what seems to be Bishkek standard equipment - 4 individual swings that are wooden seats with seat backs and a jagged metal steps-two slided- monkey bar think with ornamental tops. My son liked it and was able to get some pretty good speed on the two giant steel sheets that formed the big slide.
At 9am we arrived at AUCA and met with HR. Order of business number 1 - take an HIV test! This seems to be standard practice in Central Asia - if you are a foreigner and want to work here, you better not have HIV. Tajikistan apparently tests every six month - here in liberal Kyrgyzstan, we only have to do it once a year. We were promptly escorted to the clinic, had our blood taken and then we could handle things like finding an apartment and getting cell phones etc. The test results came back in 24 hours...we still don't have the work permits we started applying for in April...
It was an uneventful 4 hour flight from Istanbul to Bishkek, but I lost my glasses on the flight from NYC to Istanbul, which I was hoping would not some gesture of cosmic symbolism. Since my wife can't read Cyrillic yet and hasn't had the stringent 4 hour course of Pimsleur Russian CD's that I had, I was happy that she had my contact lenses in a carry-on so that I could see past the tip of my beard.
Manas airport, however, was a decent one with more English signage that I had expected. Getting luggage and getting out of the airport was a bit tense - somewhere between the order of the line loving North Atlantic and the full steam aheadedness of South Asia. A driver from the school was there to get us, the temp was in the mid 60's and the sun was coming up - perfect. The drive to Bishkek, heading south towards the mountains, was mostly farm land and fields. The guesthouse, Philomen or Philomene was on a side alley near a giant leafy boulevard that I think is Erkindik Street, but there are no street signs here. There is a local puppy who bounds about and everyone, from children up to the biggest dudes are terrified of him.
Traffic does actually stay in lanes and obey traffic lights, although there are occasionally three foot wide sink holes that drop five feet into the sewer, so again, Krazystan is a somewhere in between place. We took our son to a playground of sand and what seems to be Bishkek standard equipment - 4 individual swings that are wooden seats with seat backs and a jagged metal steps-two slided- monkey bar think with ornamental tops. My son liked it and was able to get some pretty good speed on the two giant steel sheets that formed the big slide.
At 9am we arrived at AUCA and met with HR. Order of business number 1 - take an HIV test! This seems to be standard practice in Central Asia - if you are a foreigner and want to work here, you better not have HIV. Tajikistan apparently tests every six month - here in liberal Kyrgyzstan, we only have to do it once a year. We were promptly escorted to the clinic, had our blood taken and then we could handle things like finding an apartment and getting cell phones etc. The test results came back in 24 hours...we still don't have the work permits we started applying for in April...
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