We have a car!

I finally found the car I wanted and finished buying it on Friday. Last Sunday (Aug 8th) I went with Tim and one of Yulia's friends to the car market outside of Astana. It is in a big field and everyone who wants to sell their car is there. There were tons of cars and it was very overwhelming trying to find one to buy. I took pictures of some of them and even drove a couple. It seemed that I was mainly drawn to VW Golfs and Subaru wagons. Right before we left I found a Subaru that I really liked. It was a right-sided driving car and seemed like it would work well for us. The next day Yulia tried to call the guy selling it but his phone was off. She kept calling all week but could not reach him. On Wednesday, I had Yulia start calling some other cars I was interested in. We went and checked out a couple of the VW golfs I liked and I was sure I was going to buy one of those. Then, on Thursday I looked at a 92 Subaru Sedan. It only had 106,000 KM and was in pretty good shape; plus it had a sun-roof and a kick-ass radio in it. We took it to a mechanic on Friday morning and then in the afternoon we all had to meet the seller at the notary to sign the paperwork. It will still take most of next week to finish all the paperwork and get it officially in the school's name. The school will then give me Power of Attorney so I have permission to drive the car. Tim and I went to eat at TGIF Fridays after finishing at the notary. Dinner was good and afterward I went to a gas station to put gas in my new car. On my way back to the bridge I missed my turn so I needed to make a U-turn and go back. Now, U-turns are very common here because they don't allow you to turn left across traffic. I drove up to the next stoplight which happened to be a pedestrian walkway. The other cars were all stopped, no one was coming so it looked like a good time to do the U-turn. Well, needless to say there was a cop on the side of the road about a block from my U-turn and he pointed his little orange stick at me and motioned for me to pull-over. He took my documents and the little card that says I paid for the car and said the fine was 21,000 Tange (about 150 dollars). I would have to go to the police station on Monday and pay the fine before I could get my stuff back. I found all this out because I called Anastasia and had her translate for me because I could not understand a word the cop was saying expect that he was not happy with me. She asked me how much cash I had on me (7000 Tange) and offered that to the cop so I would not have to go to the police station on Monday. The cop took my money, gave me back my documents and just like that I had paid my first bribe.

Well my first bribe by myself. Let's go back to the first 30 minutes I spent in Kazakhstan. Tim and I get off the plane; make it through customs and find all of our luggage. This is actually a big feat since Tim checked nine bags of luggage. We were the last ones to get everything collected and as we try to leave the baggage area the guards tell us to scan our bags. No one else had been scanning their bags but since we had so many they made us. Tim had lots of school supplies in most of the bags and they went though all the boxes. It seemed they were going to let us go until they got to the last box was was full of no-slip tape for the stairs at school. Evidently, they thought he was bringing too many rolls of tape into the country. The head guard took Tim and Yulia into a back room and talked to them for about ten minutes. They came out and asked me if I had 100 dollars on me. The guard would let us go if we paid the "fine" now and in cash. Our other choice was for them to keep all of our luggage over night and we would have to go back to the airport the next day, fill out a bunch of forms, and probably pay an even bigger fee. I had 70 Euros left over from my layover in Frankfurt, which just so happened to be about equal to 100 USD. We gave him the money and escaped the airport with all of our luggage.