Avacados and the Tower of Religious Toleration
So they have avocados at the PAMCTOP. Only I haven’t seen one for so long I wasn’t sure they were what I thought they were. It goes without saying that I didn’t know the word for avocado in Russian. Good thing it’s a cognate. Anyway, I asked the lady there what kind of fruit these were since there wasn’t a sign and I’ve apparently forgotten what an avocado looks like. (These weren’t the greenish black ones from California. They were really smooth, really green and from Israel. )
She has to go to the back and ask somebody or look it up in the bi book-o-fruit they keep in the back… eventually she comes back and tells me what I’m pretty sure I already know.
It’s an avocado.
Then I asked how much for a kilo. She looked at me like I had gummy worms coming out my nose and said no, they’re priced individually. $4 for a kilo would’ve been bad enough, but nope, it was $4 for a single avocado!
So about the “Tower of Religious Toleration”. It’s the Space Needle of Astana because that’s the tall towery thing I’m most familiar with. It actually looks like a giant golden glob award. You pay 500 tg and ride an elevator up into it. You get a great view of all the construction and the vast, endless steppe if the weather is nice.
You also get to look at all the religious groups that got on the sponsors list—the Lutherans, Roman Catholics, a few Orthodox groups, the Federation of Shinto Shrines and a butt-load of Muslim groups are all there. It’s kind of confusing because it’s within a five minute walk of Kazakhstan’s biggest (also brand new) Mosque. It don’t think it’s interdenominational. Islam has always rested lightly here, I’m told, however.
The best part is yet to come. At the very highest platform inside the giant golden globe is a pedestal with President Nursulton Nazarbayev’s handprint in it. You can put your hand exactly where he did and guide the future destiny of Kazakhstan! Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I think President Bush should put one in the top of the Washington Monument.
She has to go to the back and ask somebody or look it up in the bi book-o-fruit they keep in the back… eventually she comes back and tells me what I’m pretty sure I already know.
It’s an avocado.
Then I asked how much for a kilo. She looked at me like I had gummy worms coming out my nose and said no, they’re priced individually. $4 for a kilo would’ve been bad enough, but nope, it was $4 for a single avocado!
So about the “Tower of Religious Toleration”. It’s the Space Needle of Astana because that’s the tall towery thing I’m most familiar with. It actually looks like a giant golden glob award. You pay 500 tg and ride an elevator up into it. You get a great view of all the construction and the vast, endless steppe if the weather is nice.
You also get to look at all the religious groups that got on the sponsors list—the Lutherans, Roman Catholics, a few Orthodox groups, the Federation of Shinto Shrines and a butt-load of Muslim groups are all there. It’s kind of confusing because it’s within a five minute walk of Kazakhstan’s biggest (also brand new) Mosque. It don’t think it’s interdenominational. Islam has always rested lightly here, I’m told, however.
The best part is yet to come. At the very highest platform inside the giant golden globe is a pedestal with President Nursulton Nazarbayev’s handprint in it. You can put your hand exactly where he did and guide the future destiny of Kazakhstan! Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I think President Bush should put one in the top of the Washington Monument.
posted by nach at 11:46 PM
1 Comments:
Merry Christmas, Nathan!
Have a wonderful weekend and cheer on the Seahawks!
Hug Alana for all of us.
Bless you both,
erin
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