Lunch with an Ambassador! - by McP

Here is a photo I took today of my family, just outside our apartment. If you are getting tired of the same old blue and green coats that Alina and Mac are sporting in every outdoor photo, you are not alone! They are always wanting to unzip them or take them off.

In Kazakhstan, perhaps due to decades of short supplies of medications, the cultural motto must be "A Cold Child is a Sick Child." Almost anyone on the street will quickly chastise you if your child is not properly covered. You have been hearing me complain about the unseasonably warm weather here? It doesn't matter. It is November, so your children should be fully covered, in fact, by many layers of coats! As you can imagine, this drives Alison crazy! I don't blame her, as she is a great mother and does not underdress the children by our standards of hot-as-hell-autumn-wear. At least there is one merit to the local custom - the mosquitos have less places to bite.

Today we were hosted to lunch at the Hyatt Regency by the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, Il-soo Kim. The Ambassador's wife, Moonkyung, is an old friend of Karen Paik, whose daughter Emily was one of Alina's classmates last year. Karen put us in touch with her friends. We had a great lunch, until Cal did a "Number 3" and we had to get back to the apartment. For those of you who do not know, years ago Mac and Alina assigned numbers to almost every bodily function. Cal is teething and has been spitting up a lot lately, but is fine. Would this be classified as an "international incident"? How does the diplomatic corps deal with this? Very diplomatically. They were such a nice family!

We were so honored to be hosted to lunch Ambassador Il-soo Kim. We hope to spend some more time with this wonderful family, perhaps as soon as this week. Thank you to Karen Paik and Emily for thinking of us and making the introduction.

The children are having such wonderful experiences here. Of course, if they said we could come home tonight we would be at the Lufthansa gate at Almaty International Airport in record time! But while here, I hope this is an experience that the children remember all of their lives. - McP