Who's been here?

Arrived. Pretty much in time and in one piece. Pick-up has been arranged by the hotel, the driver has been waiting patiently until our last piece of lugagge arrived. And now we’re on the way to the center of town, with Modern Talking’s “Cheri, Cheri Lady” blaring out of the car’s sound system. Thank you, Dieter B.

Otherwise arriving after midnight’s a bit of an anti-climax. Cannot see much, either. The road into town is lined by various car dealerships from Toyota to Bentley. Billboards tell us “Life is Good”. Not much traffic on the road, so life’s not bad, at least. Let’s see, what our hotel is like – the Holiday Inn Almaty.

Lufthansa economy. Hm. Probably quite alright, but upon boarding the plane I first have passed the Business Class section, which gives you an impression of how long distance flying should be. And probably has been until the democratisation of air travel started. When I most probably wouldn’t have travelled. But it is a bit of a let-down: waiting at the gate for the priority boarding of the paying passengers to end (guarded by an airport employee who has gone through the old East-block school of customer service and made it abundantly clear to the unpriorised passengers that they are the scum of the earth that should be grateful to bask themselves in the sun shining out of the behinds of the hons, senators or first and business class folk), eventually the cattle has been let on board, rushed through the compartment for the humans into the stables. And while the humans drink champaign the cattle gets Henkel Trocken (a sparkling wine that is usually served at the 40th anniversary of Aunt Trudy and Uncle Willy). Uh, well.

There we go: last minutes on European soil. I am so excited!