New Years

New Years is a big holiday in Kazakhstan and Russia. Christmas is on January 7^th but isn't a big holiday like it is in the USA. New Years is spent with the family here and I spent the evening with my host family.  New Years Eve also happens to be my host grandmother's birthday so earlier in the day we celebrated her 74^th birthday at her nearby apartment with traditional Kazakh food.  In the evening we ate all the food my host mother had cooked during the day and watched TV with the all the New Years specials. Around 11:50pm, President Nursultan Nazarbayev comes onto all the television channels and delivers his address to the Nation of Kazakhstan. First he speaks in Kazakh language for a few minutes and then Russian language for a few minutes, and about 15 seconds before midnight he ends his address and a clock comes onto the television screen and champagne is opened at midnight. A toast is then made to good health and then outside the fireworks start. Host mother goes into her bedroom and comes back with two huge fireworks and tells me and my host brother to go outside and light them. Everyone in the country is doing the same thing at 12:01am. Outside among the hundreds of apartment buildings there are lots and lots of fireworks going off from regular citizens. There are lots of fireworks that are illegal in the Northeast USA and all of these types of fireworks were being fired off at this time.  This was the warmest I have ever felt at -24 C and midnight.  Later my host brother and I have to drive our grandmother home, she lives about a 5 minute walk away but it better to drive because it is so cold. We drop her off at her apartment and realize that the front left tire is completely flat. My host brother immediately goes to find the flat tire in the truck, but I know that he doesn't have any clue how to fix it, and its 1am and -24 C. I suggest we park the car and walk the 5 minutes back to our house. But some friendly drunk guy comes and helps fix the flat tire. I don't have any clue how to change a flat tire in middle of the night, in the snow, in the cold, and in Russian, so I sit in the car. An hour later we get the tire fixed and go back home. 

Also, 6 new photos with captions  LINK