Sundays

Sundays are my favorite day of the week here. The whole city slows down, and there are noticeably fewer people on the street. I'm not sure where everyone goes, though I have heard that a lot of people just relax at home, while others go skiing, ice skating, or hiking up in the mountains right outside the city. And certainly are out walking in the parks or other public spaces in the city. It's great to have one day a week when I know I couldn't do research even if I wanted to!

The best part about Sundays is that the traffic jams disappear, and with that, also disappears the need for drivers to honk their horns. Almaty drivers love to honk. The light turned green? Honk! See a pedestrian in the street several blocks ahead of you? Honk! Another car is turning into the lane next to you? Honk until they honk back! Sitting in traffic and going nowhere? Lay on the horn! All this honking can give you quite a headache 6 days/week. On Sundays, though, the streets are empty. As you can see, the view out my window this afternoon shows not a car in sight. Come Monday morning (Tuesday this week because of the holiday), the entire block will be filled with 2 lanes of cars each way sitting (honking) in gridlock. But today, the loudest noise is the cable car going by every half hour. Not so bad!