Being without a vehicle, we have experienced all types of other modes of transportation. The bus system is, shall we say,
irregular. Each bus is very different: some are from Germany, some are from Korea, and some are from places that were too ashamed to give their names. Some are fairly large (like Canadian busses) and some are very small (the size of larger vans). In most cases you have no interaction with the bus driver; each bus has a conductor-type person who calls out the door the names of the places the bus is travelling to. This person is also responsible for taking the bus fares -- and they even give
change! Neither the bus driver nor the conductor wear any kind of clothing that would help you distinguish them as such, but the conductor is the one calling out street names and usually wears a "fanny pack" to carry the money, while the driver is, of course, driving the bus!
There's also trolley busses here hooked to overhead lines; occasionally they come off the lines and the driver has to jump out and fix it with a long metal pole. The busses have all kinds of odd seating arrangements, curtains, decorations, music, smells, etc., but the most notable feature is the number of people they can jam into them. I've often heard of
other places where the busses are stuffed to overflowing, but this is the first time I've actually experienced the policy of "there's always room for one more". The kids call it a
pancake bus, and it does feel as though you are receiving internal damage as yet another group of people are being pushed onto the bus. And carrying a backpack or a stroller makes things really interesting! For the most part, however, the people are very patient and somehow it all works out, but there have a few times of panic when we need to get off at the next stop and we just can't seem to wiggle our way to the door. We've had to learn a few phrases to aid us in our endeavours:
mozhna ("may I?") and
eezvineetya ("excuse me")!
They also have an informal taxi fleet consisting of absolutely anybody who feels like picking someone up! You just stand on the side of the road with your hand slightly extended outward and when someone stops (which does nothing for the traffice flow behind them!) you tell them where you want to go, they accept or decline, and then you negotiate a price. So far we have not quite felt comfortable enough to try it out on our own.
Shopping for groceries has been a mix of frustrations and pleasant surprises. Without a car means having to carry all our groceries back to the house. If Karla or I go alone, we can move a lot quicker; but if we all go together, we can put some items in the basket under the stroller.Their are dozens of little family-run stores (duken in Kazakh or magazeen in Russian) along the main road down from our house, but to find something that we recognize or to know how to ask for it has been hard -- since most things are on shelves behind the counter, we don't feel very comfortable just browsing. But these stores are good for getting a few common items: bread, juice, pasta, rice. 
Fortunately, we early on discovered that there is a fairly large market about a 20-minute walk from our house which has come to supply us with a lot of our fresh food needs. The market has a big building on one side: half of the main floor has counters full of vegetables and fruit; the other half has counters full of meat. We have formed a bit of a relationship with some of the women: they have been so gracious in helping us learn the ropes, our most common phrase being adeen kilogram, spasiba (one kilogram, please). Despite their serious faces in the photo, they are very friendly and call out to us as soon as they see us come in. We buy our fruit and vegetables here (but we're not quite comfortable buying the meat that's been sitting out all day). Sometimes the produce at other vendors looks better but we're trying to show some customer loyalty to these wonderful women.
We've also found a small grocery store that's set up more like a North American-style supermarket. Here we buy milk, cheese, eggs, butter, yogourt, juice, canned goods, sausage, cereal, cookies, and (very important) peanut butter. The peanut butter is expensive -- about six dollars for a 510-gram jar -- but the kids like it so much we've decided not to worry about the price. The biggest difficulty is buying meat (or, at least, meat that we're comfortable with). To get to the big, modern supermarket requires a long bus trip; instead, Karla has hitched rides with one of our new friends whenever she is making a grocery run. But otherwise we feel pretty comfortable about the whole grocery thing now. We have a small rotation of meals that we're all pretty happy with and we're getting strong arms and legs from carrying all our groceries back from the store!
