Another trip, another rug

       She swore that the rug mania had resolved.  Yeah, right.

       As we've mentioned earlier, our second daughter and her husband and seven kids have lived in lots of distant places because of his work with the State Department.  They are presently finishing their fourth year in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, but will be moving to Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan in about six weeks.  Because of some weird State Dept. rule, they don't get a home visit this year, so we decided to go and see them.

      Can I say this?  Don't fly Jet Blue.  

     Not only did they delay our luggage by three days, but they were not nice about it.  And I quote:  "That is correct.  I am NOT going to help you on this situation.  Got it?"  Luckily, we had both packed an extra set of 'ropa interior' (un-mentionables) in our carry-on briefcases, and luckily Paula and Ashley are about the same size, and luckily Turkish Air was more helpful.  

      So, what do you do in an ancient and famous Silk Road city with a written history spanning 2,200 years, formerly part of the Soviet Union?  In Soviet times, it witnessed major growth and demographic changes due to forced deportations from throughout the USSR, so there are lots of ethnic strains there.  Much of Tashkent was destroyed in a major earthquake in 1966, but it was rebuilt as a "model Soviet city."  It was actually the fourth-largest city in the Soviet Union at that time, after Moscow, Leningrad (now once-again St. Petersburg) and Kyiv. 

     OK, so "model Soviet city" doesn't imply very much charm.  

     Since the 1990's, however, Tashkent has gotten significantly better.  It's the largest city in all of Central Asia, which still isn't saying a whole lot, with an estimated population of only about 2 million, seven hundred thousand.  

     Well, what DO you DO?!  Mostly, you play with the grandkids and enjoy time with their parents, who are doing a remarkable job of raising well-balanced kids who have only known strange places as home.  And you go to a waterpark for one of their birthdays.  Excuse me?  Waterpark?!  Yep, and it was one of three or four in the city, though clearly the nicest, and was called "Oasis Waterpark!"  No, that's not a translation, it was "Oasis Waterpark."  Period.  

     Not sure exactly when in its 2,200 years of written history Tashkent started building waterparks, but it was a lot of fun.  Somewhere along the line, my grandkids have picked up their mother's assertive character and when challenged by the lifeguards about being too young to use the highest water slides, they just pushed past and went for it.  The ten year old even wriggled free when one of them tried to physically impede him and he dove for the nearest and biggest slide.  

     The oldest granddaughters are, for better or worse, becoming cute.  When one of the lifeguards tried to slow them down on the water slide, he also asked for the oldest one's telephone number and invited her for a walk that evening.  She related this with a shiver of disgust, but I warned her it would not be the last time, and that she should take it as a compliment, even if her goals do not include marrying an Uzbek.  

     Within its borders, Uzbekistan includes several of the remarkable ancient Silk Road cities, the most well-known of which is Samarkand.  It was the headquarters of the great despotic ruler Emir Timur, or Tamerlane, who in his time conquered and ruled one of history's greatest empires, stretching from China to much of India and the Middle East and included eastern Europe.  It's once-magnificent architecture was subsequently sacked by succeeding despots, but is being restored.  

     Samarkand also has killer ice cream stands.  I know.  Again, not sure if they date to the time of Emir Timur, but he probably could have better pacified his conquered subjects by building more of them.  

     As you know, we're members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Children are baptized at the age of eight, when they have at least a rudimentary understanding of the commitments that entails.  Our granddaughter Eleanor the Red(head) delayed her baptism several weeks so that we could attend.

OK, anything else to do in this ancient and fabled area of the world?  Well, there are puzzles.

And helping a granddaughter sew a dress,

and a birthday (observed) to be celebrated.

     And grandkids to tickle and read stories to, and turtles in the yard to be admired, and cheap/plentiful cherries to be consumed.  

     Among the monumental monuments to Soviet greatness left behind is the Tashkent TV Tower, stretching 1,230 feet into the sky.

    Somehow, our enthusiastic ten-year-old grandson learned that it included a rotating restaurant, a visit to which became one of the obsessions of his young life, and which goal was satisfied during our stay.

     OK, we only broke one of the goblets that the five-year-old is swinging around in the photo, and we avoided being asked to leave by the maitre d', though probably barely.  A dream fulfilled!

     Tashkent is located in an arid desert climate, its development made possible only by rivers coming from the Zeravshan and Pamir mountain ranges to its east.  It is one of only two countries in the world that are "double landlocked," meaning one has to pass through two other countries to reach the sea.  This lends it a fairly extreme climate, cold in the winter and quite hot in the summer.  That is probably why Emir Timur instituted the building of waterparks for his subjects.  And by the way, before you reach for Google, the other country is Liechtenstein. (Is that a country?)

     And that is why my daughter and her family bless the State Department for putting them up in a nice house with a backyard pool, where we spent a lot of time during our stay.  

(Note:  The picture appears slanted.  That is because Tashkent is on the other side of the globe.  You know, like tilted?  Duh.)

     Fine, now how about the rug in the title?  Having visited Ashley and Gang several times in the past, we have partially depleted Central Asia's supply of beautiful carpets.  Knowing that the only remaining places to put these treasures of workmanship were mostly outdoors or in the garage, Paula steeled herself to returning carpet-less.  However, she agreed to buy one for a friend and bring it back to the States for her, and so she went back and forth with texts including pictures of possible choices. 

     Then she remembered: my office had a bare floor!  Yee Hah!  Now it doesn't.

     We returned after ten days with all of our original luggage and then some.  We're happy to be home, even though our jet-lagged brains think that we're still in the land of Emir Timur and his ice cream stands and waterparks.  It will wear off in a couple of days, but we will still have some of his rugs.

Dave & Paula