Some first impressions and defending a thesis in a gaming cafe

Soo we figured out some essentials: We know how to find public transport, there is a Russian app called 2gis which displays how to get around. And the alternative to Uber here is called Yandex Taxi. That said we had no issues getting around yesterday and went to the biggest bazaar of the town, called Osh Bazaar.

It's almost like you would imagine it, full with spices, fruits, meat (not cooled), clothing, electronics, toys and plenty more.

And they even offered self service to Hanna 🤣

As you can see, I really needed a haircut and that's what I did afterwards. 

As many of you know, I had to defend my master thesis online. I did that in the evening at a gaming place that's open 24/7. The other people there played some online games and yelled the worst insults in Russian in their headsets 😂

I've been super nervous but in the end it all worked out just fine.

There is some serious rain coming and Hanna and I are trying to flee from it. I'm typing this from a car wish brings us to Osh (yes the same name as the bazaar but it's a city in the west of the country). We won't be able to escape the rain completely but at least it's not going to rain 2 weeks straight. Our plan is then to do some hikes there, view the historical part of the city (it's supposed to be really beautiful) and eventually continue to Uzbekistan. We will go to the high mountains of Kyrgyzstan in the second half of the trip, since summer is really hot here and the mountains are cold. We'd rather spend some summer time in the mountains when all tracks are opened. And I'll have some practice using my feet again instead of a bicycle.

There are two things about this country (as far as I can tell from the capital Bishkek at least) that really surprised me:

It's quiet and really clean.

It's quiet in that sense, that there is no music at the bazaars. There are no people yelling, if they argue about prices (which you should do), they don't do it without loud voices. People barely talk in Matrushkas (the local buses). There is no music in the matrushkas. EVEN AT THE BARBER SHOP THE LOCALS DIDN'T DO SMALL TALK WITH THE HAIRDRESSER.

And it's clean, because there is no trash lying around like you would suspect in any major city (Berlin, Hamburg, Buenos Aires, whatever). The capital is surprisingly clean and that even though there aren't many trash cans.

Oh and I got unlimited high speed internet directly at the airport (for 8€/month + unlimited sms+calls), which is super convenient since I don't have to worry about mobile data and can just upload all photos for the blog while being on some sort of public transport, just like now.

I slept like a baby tonight, I think I left jetlag behind but it was just 6 hours, we left early today. The trip to Osh is 10-14h by car. I'll try to take a nap here, as Hanna is already doing 💤💤

Bye, hasta muy pronto, doswidanja :)