Staff Turnover, Wrong Numbers, Lady Gaga and Almaty

Well the first three are pretty short as I spent the week in Almaty, but just little things that made me go, 'huh?'. I have two regular places that I got to, one is a coffee shop (where I am right now) and the other is a pizza place. In the 4.5+ months I've been here I think both have had several complete turnovers in staff. I mean it's not like I'm at either one everyday of the week but I get to both fairly consistently, man I miss Starbucks, and people that were working there even a few weeks ago are nowhere to be found. I mean are they paying Gordon Campbell'esque minimum wage here? Oops, it slipped out.
People are sometimes very convinced they have dialled the right number. Very convinced. I went to buy milk this morning and left my phone in the apartment. I came back 10 minutes later and there were 4 missed calls from a number I didn't recognize. Sure enough 5 minutes later it rang again. I said, 'hello?'. The person said 'hello' back and hesitated. I said, 'who is this?'. The response was, 'what do you mean who is this?' I said, 'I think you have the wrong number.' The response, 'what do you mean?'. Understanding guy that I am I said, 'who do you want to speak to?'. The response, 'well this used to be my number'. I paused, thinking this could go on for a while and just hung up. No more calls since then.
In the taxi on the way over here, again with the taxis, my driver was about 60-65 years old. He had the radio on. About halfway here a Lady Gaga song came on and he cranked it. I guess she attracts fans from all age groups.
I spent the week at a conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I drove with 4 other people from the office in one of this big, white, UN Land Cruisers. It was cool to travel in, I have to say. I think it definitely got us through the border crossings faster than if I had been on my own or if we'd been in a regular car. It's a long drive. Took 11.5 hours there and 13 hours on the way back. And even that is only because our driver was going FAST. At various points I noticed that we were going over 170km an hour. The driver did seem to know what he was doing but, well, those aren't exactly the best roads in the world.
Almaty is the former capital of Kazakhstan. I was there previously with a buddy in the Spring of 2007 and it rained the whole time. This time it was sunny and warm (not scorching like Tashkent) and that made all the difference. I stayed with some friends in great, central location and was able to walk to the conference everyday. The conference was what it was. Are conferences ever useful? But walking around in the evenings was great. It's a much more western city than Tashkent. By that I mean there are, for example, bank machines that works, cars that aren't made in a Uzbekistan, a better selection and quality of restaurants and, from very superficial observation, a much more diverse population. I mean just because it's more western doesn't make it better but after almost 5 months I definitely know what I prefer. Anyway, good trip.