We have now been in Tashkent for more than seven months, although it feels like it's been much longer than that. Our house has been unpacked long enough for many things to have gone missing into strange hidey holes, furniture has been broken, and wallpaper peeled off the walls. It's safe to say that we're quite settled.
I can't say that I feel like I've gone through the typical adjustment schedule here in Tashkent because there wasn't much (if any) culture shock, and we pretty much hit the ground running and haven't looked back. I never had a honeymoon stage and a I never had an undying-hatred stage, it was just a gradual settling in until Tashkent and no longer Dushanbe was now 'home.'
Dushanbe is starting to recede in memory (I can't believe that we left almost eleven months ago), and Tashkent is our new reality. And I must say that I like our new reality very much. I can say that this post is definitely our favorite all four that we've lived at. Cairo had nice weather in the winter, but it was much, much too crowded. I liked our house in Baku, but the traffic was terrible. Dushanbe was close to the mountains, but there wasn't much else going on.
Here we have a house that I really like (especially considering that it's not an American house) (and sorry for no pictures. It's never clean all at once). It has nice living spaces - we have a dining room, living room, TV room, school room, toy room, exercise room, and a upstairs landing that fits two-full sized couches and four bookshelves. All of the four bedrooms have their own bathrooms and they bedrooms are all nicely sized. And of course it has a great yard and a pool. Just based on the house alone I would be happy to stay here until Brandon retires.
Tashkent is also (for me) the perfect mix of not too big but with still enough going on that we have stuff to do. It has several water parks, amusements parks, ice skating rinks, and malls. There's a trampoline park, and indoor go-karting parks, a horseback riding stable, and a decent Turkish restaurant with an indoor play-place that is perfect for a rainy, cold Saturday. There are enough restaurants that we don't have to go to the same ones every other month, and they also have an online delivery service which is great when I don't feel like cooking on a Saturday evening.
And when I feel like cooking, there are real grocery stores everywhere, one which is half a kilometer from our house. I've even heard rumors that they accept credit cards.
There are also multiple in-country travel opportunities and the mountains aren't too far away (although farther than I'd like). We are taking the kids up to the mountains to stay for a few nights in a few weeks, and when I showed Brandon pictures of the house we're renting, he confessed to being shocked at how decent it looked.
If you want to go somewhere else, there are direct flights to fun places like Rome, London, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Frankfurt and Dubai. Even better, the tickets are reasonably priced enough that I've been researching Malaysian beach vacations.
The traffic here really isn't terrible, although the city is big enough that virtually anything takes 20 minutes to get to - but it's better than an hour. I usually only have to wait one light cycle during the day, although some lights can get backed up in the evening. And even better, Google maps has just starting providing turn-by-turn directions. I'm starting to finally find my way around town without a map, which has certainly taken longer than it did in Dushanbe.
I also enjoy the embassy community here, and have found a good circle of friends, as have the children. We have been much more social here than we ever were in our other posts (probably combined), and I've really enjoyed it. Most of the children have, too.
To sum it up, we love it here in Tashkent, having found our Goldilocks post of 'just right.' I'm already sad when I think of having to leave and am trying to scheme some way that we can stay another tour, even though that is highly unlikely. A girl can dream though, right?