I have managed to live in Bishkek for nearly two years with very few requests from abroad. I get great, freshly roasted coffee from Sierra, Beta Stores stocks locally produced peanut butter, and I’ve managed to procure most other products and food items without having to have them physically transported from abroad. But there is …
Category Archives: daily life
going to Issyk Kul
After an uneventful weekend of lounging in my pool, baking a cake, and calling around to get the Oxus International summer intern out of custody from the Karabalta police station (what? I’ll explain below), the whole office is heading to Karakol (and nearby villages) for a few days to conduct some research and workshops. Hopefully …
putting down roots
This. This is amazing. The weather is gorgeous. The living situation is working out better than I could have hoped, and the garden is really shaping up. Farrell and Carl (one of my housemates) spent nearly every afternoon during the week and all weekend planting, weeding, digging, watering and maintaining the garden. I can’t even …
Life in the new house
I’ve spent a month in my new house now, adjusting to all of the new space and sharing it all with my office, roommates, and their office. To be honest, one of the hardest aspects of college for me was having roommates (I switched housing every semester), but this living situation is just swell so …
Hey Kirstin, what do you actually do?
My family thinks I’m in Russia. My friends think I’m a journalist. A lot of people I meet in Bishkek call me a spy (and I think they’re jerks). The House Hunters episode said my husband, Farrell, and I moved to Bishkek to start a media analysis company and cut out my brilliant explanation of …
Real Life House Hunters: the Reveal
Wow, I had forgotten how much I don’t like moving. The mad rush to pack up everything was multiplied by three as we tried to empty out my apartment, the office and our new roommates’ apartment. Imagine our surprise when it turned out that when we ordered a “moving van” that could fit the three …
Real Life House Hunters: Best of the Worst
Gold tunduk chandeliers? Offices with showers? Marble staircases? Houses only half-constructed? All of the above. Even though there were a few gems in our search for a new house/office, the majority were not even up for consideration. A few of them deserve special mention for their ridiculousness. This one wasn’t so bad, but it was …
Continue reading “Real Life House Hunters: Best of the Worst”
Real Life House Hunters: Top 3
Ten houses in two days. We saw ten houses in two days. There is definitely an art to being able to soak in the layout and character of a house after only a ten-minute walk-through, and I found myself barely even wrapping my mind around one place before we were whisked away to another one. …
Real Life House Hunters: the backstory
We’re moving! After nearly a year living in the same apartment (more than a year in the same courtyard), Farrell and I are shifting ourselves and the office to a brand new location. But it’s not just the two of us. We’re currently sharing the office with the business of another expat. He and his …
my cost of living in Kyrgyzstan
Farrell and I came to Kyrgyzstan with a nice bit of savings, which we sadly watched dwindle away while getting the business started. With some (very big) changes coming up in my life in Bishkek, I figured I would take a closer look at where my money really goes while living here. Plus, one of …