I couldn’t get to sleep last night for some reason, and was up until 2:30. Then Millie woke up screaming at 5AM. She was convinced that a spider had crawled on her face and she was in a real state of panic that we’ve only seen once or twice before when she has had bad nightmares. Her poor little body was shaking. Finally we got her to calm down and get into bed with us, but I made the mistake of moving and grazing my hand against her leg, which she thought was a spider, which set her off again.

Needless to say, we were very tired this morning. We all went back to sleep and woke up to set out for coffee and a late breakfast. We walked 15 minutes to a Korean bakery / cafe. Uzbekistan is such an interesting mixing pot of cultures, and seems to have a lot of Korean restaurants. It could just be the neighborhood we’re in.

I had a bulgogi sandwich on very sweet bread and Nick had a mashed potato and egg sandwich, which was somehow even more mushy and weird than it sounds.

We walked back to the apartment to hang up our first load of laundry. Once we were back, the tiredness hit. It was very hot today (100) but much drier than the Middle East, so doesn’t feel as bad. By the time we were done hanging laundry on the balcony, it was pretty much dry.

We had planned to go out exploring today but instead listened to our bodies and just sat around doing nothing. The heat and the intense morning just wiped us out. We extended our stay in this Airbnb so that tomorrow can be our exploring day. I did some planning, we finished another load of laundry, and we let Millie watch a movie.

I went out alone to the local grocery store to get water and some basics. Everything is SO Russian here.

At about 5:30 we walked out to a local restaurant for dinner. The roads are pleasant to walk along and reminded us so much of downtown Tbilisi. Multiple lanes for both cars and pedestrians, and very green. Must be a Soviet thing?

The local dish here is Plov which is Pilaf but if you say it really fast with a Russian accent. We had no idea what the menu said and our waiter didn’t speak much English but we enjoyed what we got regardless. They were quite oily but well-seasoned with slow cooked meat (I think lamb) on top. One had chickpeas and raisins and the other had caramelized onions, so they had a good salty-sweet thing going on. We got them “complete” with all the fixings. I think it included a slice of horse meat but I may have heard the waiter wrong. I skipped that component and Nick described it as “interesting”.

The exchange rate here is the biggest multiple yet. 60,000 Uzbek som is under $5.

We walked home and Millie FaceTimed with two friends. Before putting her to bed we did an intense inspection of her room to prove there were no spiders, sprayed around her bed with bug spray in case it was real, and hung up her dream catcher in case it was a dream. Tomorrow will be take two for Tashkent sightseeing.