Astana

So if you are into cycling you may have heard of Team Astana - employer of Lance, and champion Contador - hailing from Astana, Kazakhstan. In Kazakh Astana literally means "capital" and as of 11 years ago thats what it is. In what some see as an arbitrary geographic selection, the governing center of the country was moved from the metropolis of the south Almaty by the President. It is a pretty young and hip city - but largely still empty. Maybe from some symmetrical urban planning perspective it is ashetically pleasing...but to most it just has this sort of empty artifical feeling. It was cool to finally get up there though. The big ball is called Baitarek and is one of the country's more famous symbols. Maybe next year i will visit a radioshack

(that was on the fly, cut me some slack)