tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9798899584694132382024-03-05T07:11:37.201-08:00Considerably Caffeinated Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-6619615770128437172016-06-18T09:26:00.001-07:002016-06-18T09:26:41.017-07:00Travel Log: Days Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, and Thirty-One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>Saint Petersburg, Russia 6/11-15/2016</b></div>
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So, it's pretty obvious I got really behind on these daily blogs. I'm currently at home in Iowa, a few days after getting back to the states, and, especially since Saint Petersburg was so beautiful, I'm thinking it'd be better and easier to do a 'picture blog' for our time in the Venice of the North:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0H7KspC4DAx3MAI7AvmpfDCtzCCvE42WpoCyri7quhGphgiAsjAhnXbFOgFR7lNdsECGByvNoIVn4wtbV7m_5iGYSt57M3ZgcDTe-arfbb3C8A6mNBewSwc8f70AcWmls219w4aOqiUWi/s1600/IMG_20160611_091027005_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0H7KspC4DAx3MAI7AvmpfDCtzCCvE42WpoCyri7quhGphgiAsjAhnXbFOgFR7lNdsECGByvNoIVn4wtbV7m_5iGYSt57M3ZgcDTe-arfbb3C8A6mNBewSwc8f70AcWmls219w4aOqiUWi/s320/IMG_20160611_091027005_HDR.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saturday: Train compartment!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWZukHK9BDPrakbJ3C8r0VByqRJT766EBmDpXMyp6kxY7u5PSPH6pSnKvJG_5z5a9rVJTpQIt_bHY4mS1I4eY20NYfpqW06sDez1a6zPHTfhhZumT0SagnjJvQZYvy00P8YRNQyairVGNP/s1600/IMG_20160611_140024968.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWZukHK9BDPrakbJ3C8r0VByqRJT766EBmDpXMyp6kxY7u5PSPH6pSnKvJG_5z5a9rVJTpQIt_bHY4mS1I4eY20NYfpqW06sDez1a6zPHTfhhZumT0SagnjJvQZYvy00P8YRNQyairVGNP/s320/IMG_20160611_140024968.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First Stop: Peter's Gardens</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9UrBAuf4pQ5jN95NUyUCH0D7q9pmEE0zzYEfn5v17SapWJDpHfYR_vvBYmnUV6mzFEU8N2r4H8wilLpQEBYOud7e0SoaSx1JEo5xiwq2bRVvYVhflZmFtH0OIpm7DqnRIjRSZn-HSpLrp/s1600/IMG_20160611_141938563.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9UrBAuf4pQ5jN95NUyUCH0D7q9pmEE0zzYEfn5v17SapWJDpHfYR_vvBYmnUV6mzFEU8N2r4H8wilLpQEBYOud7e0SoaSx1JEo5xiwq2bRVvYVhflZmFtH0OIpm7DqnRIjRSZn-HSpLrp/s320/IMG_20160611_141938563.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saint Petersburg Eternal Flame</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWsy6ffagjbsW4VXYaHgb2lDBu0cvOND-e0CcYcyNZo3tWar6dC2qEzFfps5voJmu0fgox-YRsQlokdsmIXHlFZYYLzNOTJwE6JCEYajtmbqc8WyE3ATSjRN6hiDAxlpUSlXePoItQ8cij/s1600/IMG_20160611_142633520_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWsy6ffagjbsW4VXYaHgb2lDBu0cvOND-e0CcYcyNZo3tWar6dC2qEzFfps5voJmu0fgox-YRsQlokdsmIXHlFZYYLzNOTJwE6JCEYajtmbqc8WyE3ATSjRN6hiDAxlpUSlXePoItQ8cij/s320/IMG_20160611_142633520_HDR.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnezncNKtB7XmOSOn4zJtvxrlFoeO26AXJpDAhlRsfkbaFfE4k1i_7oceLfRMA8bbiBbhwNWs8iplTgoF1DnjQtj3XxCFaOp0ctLjM61pAGT1mu-BbEFXMDYKsMRzdDKpwwn3uSfXse1xq/s1600/IMG_20160611_150312382.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnezncNKtB7XmOSOn4zJtvxrlFoeO26AXJpDAhlRsfkbaFfE4k1i_7oceLfRMA8bbiBbhwNWs8iplTgoF1DnjQtj3XxCFaOp0ctLjM61pAGT1mu-BbEFXMDYKsMRzdDKpwwn3uSfXse1xq/s320/IMG_20160611_150312382.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the Many Canals</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDUyJiY3WnBgMgHW8aEf9O3ihgjrYVF85CdANc4zQHAluG9cMFo2MT3-NrBK7CfGiYZODUWQ-9Stv5mikKkjhVYxRvJzU_-Mx-DJmZfBqPqwoVKSYA-GXc7DkYb-HwFcwuOpEWZ5jWGbV/s1600/IMG_20160612_103728998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDUyJiY3WnBgMgHW8aEf9O3ihgjrYVF85CdANc4zQHAluG9cMFo2MT3-NrBK7CfGiYZODUWQ-9Stv5mikKkjhVYxRvJzU_-Mx-DJmZfBqPqwoVKSYA-GXc7DkYb-HwFcwuOpEWZ5jWGbV/s320/IMG_20160612_103728998.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Sunday</b>: The Winter Palace</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqmQPyT2uFc3sTpGnnjtzvHqjX8gFsOotlnIVo6S7NQMiUvpzVsEmUpePHSF8mEH3LWULGvUiwOWNIdzQTwVSssVUQkitynlGTzjWqeziGKLlp7P1X7HsRWf4cGk6yxOkM2zv_HIuSbY4L/s1600/IMG_20160612_110940863.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqmQPyT2uFc3sTpGnnjtzvHqjX8gFsOotlnIVo6S7NQMiUvpzVsEmUpePHSF8mEH3LWULGvUiwOWNIdzQTwVSssVUQkitynlGTzjWqeziGKLlp7P1X7HsRWf4cGk6yxOkM2zv_HIuSbY4L/s320/IMG_20160612_110940863.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monument by the Winter Palace</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAbB11FQhFnd5-kU70jUtnx8o2sD4dLGnQrQ2YqtvlqPsnhoSYE0Jf5hIsLLVi2I7EWfRBqDZlWFvmyTMIryY8PIAqXALEMXvB6ZerJTGkx_Mz5vjxx7ZgMbVFuVZWXCNfy7tfsIBCcvCf/s1600/IMG_20160612_154051708.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAbB11FQhFnd5-kU70jUtnx8o2sD4dLGnQrQ2YqtvlqPsnhoSYE0Jf5hIsLLVi2I7EWfRBqDZlWFvmyTMIryY8PIAqXALEMXvB6ZerJTGkx_Mz5vjxx7ZgMbVFuVZWXCNfy7tfsIBCcvCf/s320/IMG_20160612_154051708.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Little Concert in the Russian Museum</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGyHAcwyQg87jv0FxMGhWcoMYgCjyxDeOD-v4KNR7ZsVLTdexQgXOm4ohfwaKRK3j7pxUZNCc1Vc-nEjAo1ijxtv9s7mSX-fC4T7y6PRz4xtlpOLK6hshzeE4NRiDL87ezRYVfN0In_9CQ/s1600/Snapchat-6832111293549964854.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGyHAcwyQg87jv0FxMGhWcoMYgCjyxDeOD-v4KNR7ZsVLTdexQgXOm4ohfwaKRK3j7pxUZNCc1Vc-nEjAo1ijxtv9s7mSX-fC4T7y6PRz4xtlpOLK6hshzeE4NRiDL87ezRYVfN0In_9CQ/s320/Snapchat-6832111293549964854.jpg" width="194" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ballet!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2QETl4wbazc6KDjOSJUmVMzjsEvxj3I_oq5THxGNXCBVDwEtziL1F0VdAp_fZRX18YKs8Wi8YfZ8l4QAKzbvVQajmE6ZYMvd5qrmqwxWMKpVJQzuqz89VrW57V_fWOQ1QsOVWDeX08XT/s1600/IMG_20160613_130605058_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2QETl4wbazc6KDjOSJUmVMzjsEvxj3I_oq5THxGNXCBVDwEtziL1F0VdAp_fZRX18YKs8Wi8YfZ8l4QAKzbvVQajmE6ZYMvd5qrmqwxWMKpVJQzuqz89VrW57V_fWOQ1QsOVWDeX08XT/s320/IMG_20160613_130605058_HDR.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Monday: </b>Catherine's Palace!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZm_GTjqbOdCDLl01rlhVbcN_JmRkIunfzph4ct5Ol4tmjh81O9oN_lombrLQ_3moFd5VOSIzAIQVVNzMTdtTHgxSARBmZo_fxfAQyHZ2v_uf-K4hlVz72bYh8v6ag0qOY083mk0IYSoBW/s1600/IMG_20160613_134241232_TOP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZm_GTjqbOdCDLl01rlhVbcN_JmRkIunfzph4ct5Ol4tmjh81O9oN_lombrLQ_3moFd5VOSIzAIQVVNzMTdtTHgxSARBmZo_fxfAQyHZ2v_uf-K4hlVz72bYh8v6ag0qOY083mk0IYSoBW/s320/IMG_20160613_134241232_TOP.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside of Catherine's Palace</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj92-74fLnopjHIR6Rq-riOZ53hNliWKhC0U0mH6BE0Fmy-Q95IPRdbGS3g4GGuAddLN4cshgU2AuUQIqLUKLGQxVS-jUh7r-qnY693ksU_9OK9PeCNpBlNq8H1k3_E2dQBtr1pObBtztgu/s1600/IMG_20160613_135303041.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj92-74fLnopjHIR6Rq-riOZ53hNliWKhC0U0mH6BE0Fmy-Q95IPRdbGS3g4GGuAddLN4cshgU2AuUQIqLUKLGQxVS-jUh7r-qnY693ksU_9OK9PeCNpBlNq8H1k3_E2dQBtr1pObBtztgu/s320/IMG_20160613_135303041.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strike>Semi-Illegal</strike> Photo of the Amber Room</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsab9O7-f40J7MJYnPyoozPXgyAFoeWYE_zQ8CJJru6-_ZZNidTGQky4jEhuJXETh8P8EJ3BGGpLIafyI2PB79H9-RnZoZIA-tVVQhO7fnobwLC2_ePCoWeGUsVUykMZkyr5VFFGF_d6kc/s1600/IMG_20160613_145722950.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsab9O7-f40J7MJYnPyoozPXgyAFoeWYE_zQ8CJJru6-_ZZNidTGQky4jEhuJXETh8P8EJ3BGGpLIafyI2PB79H9-RnZoZIA-tVVQhO7fnobwLC2_ePCoWeGUsVUykMZkyr5VFFGF_d6kc/s320/IMG_20160613_145722950.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Selfie in Catherine's Gardens</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv7bKuBVv_gyqiQEcHXkl0TpVpJt8deTNEW5BiTV7CtCa8vTt_EJJd_5DKEWp2YyRIb6B-Oq_pDBOSZozZXncR7Jp7jLny_og-O3gVRZ46r2ZdYRv7ajyV_iugcqGIPN-_i_6UGwA47s0s/s1600/IMG_20160614_140924565.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv7bKuBVv_gyqiQEcHXkl0TpVpJt8deTNEW5BiTV7CtCa8vTt_EJJd_5DKEWp2YyRIb6B-Oq_pDBOSZozZXncR7Jp7jLny_og-O3gVRZ46r2ZdYRv7ajyV_iugcqGIPN-_i_6UGwA47s0s/s320/IMG_20160614_140924565.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Tuesday: </b>Last Day! Lenin's Old Offices</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj31d1hfM2zN6RePSDHmmeilRRwg53u2-6dOiJn4Pfeg5Xpn_jKJknr4qEkQd-HioNviGpdzn8iPDZyMgzXEkeDmkdeKKcqil9no0urJMbXrCfjPH69b0TFn2-DzypBtl5YhtgMhFa3J1yq/s1600/IMG_20160614_161437193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj31d1hfM2zN6RePSDHmmeilRRwg53u2-6dOiJn4Pfeg5Xpn_jKJknr4qEkQd-HioNviGpdzn8iPDZyMgzXEkeDmkdeKKcqil9no0urJMbXrCfjPH69b0TFn2-DzypBtl5YhtgMhFa3J1yq/s320/IMG_20160614_161437193.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Memorial at the Site of the Mass Graves from WWII</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqHBeaOsMo2zUgv8HAhUYfPOFL0MaCDbrQTl1k8M-lLPAjxh4LJ_ydvek5yuxQsdEqL0Zl2WZIWIxM2Cx4teYTE1LuTQQVMi82XucY69-PjjKrml20nhigpapkp-A3jDNLn8AmtJPTLJXv/s1600/IMG_20160615_241326033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqHBeaOsMo2zUgv8HAhUYfPOFL0MaCDbrQTl1k8M-lLPAjxh4LJ_ydvek5yuxQsdEqL0Zl2WZIWIxM2Cx4teYTE1LuTQQVMi82XucY69-PjjKrml20nhigpapkp-A3jDNLn8AmtJPTLJXv/s320/IMG_20160615_241326033.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset View (12:00 AM) From the Top of St. Isaac's Cathedral</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONUpXOJ214m5fXXHTcwU5Buu3ttusInh_I2F8RchXqQopxhJPdNxpnYVqN62tpc-SG5KjSm7EOvS2x2UkaRiWiu9leP0pHqmkwaFH1CedGHXgOQN6XN9-txkwh2qfk3UPAuloh4PTqlyk/s1600/IMG_20160615_243254139.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONUpXOJ214m5fXXHTcwU5Buu3ttusInh_I2F8RchXqQopxhJPdNxpnYVqN62tpc-SG5KjSm7EOvS2x2UkaRiWiu9leP0pHqmkwaFH1CedGHXgOQN6XN9-txkwh2qfk3UPAuloh4PTqlyk/s320/IMG_20160615_243254139.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Statue of Peter the Great</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waiting for the Raising of the Bridges (1 AM)</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia7dY2Q8I0B8u4VuVbQEox8hrCr6eHIs9BV9uugbz09GOPgkwDUoXPvjgT4F_8RejzeXFQrxSKBOTP7EyijWpdKh1Nq-P-H0Nq0-vvW3U-y8sE9lZYvg2JEUcgjYOaMEoPT3eFn19H5FTQ/s1600/IMG_20160615_243721282.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia7dY2Q8I0B8u4VuVbQEox8hrCr6eHIs9BV9uugbz09GOPgkwDUoXPvjgT4F_8RejzeXFQrxSKBOTP7EyijWpdKh1Nq-P-H0Nq0-vvW3U-y8sE9lZYvg2JEUcgjYOaMEoPT3eFn19H5FTQ/s1600/IMG_20160615_243721282.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Beautiful Last Day</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Wednesday: </b>The flight home ended up being pretty great</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Iowan Sunset; finally home, on the way to camp</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Post-Russia Culver's Malt!</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-158310396537647382016-06-18T09:00:00.004-07:002016-06-18T09:00:50.759-07:00Travel Log: Days Twenty-Four, Twenty Five, and Twenty-Six<b>Murom, Russia 6/8-10/2016</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Museum of Folk Arts in Murom</td></tr>
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<b> </b>Wednesday through Friday of this week we spent most of our time in Murom, a city about two and a half hours from Vladimir whose university was connected with Vladimir State and the American Home; I'm going to be doing it all in one blog post because a) I'm starting to get behind/lazy with blog posts and b) it all kind of ran together in my mind. Murom is smaller and somewhat less historic, but we had a good time with the students all the same. We had to stay with brand new host families, which was a slightly-uncomfortable sudden change, but my host sister (a 20-year-old public relations student named Tanya) was wonderful and we had a lot in common. We did various things around town, but most of our time was spent either attempting to socialize with the first-year English students (all of whom were very shy, it was somewhat difficult to communicate) or hanging out all together with our hosts. They were all college students, so we spent Wednesday night out exploring the town with them and on Thursday night, Courtney, Leah, and I accompanied our host siblings to an 'anti-cafe,' a cool little hangout spot that had a bunch of couches and board games and various rooms for different activities. We got to hang out with Courtney's host brother's group of friends, all of whom were very friendly, for most of the night, and we had a great time playing games and getting to know them. Friday morning was spent writing example papers for the university's English class, and after killing some time walking around the city center, we boarded the bus for the ride back to Vladimir.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoKy_5x4z6lYAXpDEGwjb6rIsllos9LqP_3VAx-CiW7MFHqs9nDvYAMfbW1mKF71nQcFGQ_tyiz5Mc-g7GJtUqWeyORm327c0I-0Z-qDc_25eEZcbCkuoyfCphxyT8dBtHAi_LCk-P98R/s1600/IMG_20160609_153756234.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoKy_5x4z6lYAXpDEGwjb6rIsllos9LqP_3VAx-CiW7MFHqs9nDvYAMfbW1mKF71nQcFGQ_tyiz5Mc-g7GJtUqWeyORm327c0I-0Z-qDc_25eEZcbCkuoyfCphxyT8dBtHAi_LCk-P98R/s320/IMG_20160609_153756234.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boat ride in Murom!</td></tr>
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Friday night was wonderful and far more sad than I could've anticipated. We went out to a beautiful dinner at a restaurant overlooking the forests surrounding the city, and had a great time at our last meal with Alexei, Gallina, Olia, and Sasha, and later met the university students we'd befriended over the course of our stay. Finally our host families met us at the train station, and we had a chance to say a tearful goodbye to everyone. Vera, Lera, and Pollina all showed up (with my horribly heavy luggage) to see me off, and the four of us spent the majority of the time at the station talking away from the group. Words cannot express how thankful I am for this family and everything they've done for me; they welcomed me into their home, cared for me, taught me that you don't need to speak the same language to communicate and bond, rolled with our group's schedule changes and miscommunications, and made me feel loved the whole time while in Russia. I surprised myself a little with how much we all cried at my leaving them. Vera made me promise (through Lera's translation) that I'd bring my family to visit their's one day. I hope I'll be able to do just that.<br />
After finally tearing ourselves away from all our Russian friends we were hurried onto the night train and, a hectic hour later, fell sound asleep, exhausted after a long and emotional day.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My wonderful host family and I</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-61456446073003240832016-06-12T14:54:00.000-07:002016-06-12T14:55:27.467-07:00Travel Log: Days Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three<b>Vladimir, Russia 6/6/2016</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miah and her favorite snack, Suchki</td></tr>
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<b> </b>Today marked the beginning of the last two days in Vladimir. Our penultimate day was a pretty normal one, about as normal as it gets here: we spent some time in master classes, tours, and excursions, made some cool crafts, met some cool people. We visited a spoon museum (yes, that's a thing that exists) and got to paint our own enormous wooden spoons in the Vladimir style (also a thing that exists), stopped by a blacksmith's workshop and got to make our own nails (mine probably won't actually work for nailing anything but that's neither here nor there), and hung out with the congregation of one of the Orthodox churches in town. They were lovely people, many of whom we'd worked with at the cemetery, and they gave us a quick tour and sang some religious folk music for us (as could've been predicted, Alexei had me get up and sing a quick hymn for them as well). One highlight was getting to climb the precariously-steep stairs of the bell tower and try our hands at bell-ringing in the freezing cold; another was playing a bunch of random games with the congregation that Alexei talked us through (and by talked us through I mean he announced a game and then just kind of started playing, and we all had to do our best to catch on). It was a good time! Orthodox Christianity tends not appeal as strongly to youth, but this particular church had a relatively large youth outreach program (and wasn't quite as conservative) so many of the people with us were younger. That was most of the day, I went home and had a nice evening with Vera and Polly. I can already tell I'm gonna miss the crap out of them when I leave.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chocolate and cherry blini</td></tr>
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<b>Vladimir, Russia 6/7/2016</b><br />
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<b> </b>Our last day in Vladimir. It's strange: while I feel like I've been out of the US for a very long time, it also seems like very little time has passed since we got here on the first week.<br />
We didn't have much of a Russian lesson this morning, it was more of a quick review and then a cute little singing party in one of the lecture rooms. Alexei brought out his guitar and all the students and teachers sang along to some popular Russian songs we'd all learned (I'm definitely singing them to my kids at camp), and we all had a good time laughing at each others' pronunciations. From there we just had a few lectures, and finally got around to going to Blinchiki for lunch, a blini restaurant I was told about the first week and have been dying to go to since (blini are Russian pancakes that look sort of like crepes, and are often filled with delicious/sweet things). It was all-in-all a pretty low-key last day, that is until the final goodbye party.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ7jPBH1gEccMmPBdui8cG5lIM2Dw9T1-A4FBjKooVoBLzt7TggdbaZc9twSaTvCBpEqkrqaaddp9m4O-kGnmiTrGTXPjVNkVa7L-uOg4pmtLVcABMm2mxr2I1UWU3GyhKdpgS0ocsMO3N/s1600/IMG_20160607_181704685.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ7jPBH1gEccMmPBdui8cG5lIM2Dw9T1-A4FBjKooVoBLzt7TggdbaZc9twSaTvCBpEqkrqaaddp9m4O-kGnmiTrGTXPjVNkVa7L-uOg4pmtLVcABMm2mxr2I1UWU3GyhKdpgS0ocsMO3N/s320/IMG_20160607_181704685.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sweet babushkas that performed for us</td></tr>
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The American Home has been wonderful to us for the entirety of our trip, and was wonderful a final time in the goodbye party. They arranged for a bunch of women from the veteran's home to come sing for us, and then played a slide show of David's many (often embarrassing) photos from our trip. They gave us all key chains and personalized posters, and if we weren't near tears by the end of all that, we certainly were when we had to say goodbye to Sasha and Olia. Sasha and Olia, I'm sure I've mentioned, are the two students in the American Home that spent the most time with us throughout our stay in Vladimir, and we all got very close with them. They were sobbing and then we were crying and it all got very emotional very fast (despite the fact that we're seeing them briefly tomorrow and Friday); it amazes me how close of a bond we made with them in such little time. We made them promise to keep in contact, and to let us know if they ever wanted to/were planning on studying in or coming to America.<br />
After a while I couldn't take all the feelings anymore (plus the party began to simmer down) so I ducked out to go home. I spent the last night packing and hanging out with Polly and it was blessedly free of any "this is our last night" kind of things; I know it'll be hardest leaving this family so I am fine saving all of that for Friday.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Group picture at the American Home</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-65243277192331859802016-06-06T12:55:00.002-07:002016-06-06T12:55:29.297-07:00Travel Log: Days Nineteen, Twenty, and Twenty-One<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtney in front of the Dacha</td></tr>
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<b>Shukhudrinovo, Russia 6/3-5/2016</b><br />
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<b> </b>This weekend was one of our less structured ones; it was more about relaxing and experiencing rural life in Russia than about going to a lot of places and doing a lot of things, so I'm going to make one blog post detailing the highlights of the weekend.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ehtna doing some manual labor</td></tr>
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In order to even begin to think about the great time we had in Shukhudrinovo, I have to first fight through memories of the mosquitoes. I thought I knew about mosquitoes. I thought I'd seen the worst mosquitoes had to offer. I thought I'd already walked through Mosquito Hell in the summer of 2014 and come out the other side, itchy, scarred, with significantly less blood, but stronger, and unafraid. I never anticipated how wrong I was. Russian mosquitoes are the worst things in the entire world, enormous monsters that will stop at nothing to make your legs look like a topographical map of the US. These suckers are at least twice as big as their American cousins, and exponentially more clever: they're harder to catch, harder to kill, and know exactly where that <i>one door </i>in your dacha isn't completely sealed and how to get in and wreak havoc. Also, while the pests with which I am familiar are usually active primarily in the mornings and in the evenings, these suckers are on the hunt 24/7; bug spray was a necessity at all times, and I would manage to kill at least 8 mosquitoes before falling asleep at night, with the sound of their wings buzzing in my ears.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrs82cX4qmfyeteryfVCcUn1ufljQ8BFY1tuPWz3x5BlDLdDTqBAMR6X0bDR7kE445U2yikoPfrsNgJ1_IDZ2UjYMsd2fxlbMQSQDpE6xOg7IMJv2gu504aM0Ml8iVq_mT409UfiNqOAPV/s1600/IMG_20160603_124422501.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrs82cX4qmfyeteryfVCcUn1ufljQ8BFY1tuPWz3x5BlDLdDTqBAMR6X0bDR7kE445U2yikoPfrsNgJ1_IDZ2UjYMsd2fxlbMQSQDpE6xOg7IMJv2gu504aM0Ml8iVq_mT409UfiNqOAPV/s320/IMG_20160603_124422501.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dog friends!</td></tr>
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Other than that, this weekend was great! It was more relaxing while still requiring a lot of team effort (we had to make our own meals and do all the cleaning; we also hauled a lot of logs and helped Andrei out around the house), and we got to learn a lot about rural life in Russia. Andrei, an acclaimed history teacher, was a veritable fountain of knowledge, and told us about everything from the history of the region to ancient Russian family life to how thread is made from sheep's wool. He was also a really funny guy, always ready with a joke or a story, and went to great lengths to make sure we were comfortable and happy. His love for teaching and hosting and serving the people in his neighborhood was evident, in how wonderfully he treated us, in his friendships with all the neighborhood kids, in his great concern for the work he did and for the little village's survival. He showed us around all weekend, taking us on bike rides and on a tour of a nearby farm, and had us make a Powerpoint of his many pictures from our stay, making us promise to keep up our international friendship after we leave Russia.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Lj6Z31mBgfshOPUDPMKjdIt6QOJEm6G0oHn7sILyJM0YBTSxqIUscQKvZFlCI7zDL9lDVtXrhvqOfuGfdNCQOvB9vm7RB0T5Zd58l6Cwz-EuFC8Osh81yW7nNYgbncbchyphenhyphen8vI_KepTv6/s1600/IMG_20160605_154250390.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Lj6Z31mBgfshOPUDPMKjdIt6QOJEm6G0oHn7sILyJM0YBTSxqIUscQKvZFlCI7zDL9lDVtXrhvqOfuGfdNCQOvB9vm7RB0T5Zd58l6Cwz-EuFC8Osh81yW7nNYgbncbchyphenhyphen8vI_KepTv6/s320/IMG_20160605_154250390.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The neighborhood kids! Prokhor<br />on the left</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4-tSN96YPH38vfwMKXTIA1sxuFNjh2WQQ5Cza01BoQ2RFIf6tWNFAPAtQXfaUqBINqSfzHNCqtSkMUVwXoSUTocO3a0BisybUgwjFlo7V3xfZYH8YPcCaDG8mDfhBQajYSEBZA8rS66y/s1600/IMG_20160605_102213289.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4-tSN96YPH38vfwMKXTIA1sxuFNjh2WQQ5Cza01BoQ2RFIf6tWNFAPAtQXfaUqBINqSfzHNCqtSkMUVwXoSUTocO3a0BisybUgwjFlo7V3xfZYH8YPcCaDG8mDfhBQajYSEBZA8rS66y/s1600/IMG_20160605_102213289.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> He is also a very talented man; one of the two masterclasses we got to participate in this weekend was in woodcarving, which is his favorite hobby. The little dacha was decorated all over with carvings of various animals and people, and we, along with a bunch of the children from the neighborhood, all got to sand and paint some kind of pre-made sculpture (mine was a rooster). It was the second time we got to be creative that weekend; on Friday one of our first activities was a master class in toy making, in which we made a little clay chicken that whistles. We were all very skeptical as to whether we could actually get our creations to make sound, but with time (and a <i>lot</i> of help from the teacher) we ended up with a little chorus of toy roosters. These classes played into a big theme of rural life in Russia, which is making things by hand: we also got to talk with a woman who makes much of her own clothing and sells her knitting at fairs, and a woman, Masha, who taught us how to make thread from wool.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB10PM4PEaQtY741S07wKgjiZmNrvHoLtdGsoDWrM1xRu7kuUIoZFipULqWuPaXu-A7oMVgtxYj35_DK_wrgnSLXNjI6SBa37M1EVfv0y4v2qmJVMLIGngXO2vOr_Ef8k6cqFIJo0P_SK0/s1600/IMG_20160603_144243731.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB10PM4PEaQtY741S07wKgjiZmNrvHoLtdGsoDWrM1xRu7kuUIoZFipULqWuPaXu-A7oMVgtxYj35_DK_wrgnSLXNjI6SBa37M1EVfv0y4v2qmJVMLIGngXO2vOr_Ef8k6cqFIJo0P_SK0/s200/IMG_20160603_144243731.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clay chicken before </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggTuCMuCTijrYvFyXCAFwtRYSxoBCKvAVT2tTv0OaxR0u2hXjD5XhgPvppDkvgaM0h9lTNs_eAlul4JhSsnGJC_VA-zLSeMOPAblsw7ZyGmCgu8QiZTMdg2ncH-l1XqrRpypVJpbtcmwx/s1600/IMG_20160603_153926204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggTuCMuCTijrYvFyXCAFwtRYSxoBCKvAVT2tTv0OaxR0u2hXjD5XhgPvppDkvgaM0h9lTNs_eAlul4JhSsnGJC_VA-zLSeMOPAblsw7ZyGmCgu8QiZTMdg2ncH-l1XqrRpypVJpbtcmwx/s200/IMG_20160603_153926204.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clay chicken after</td></tr>
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The neighborhood kids were a blast as well; like I mentioned, they hung around the house all the time, joining us for tea and playing with us. Prokhor, a small 13-year-old boy, befriended us and came around to hang out with us a couple times; he was a funny kid, he and I formed a little friendly rivalry through a couple games of Monopoly. He had a little bit of a troubled past, Andrei told us: his parents got into a violent fight right after he was born, his mother stabbed his father, and, though the two are still together, they are alcoholics, and it is not a happy home. It is good that Andrei is around for Prokhor to be able to be in a happier environment for some of the day. A lot of the other kids only spoke Russian and therefore were pretty shy at first, but eventually we found common ground in the little litter of puppies that one of Andrei's dogs had about a month ago.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKE40px-9jFqFMbHRFPwD2JpgO86U28Meya0pXAqMvbE3Syh7haZAqOEfB5ok2d3sgXWy6A1a7Fqb6RX8cLwby9AYUKSWF2AFTM10SdrOW0M7ihMD4zP6xKJSu1hyphenhyphenr8U0h5VlDp-1F8ENg/s1600/IMG_20160604_145419421.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKE40px-9jFqFMbHRFPwD2JpgO86U28Meya0pXAqMvbE3Syh7haZAqOEfB5ok2d3sgXWy6A1a7Fqb6RX8cLwby9AYUKSWF2AFTM10SdrOW0M7ihMD4zP6xKJSu1hyphenhyphenr8U0h5VlDp-1F8ENg/s320/IMG_20160604_145419421.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The babushka we got to speak with</td></tr>
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One of the coolest and most humbling moments happened on Saturday, when a local <i>babushka </i>came to visit and talk with us, along with her daughter and her friend. This woman, 87, had been taken hostage by the Nazis when they invaded Russia during World War II, and would've been taken all the way to Germany to be a slave if the Russian forces wouldn't have rescued her and others with her in Belarus. She was an incredible woman, but the starvation and abuse she faced was horrifying; she teared up while telling how hard it was during this time, how they weren't allowed the clothing to stay warm in the winter, how her and the other children would have to dig through the trash to find the food leftover from the dogs, how many men she saw die during battle and how near she and others in her situation came to just being shot and killed. Almost everyone she knew died, and after she was rescued she grew up alone in an orphanage. Despite all these horrors, she started out the talk telling us how important being good people was, how family is the greatest joy in life and how hard work, hope, and faith are the keys to living a long, happy life (she was also an extremely loud, fiery woman; while she was telling us all this she was mostly shouting and repeatedly slamming her fist on the table, it was awesome). She spoke of how grateful she was that God sent the Russian army to save her and get her through this ordeal, and then how much joy she got in the family and life God gifted her with after the war. When I asked whether it was difficult to keep her faith throughout all she went through and during the communist regime, she responded with a simple 'Nyet.' It was incredibly inspiring to see someone go through unimaginable circumstances and retain their hope and passion for life.<br />
A final great thing about this weekend was all the time we got to spend together as a group. Like I said, we had to cook all of our meals and wash all the dishes by hand, and as such ended up working as a team quite a bit. We also got to end both nights just sitting and laughing and talking in the girls room, which was a blast. I'm really happy to have gotten such a great, easy-to-get-along-with group of people to go on this trip with.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-27229068226204122792016-06-05T13:51:00.002-07:002016-06-05T13:51:35.877-07:00Travel Log: Day Eighteen<b>Vladimir, Russia, 6/2/2016</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from inside a Russian<br />prison cell</td></tr>
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Our last day in Vladimir for the week! Our first task of the day (post-Russian lesson) was to get food for this weekend. We're going to be 'roughing it' somewhat in Shukhudrinovo, living in a village without running water, no heating, and questionable electricity, and making our own food; the American Home gave us a budget of 9000 rubles and sent us to a grocery store to get ingredients. We ran around a grocery store, trying to read things and buy enough food for nine people (Vika is going with us); it ended up only costing around 6500 rubles ($100), gotta love that exchange rate! Then we went to an Italian lunch and had a few hours to just explore; the seven of us and Sasha went to a coffeehouse and sat and talked for a while, it was very relaxing.<br />
We had an excursion to a museum about Vladimir Central, a huge, famous prison in the city that house political prisoners during World War II, and that was used as a halfway point on prisoners' way to Siberia during the reign of the Tzars. We talked about its history, about how, when it was founded by Catherine the Second it was very progressive for the time, and how its improving on prisoner treatment after the awful legacy the GULAG system left. After this we went back for a lecture on the modern prison system, which was very hopeful: Russia has significantly reduced the number of people imprisoned in recent years, and prisoner treatment is also much better than it used to be. The lecturer mentioned how one of the ways you can get a grasp on the health or struggle of a society is by seeing how many people are in its punitive system, with the fewer the better. Interesting to think about seeing as the US leads the world in number of people currently imprisoned.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyzlfzdFxX3pORLyGbXByW5af4wC50llGzq9MI9_IV9z0TR0Js3470Yr9S6hPcUhSMUPHfN5fTYvFZN_B1Px2XqE-oYw7aZTWhH6HFy9qY9krYVvJ4qx5m0gLR4_irsDC6eHqTl-h8k_uO/s1600/IMG_20160602_184410772.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyzlfzdFxX3pORLyGbXByW5af4wC50llGzq9MI9_IV9z0TR0Js3470Yr9S6hPcUhSMUPHfN5fTYvFZN_B1Px2XqE-oYw7aZTWhH6HFy9qY9krYVvJ4qx5m0gLR4_irsDC6eHqTl-h8k_uO/s320/IMG_20160602_184410772.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Music Party!</td></tr>
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After that we had a fun evening of music, hosted mainly by Alexei, a Russian amateur pop singer he found, and myself. We sang some American pop music together, I sang some classical, we taught everyone some Russian and American music, and it was all a ton of fun. Courtney's host dad got up and played 'We Shall Overcome' impromptu on the piano, which most of the Russian adults knew, and we ended the night with 'Party in the USA.' We got together with the Russian university students and went out to a restaurant after until around ten, another fun day with them. I'm so thankful with how friendly they are, and how enthusiastic they are about getting to know us; its made this trip even more enjoyable, and I'm really thankful for the friendships we're making.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evening out with the students!</td></tr>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-465165286676545072016-06-05T11:09:00.001-07:002016-06-05T11:09:32.179-07:00Travel Log: Day Seventeen<b>Vladimir, Russia 6/1/2016</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our volunteer group, L to R: Me,<br />
Sasha, Olia, Miah, and Scott</td></tr>
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Today was another day of work. In the morning, after Russian, we got to clean the apartment of an older woman who was living independently but who was having a harder time moving and cleaning her home. Four of us Americans were teamed up with Alexei and two of the students at the American home (Sasha and Olia) to deep clean; Scott and Sasha removed and cleaned her many huge rugs while Miah, Olia, Courtney, and I dusted and scrubbed floors. We wiped off just about every surface in that apartment (with very different dusting supplies than I'd use at home, I might add: each time we've dusted, we've just used an old rag and some water, no sort of 'dusting spray' or any specialized tool; this seems to be a theme of cleaning products in Russia, it makes me wonder if fewer branded/specialized goods are a result of being in a less commercialized country than America) and the lady was so grateful that she gave us a little cake as a token of gratitude on our way out. Once again I practiced my preferred method of communication with people who speak no English, laughing and feigning understanding: the babushka was having a great time telling me a story I understood about two words of (кошка, cat, and дача, a country home), but she was laughing and smiling and I just played along and said a lot of Да's.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Orphanage</td></tr>
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Alexei, who was 'chaperoning' us, took us to lunch after, where we ate pizza and khachapuri (Georgian cheese-filled bread) and our new cake. We went and cleaned up a playground for an orphanage later, where some of the Vladimir State University students joined us. We painted some equipment and swept away all the dirt that was covering the pavement, it took up a few hours and I of course got paint absolutely all over me. Sidenote: Russian young women are so fashionable, they even dress like models when going to work outside at an orphanage, it's nuts. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any of the kids, but what we saw of the inside of the building looked like a bright, happy place, which was nice to see.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlSodMEpzusZlum2wtCYUh_sRMbYNfa1j2rIqGWeaaCUM2GWlmcQTX8I5ElmPg5B5Qi4vxvtaOTN3h3kznpR5vWXwbWue-Jz65FBFWTx7G5lHWTAbwAZIklr4eehmH0Vay_zu5mLm0nho1/s1600/IMG_20160601_181955726.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlSodMEpzusZlum2wtCYUh_sRMbYNfa1j2rIqGWeaaCUM2GWlmcQTX8I5ElmPg5B5Qi4vxvtaOTN3h3kznpR5vWXwbWue-Jz65FBFWTx7G5lHWTAbwAZIklr4eehmH0Vay_zu5mLm0nho1/s320/IMG_20160601_181955726.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The park near Alexei's house</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After that we met up with the rest of the Americans at Alexei's apartment, and had tea and ice cream. He and his wife, Galina, who runs the American Home (I think), are wonderful people with a beautiful home, and they are always so generous with us, we're practically spoiled.<br />
We all went to a nearby park with an ice rink, where a Circus-On-Ice was coming through town. I was really psyched for it (what can I say, I love seeing performances, even two circuses in three days) but it ended up being laughably awful. All of us wanted desperately to leave at intermission, but were afraid of hurting David's feelings; luckily, David was only staying out of fear that we were enjoying it. We cleared that confusion up right away and left, and it was all for the better, because several of us went out with the university students and had a complete blast. They're a really fun group, and I had a great conversation with a girl named Masha about Game of Thrones, proving that common ground (and dragons) are all you need for cross-cultural friendship.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-48712771352454800652016-06-05T10:25:00.000-07:002016-06-05T10:25:07.152-07:00Travel Log: Day Sixteen<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEOvYTzP7EsJ23BCUN_QjRl6UFWChTlPRPHpDg1Ur_7D7dQFqRakpWiyB_A4kGQ4vlI2eT9na-Wis-JWJp0uMpYJty1xtl5_186vxNlkRECgsFLK2DuZkyAkEA_ODyWKfcSnzmvx1eI_Du/s1600/IMG_20160531_140840819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEOvYTzP7EsJ23BCUN_QjRl6UFWChTlPRPHpDg1Ur_7D7dQFqRakpWiyB_A4kGQ4vlI2eT9na-Wis-JWJp0uMpYJty1xtl5_186vxNlkRECgsFLK2DuZkyAkEA_ODyWKfcSnzmvx1eI_Du/s320/IMG_20160531_140840819.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Before' picture of my Matryoshka</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Vladimir, Russia, 5/31/2016</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Wow, I can't believe we're already over the halfway point of our trip. Back in Vladimir, we woke up this morning for a Russian lesson and a couple of lectures throughout the day that provided interesting perspectives. The first was from the same Russian professor of political science from last week (his English wasn't great, it was a bit difficult to understand) and the second was by an immigrant from Uzbekistan who'd lived in Vladimir for the past several years and worked with social programs that assisted other immigrants. Both lecturers were old enough to remember the USSR, and both had different takes on modern Russia.<br />
The former discussed national identities of Russians, and about how there's been an identity crisis in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR throughout all of society: intellectuals, the wealthy, and politicians as well as the working class, immigrants, and people living below the poverty line. He talked about the strange Europe-and-Asian position that Russia is in, and how many are divided on whether Russian national identity should be based on the idea of a united nation or constructed out of the many ethnic groups that make up the country. Although the population is about 80% ethnically Russian, there are a variety of other groups, primarily made up of people from places that used to be part of the USSR, that make up and play an influential role in modern Russian society. One of the main points that he made was that it was important to be aware that his country is not all one nationality, and that the culture was not entirely homogeneous.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo6-2vmnkwTp8ZaODUpsQZ6k4fyBs-AnJZNlJmUALJtgrTYdC0m3woUXokpkur992y1jQBfGEZcXlYLUqsOmzzyhnoSYDkFJpnaSaRznb3dotuun7lSu3GNN9ymhrB7bHEIfSVwjluBIii/s1600/IMG_20160531_180946308_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo6-2vmnkwTp8ZaODUpsQZ6k4fyBs-AnJZNlJmUALJtgrTYdC0m3woUXokpkur992y1jQBfGEZcXlYLUqsOmzzyhnoSYDkFJpnaSaRznb3dotuun7lSu3GNN9ymhrB7bHEIfSVwjluBIii/s320/IMG_20160531_180946308_HDR.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Torpedos Game!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The latter, a smiley, happy man with wonderful English (who brought his son with him, he sat and colored most of the time), facilitated a discussion on immigration. He was born in Uzbekistan, lived for a while in the Ukraine, and settled in Russia, and told us that, ever since the USSR dissolved in 1991, there's been an influx of immigrants from the surrounding countries into Russia, as well as a general increase in migration between nations. It turns out that immigrants to and from countries in central Asia and eastern Europe experience similar challenges, both to each other and to immigrants across the Atlantic. He spoke about how he experienced difficulty finding jobs when first in Russia, and how he has experiences a bit of fear of the unknown and discrimination each place he's lived; he also pointed out that he saw Russians experience the same when he lived in Uzbekistan. He made a point about how vital cross-cultural communication is in any situation, and we had a discussion about how lack of understanding and education is at the root of many social issues surrounding immigrants, both in Eurasia and in the US. We talked a little bit about immigration policy in the US, and about attitudes surrounding Muslims; he had great insights to share, having been to the US and being raised Muslim himself.<br />
The rest of the day was great! We had a little masterclass in painting Matryoshka dolls (those Russian dolls that fit inside each other), in which I re-discovered why the art I pursue is musical and not visual, and went to a Vladimir Torpedos soccer game. We had a blast, and I had a couple good conversations with the English teachers at the American Home, all of whom are students from the US.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-80565166820340740582016-06-05T10:22:00.003-07:002016-06-05T10:26:16.133-07:00Travel Log: Days Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI-dQNjlC8Af-qh1VDDNp4DrCRXN6tDJee2MBb5iHUkkgRRMJ6vFzF6ygoYAu61X4F3wROudnILRMkLoUu9-iYzQ0quuL7T4HezfP08-kC0Xpp5VzhIGVthKU2jITVU8a9Z6kFYrtsrzhd/s1600/IMG_20160528_102959771.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI-dQNjlC8Af-qh1VDDNp4DrCRXN6tDJee2MBb5iHUkkgRRMJ6vFzF6ygoYAu61X4F3wROudnILRMkLoUu9-iYzQ0quuL7T4HezfP08-kC0Xpp5VzhIGVthKU2jITVU8a9Z6kFYrtsrzhd/s320/IMG_20160528_102959771.jpg" width="180" /></a><b>Moscow, Russia: 5/28/2016</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I'm just going to make a big post about everything about Moscow and everything from Saturday to Monday.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGs9ClImKbjq9fxLJTDoBRBJgER2EBndtxiP4K1BNrFR7QA_4tHUGRQwga33FL1xIm52LpbTCmct0mgwOyhsLDXvgBPAhZ4PxrkuzzO4eD70aAZqiJE60Oj0YTPgKZhMOm7ZbGHLAYShZx/s1600/IMG_20160528_160928056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGs9ClImKbjq9fxLJTDoBRBJgER2EBndtxiP4K1BNrFR7QA_4tHUGRQwga33FL1xIm52LpbTCmct0mgwOyhsLDXvgBPAhZ4PxrkuzzO4eD70aAZqiJE60Oj0YTPgKZhMOm7ZbGHLAYShZx/s320/IMG_20160528_160928056.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ferry Ride on the Moscow River</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
First of all, every Russian I've spoken to has told me that I'll take back these words after I see St. Petersburg, but Moscow is easily one of the coolest cities ever. It's absolutely huge (it takes up 1560.3 square miles of space; for reference, Des Moines's area is 132 square miles, Nashville's is 846, and New York City's is 490), let me tell you, if I personally designed a city, Moscow is pretty close to what it would look like: its <i>incredibly</i> clean, it manages to have parks every other block (including big ones with hiking trails and forests) and open space everywhere while still feeling like a city, all the buildings are architecturally beautiful and the monuments are especially incredible, ornate churches are everywhere, there are tons of museums, it rarely felt crowded despite its enormous population, the weather is beautiful (I know it must get freezing in winters because its Russia but I'm in favor of the summer weather), it has a huge and fascinating history that you can feel everywhere but there is also a huge section of the city that is made up of skyscrapers and is very modern, it has the gorgeous Moscow River and the magnificent Kremlin, the metro is efficient as all hell and everyO stations are beautifully designed, it has the best university and conservatory in the nation, I could go on forever. Moscow has this atmosphere to it, like it's at once a city of the past and future. It's magnificent.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGbTsvHpuVjMQ7B63lkr4dd2ilubEW80ZXWOBzqwxwuIp7VVKEaPrSkcKK_lv8a9HiWlUSsiuflNSiadt34m-zFJmhpXz0JEEB4WwYfGkO2k4JseZIfTlK6U3Zp4JrrW_h5FXFItlTPW8b/s1600/IMG_20160528_181434771.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGbTsvHpuVjMQ7B63lkr4dd2ilubEW80ZXWOBzqwxwuIp7VVKEaPrSkcKK_lv8a9HiWlUSsiuflNSiadt34m-zFJmhpXz0JEEB4WwYfGkO2k4JseZIfTlK6U3Zp4JrrW_h5FXFItlTPW8b/s320/IMG_20160528_181434771.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the ornate Metro stations</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On Saturday we spent a lot of time exploring the metro system, and I'm proud to say I'm a little bit of an expert in it at this point. Rather than having a tour guide show us around the city, David printed each of us a map of the Moscow Underground and a few pages of tasks to complete at different stations; we had to successfully navigate the 12 different lines and find works of art/historical sites throughout the city. We spent most of the day, since the Moscow Underground's total length is 325.4 km, and since, of the 194 metro stations total, 44 are Russian cultural heritage sites. The system manages to be both efficient as hell (it serves an average of eight million passengers a day) and beautiful; began during the Soviet era, city planners hired renowned artists and architects as well as engineers to design the stations, and as a result, many feature mosaics, statues, chandeliers, ornate ceilings, and more. Often Soviet values or wartime images are reflected in the station ornaments: one of the stations we stopped at and explored had mosaics on the ceiling representing different working members of society, from iron workers to farmers, another featured around eighty statues of 'modern' people, from soldiers to students, and we found Lenin in most bigger stations. A particularly beautiful one contained colorful stained glass works of art on every wall, a choice that was apparently controversial at the time, due to stained glass being associated with European churches and the USSR's strict anti-religious policies. The whole day was fun, I figured out the map early and did most of the navigating for the group, and by the I was definitely an expert.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgChHG4CnJgz5PRMCauNVtHjC86GO284JkyiUDHKixN6SyhuoMcow4EChyySXe8zH96mDR4tBUzEwmXiuul7a3JBql383Iu1R2F9zrMSCjQSkDR3x5uRT7ackaCa4ru9HVsNRCNzMgdaLPh/s1600/IMG_20160529_133020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgChHG4CnJgz5PRMCauNVtHjC86GO284JkyiUDHKixN6SyhuoMcow4EChyySXe8zH96mDR4tBUzEwmXiuul7a3JBql383Iu1R2F9zrMSCjQSkDR3x5uRT7ackaCa4ru9HVsNRCNzMgdaLPh/s320/IMG_20160529_133020.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pre-Lenin's-Tomb Selfie</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Saturday morning we went to see Lenin's tomb (his body is almost perfectly preserved for public viewing, it was vaguely terrifying; the USSR was an anti-religious state but David says they needed <i>something</i> to hold 'sacred,' and Lenin's body ended up being it) and before stopping by an enormous flea market. I bought a present for my brother that I managed to barter down 50%. Not bad for an American. There was also a little figurine of Putin shirtless riding a grizzly bear, and I would've bought that in a second if it hadn't been tragically outside of my budget.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLdBjKiNIQi4ZQbEUG14cIskrBJmEnU2pbThqSaQk56AZmhDXoz7oxAIqS7wDdNjuQ9GH74bzTiiVFMrnOQb8CUG9vMMsHgYhYdS0FkVbJJXcplYZbYP_2Gc4Lf8XLAaWiFFPVWpQuO-Aa/s1600/IMG_20160528_215309278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLdBjKiNIQi4ZQbEUG14cIskrBJmEnU2pbThqSaQk56AZmhDXoz7oxAIqS7wDdNjuQ9GH74bzTiiVFMrnOQb8CUG9vMMsHgYhYdS0FkVbJJXcplYZbYP_2Gc4Lf8XLAaWiFFPVWpQuO-Aa/s320/IMG_20160528_215309278.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Obelisk in Victory Park</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2Cq53pQl4iLRfdpf-icNpfdFtFdyP-ef218gM_z9JGqgPG_fZ68ezIZHURwboMEi-WaAU1fiImJHMGrKbW8fsaFJcGNvFTEAYElXruxi1bx0HNHUvNtPydNylCHrHMO1XUG3Qd-7vp6v/s1600/IMG_20160528_220915372.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2Cq53pQl4iLRfdpf-icNpfdFtFdyP-ef218gM_z9JGqgPG_fZ68ezIZHURwboMEi-WaAU1fiImJHMGrKbW8fsaFJcGNvFTEAYElXruxi1bx0HNHUvNtPydNylCHrHMO1XUG3Qd-7vp6v/s320/IMG_20160528_220915372.jpg" width="177" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fireworks Behind the Museum<br />
of the Great Patriotic War, in <br />
honor of Border Guards Day</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Saturday <i>night</i> was perfectly timed. After we had dinner and finished our scavenger hunt, we took a trip to Victory Park, one of the enormous parks in the city. It was breathtaking, with fountains and sculptures everywhere and a forest that spread almost to the horizon (the horizon itself was more buildings, because this city is giant). We got ice cream from a vendor nearby, and set up camp as the sun set on a plaza on the edge of the park; the skyscrapers rising from New Moscow in the distance cut through the purple sky and made for a picturesque view. The National World War II Museum, a majestic white building with great white statues of soldiers on horses on its roof, sat at one end of the square and in front of it was one of the most simple yet breathtaking monuments I've ever seen: a white pillar that jutted up in front of the building, angels and cherubs soaring at the top and a larger-than-life statue of a victorious soldier on horseback, impaling a menacing snake, at its feet. The monument was tremendously tall (built 141.3 meters high, it was meant to represent the amount of time Russia spent fighting, which was 1413 days in total) and, as I stood at its feet, alone and feeling very small, it seemed so impossibly grand that it was almost surreal; in terms of making one feel the weight of the events and sacrifices of the twentieth century, the incredible hardships faced and the meaning of the fact that they were surmounted, it was very effective. And as a final touch to the day, as I walked back to my group in the dark, I heard explosions behind my and turned to see fireworks shooting up behind the museum, framing the monument perfectly. We sat and watched the celebration (it was for some kind of holiday, there were a few rowdy drunken celebrators) in awe, and by the time it was over, night had fully fallen and it was time to return home.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicADaxS-JAmi9zv4zfFTMGKtUWtmRYLQhZTuAW54-SA53XJo2ZT0EDKmolJySMPbVAXO962-JAYU2APkOtWomdeH_ah4tV3oXZNR02u2zoapDaXEXgObcri-HSq78vdABEAOegmTxVfr8f/s1600/IMG_20160528_215150755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicADaxS-JAmi9zv4zfFTMGKtUWtmRYLQhZTuAW54-SA53XJo2ZT0EDKmolJySMPbVAXO962-JAYU2APkOtWomdeH_ah4tV3oXZNR02u2zoapDaXEXgObcri-HSq78vdABEAOegmTxVfr8f/s400/IMG_20160528_215150755.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Victory Park</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Moscow, Russia, 5/29/2016</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_4W0Ku99F8_C2n_fivBjaE0uBaPLNjAz6k-dVUdIoHBz4Hkl-ZJr7P-oHbcRCE2W_n55jH3eKJfeVcDANXPxlBFtC0ZQ3MdGOu1XQs47DbYWhFTyyL7uV2Qeu9RYQ7AsqyFUZezytW-o/s1600/IMG_20160529_093925947.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_4W0Ku99F8_C2n_fivBjaE0uBaPLNjAz6k-dVUdIoHBz4Hkl-ZJr7P-oHbcRCE2W_n55jH3eKJfeVcDANXPxlBFtC0ZQ3MdGOu1XQs47DbYWhFTyyL7uV2Qeu9RYQ7AsqyFUZezytW-o/s400/IMG_20160529_093925947.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the government buildings<br />
in the GULAG system where suspects <br />
were imprisoned during investigation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFWKAR-56qbmFPI7G75hF-vUXnUOggWWdQntgiPgDrSLsvI0aEPBXBUaFvwPb06YCh1JIVRVCnKS_1lWmgWZA74ZI6Cz9IssEQoFRx2ZRfF8wxnVuZPa0MjD_mhpLFFnsw79E2-kcNorH/s1600/IMG_20160529_100302539_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFWKAR-56qbmFPI7G75hF-vUXnUOggWWdQntgiPgDrSLsvI0aEPBXBUaFvwPb06YCh1JIVRVCnKS_1lWmgWZA74ZI6Cz9IssEQoFRx2ZRfF8wxnVuZPa0MjD_mhpLFFnsw79E2-kcNorH/s320/IMG_20160529_100302539_HDR.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the many parks one happens<br />
upon when wandering Moscow</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b> </b>Sunday was a day of ups and downs. We started off in a pretty low place: a history museum centered on the GULAG system that existed during Stalin's era. The museum was dedicated to educating people on this governmental agency's oppressive regime (particularly during the Great Terror, 1936-1938) and on the horrors faced by people sent to Siberian forced labor camps. The amount of suffering and the sheer numbers of people touched by this terror were horrifying enough (and if I went into it you'd be reading pages; the dehumanization and psychological torture of so many people was absolutely awful), but it was how widespread the psychological influence of the State was during the time that truly astounded me. Despite the thousands of people being robbed of their freedom and tortured at the hands of the government every day during this time, people still believed that the State could do no wrong; our tour guide told us that even family members of people in prison or in camps would sometimes genuinely denounce them, as they believed that, if this was the action of the government, then it must be right. Despite the fact that Joseph Stalin was directly responsible for more civillian deaths than anyone in recorded history (including Hitler; Stalin and his government would literally write and sign quotas for different areas of the country dictating how many people there ought to be shot or imprisoned; officials in those areas would then go out and find civillians to meet these quotas), he was viewed at the time as this glorious leader and after his death many people were injured trying to push through the enormous crowds attending his funeral in Moscow. This feeling still exists a little bit today, the tour guide explained; the museum often has guests that come in convinced that the statistics regarding people killed during this time are false. When you think about it, though, it makes a certain amount of sense: if a government imprisons, tortures, and kills anyone with any notions of dissent, loyalists are going to be all that remain. It did make me wonder how, if a whole population of people were so misinformed, so unaware of the harsh reality of their surroundings, what we could be unaware of in the US today. A scary thought.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvsNuqeFA5H_IvoiWGa1VsP6M6uCCLdnVf6tndWNZPBoCzHYcf7HxETj3WySseO3YtNJJkrGXXSRyjuiOnROUMx_700bZw3h-Ml_ub8DhrwJlldpVzZzdzO_fvx9lATslfcFAhKbC00QOJ/s1600/IMG_20160529_150705015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvsNuqeFA5H_IvoiWGa1VsP6M6uCCLdnVf6tndWNZPBoCzHYcf7HxETj3WySseO3YtNJJkrGXXSRyjuiOnROUMx_700bZw3h-Ml_ub8DhrwJlldpVzZzdzO_fvx9lATslfcFAhKbC00QOJ/s320/IMG_20160529_150705015.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moscow Circus!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis-HsrLh02KX5yslscHH01vPTBWQMvOpRI7L_-LQnnmxNxcjIAskVBp5xse5hqSR6Kp2yCxf_C4WX9aWfaQsV42xeXUaMqLGsAFup1JRJei6cxDoytlIIhtUJAuZVnZa6sGVblzGGZaZeS/s1600/IMG_20160529_193614558.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis-HsrLh02KX5yslscHH01vPTBWQMvOpRI7L_-LQnnmxNxcjIAskVBp5xse5hqSR6Kp2yCxf_C4WX9aWfaQsV42xeXUaMqLGsAFup1JRJei6cxDoytlIIhtUJAuZVnZa6sGVblzGGZaZeS/s320/IMG_20160529_193614558.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My new soccer-playing friends</td></tr>
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After that sobering start to the day, we went to something a bit more lighthearted: the Moscow Circus. Though I haven't been to the circus in a very long time, but I went to quite a few when I was younger, and this one <i>had </i>to have been one of the best I've ever seen. Though it was only a one-ring circus, the show lasted around three hours and had an enormous cast of trapeze artists, dancers, clowns, acrobats, and more, as well as a host of animals, from huskies to leopards to sea lions. Sadly there were no bears, but the performers were all spectacular and the premise was lovely (it was a story centered around a little girl and her stuffed rabbit, the latter of which came to life to guide the former through a series of adventures, which were each act). I've never wanted to be a Russian gymnast/ballerina/acrobat/animal tamer more.<br />
We finished the day by walking through Moscow State University, the best school in the country. The campus was giant and was settled on a hill that overlooked the whole city, right next to a huge park we got to hike through. As we were walking, we ran into a huge group of young boys (probably around 10) in soccer uniforms, all of whom were amused by our language and accent, and I managed to befriend a bunch of them (both parties made poor attempts at speaking the other's language). After exploring a bit we took the metro back to Red Square and meandered back to our hostel. Another great day<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moscow State University </td></tr>
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<b>Moscow, Russia 5/30/2016</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJccrKyOfcef3O5UOUR6ZXOZF4q-tWbAOVpd6RJ6I2gDF8GuoCqQ204tuhiyz74kWRMRWrSi4JoXjygw7eoCFGhmbB2GESIdpZXnhIvunPvbvYHFZSfxvSXTzGmT68f8rvrz8f54M6XGNF/s1600/IMG_20160530_092634727.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJccrKyOfcef3O5UOUR6ZXOZF4q-tWbAOVpd6RJ6I2gDF8GuoCqQ204tuhiyz74kWRMRWrSi4JoXjygw7eoCFGhmbB2GESIdpZXnhIvunPvbvYHFZSfxvSXTzGmT68f8rvrz8f54M6XGNF/s320/IMG_20160530_092634727.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The gang waiting in line to get into the Kremlin</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8MOlDyCde-6YM18tWd2e1S50cbINgOapzD_U7zp1oda6AFRbwMcgi21swbZRQ41dEFfFh1MKM1pQy15DP7wtyuMvbNhz6Zt85RcDak9NBOFYfP3A4WriAYrkAdjhgXl9bmJYfytzlWh9s/s1600/IMG_20160530_102910899.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8MOlDyCde-6YM18tWd2e1S50cbINgOapzD_U7zp1oda6AFRbwMcgi21swbZRQ41dEFfFh1MKM1pQy15DP7wtyuMvbNhz6Zt85RcDak9NBOFYfP3A4WriAYrkAdjhgXl9bmJYfytzlWh9s/s320/IMG_20160530_102910899.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Selfie from atop the bell tower</td></tr>
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<b> </b>Sadly, Monday was our last day in Moscow. We got up earlier this morning in order to get<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgXNmJhHBbcb0PGDEBxewziBc3sMSWHb_Cr4kAKzj1GPAtPnG84NVcA00vDH_XViMIdxdFDFkxhdov2rSnEb0Tz0DK9wJ27IczSXHlRDnKIflwgL7PDJVXOGtrLgfI2QjWiMThqyOtCimk/s1600/IMG_20160530_133536069.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgXNmJhHBbcb0PGDEBxewziBc3sMSWHb_Cr4kAKzj1GPAtPnG84NVcA00vDH_XViMIdxdFDFkxhdov2rSnEb0Tz0DK9wJ27IczSXHlRDnKIflwgL7PDJVXOGtrLgfI2QjWiMThqyOtCimk/s200/IMG_20160530_133536069.jpg" width="112" /></a> in line to finally explore the inside of the Kremlin. The Moscow Kremlin is enormous; there were at least six churches, the enormous Senate building, and acres of fields and gardens. Because we were up early, we got the chance to climb the tallest bell tower there and see everything from the center; you could see most of the city, too, and all the cathedrals. The square was a display of history, with buildings built anywhere from the 14th century to the 17th <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK9r7GfxMosNUudb93a7fD1AOC_etWVm5T1PAiVGduae367MsrKr5sFDcpf1rDRmhSNYD6YVl_UdQECSkAt75YiHGMevZ5l8OZdDscxLr71Qxl4q-fRTk6vmZ3YZsGy_AcOsaLzvhxE-NP/s1600/IMG_20160530_114859303.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK9r7GfxMosNUudb93a7fD1AOC_etWVm5T1PAiVGduae367MsrKr5sFDcpf1rDRmhSNYD6YVl_UdQECSkAt75YiHGMevZ5l8OZdDscxLr71Qxl4q-fRTk6vmZ3YZsGy_AcOsaLzvhxE-NP/s320/IMG_20160530_114859303.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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century standing next to each other. David gave us all a little worksheet, a map that was missing its labels, and gave us an hour to ourselves to find the <br />
missing information. This is the kind of thing I love, of course, because my favorite thing to do in new places is to break off and explore alone. I walked around the square for a while (in the Assumption Cathedral I followed a French tour group for about ten minutes and was very proud that I understood about 75% of what the guide was saying) and then spent the rest of the time exploring the lush gardens on the outside. At the end we got to just sit in the gardens and sketch our surroundings, a nice moment of peace at the end of a hectic weekend. After we went to one last delicious Moscow lunch (where we had an amazing chocolate brownie dessert, it was so expensive but so worth it) before going back to the hostel and taking the train home. I got back to my apartment around dinner, and spent the rest of the night relaxing with Polly.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top: a couple of historic artifacts on the square in the Kremlin<br />
Middle: The bell tower we climbed and one of the churches, many other churches in the background<br />
Bottom: The view from the tower; where Putin at?</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-4029818868045940692016-05-31T12:55:00.001-07:002016-05-31T12:58:29.627-07:00Travel Log: Day Twelve<b>Moscow, Russia 5/27/2016</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjndtWMsJwf8Zo4uIWGcBI3lGoqoA-OekPPavr-jU1hGRfmgij9psr2mZDLd7VxcdMHTP3IIuIXGtCuA6pvPq-Z1sJZ_3YtHKR5aoBBQcF185LU1HjxIPhXIJ87mFTA0sk4uPchnyZhjKmU/s1600/IMG_20160529_133254.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjndtWMsJwf8Zo4uIWGcBI3lGoqoA-OekPPavr-jU1hGRfmgij9psr2mZDLd7VxcdMHTP3IIuIXGtCuA6pvPq-Z1sJZ_3YtHKR5aoBBQcF185LU1HjxIPhXIJ87mFTA0sk4uPchnyZhjKmU/s320/IMG_20160529_133254.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the Train!</td></tr>
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<b><br /></b>
First day in Moscow!!! <br />
I've been unbelievably excited for this ever since getting to Russia; I absolutely love cities, and Moscow is a huge and exciting one. We arrived in the center after a two-hour train, and the city is just so enormous it's hard to conceptualize. It was at least a twenty-five minute walk to the hostel after lunch near the train station, and we were still close to the middle (it should be mentioned that the hostel was far nicer than I had any right to expect, very clean and with a little kitchen). After dropping off our stuff, we changed for the concert later and were off.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cathedral of Christ the S</td></tr>
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<br />
The first thing we did was take the metro (I'll talk more about the metro in the next entry) to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It is an <i>enormous </i>church on the edge of the Moscow River that was torn down when the Soviets came to power. Stalin originally planned for it to become something of a palace for the leaders of the USSR (which, in my opinion, somewhat contradicts communist ideals, but hey dictators will be dictators), but construction was halted by the German invasion in 1941, and was never completed. Instead, they built a swimming pool that was closed in 1991, and the church was rebuilt from 1995-2000. It was incredible, absolutely huge; it's interior was colorfully decorated, as is the custom with Orthodox churches, and, as it was constructed recently, everything was vibrant and in perfect condition. We walked from there to the walls of the Kremlin and the famous Red Square, where we saw Moscow's Eternal Flame and we saw the changing of the guard. It was a quick visit, but it was still surreal and incredible; I'd seen all these things in pictures all the time, but to stand in front of Saint Basil's Cathedral in person was a whole different experience.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good Ol' Tchaikovsky</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPlOejMO2AXqYBdQOoD2nyMPA1pbPEki5X8B8qsqnNclgh5FclNCznLBqnA81xQxWCcGGX9Yp2qGz-X3fQymjsoBxgwUyBjbd4IkJjEZ87pYx5Co21xGr4DuVYvbOwn-biKHAGfixzcIUQ/s1600/IMG_20160527_203039130.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPlOejMO2AXqYBdQOoD2nyMPA1pbPEki5X8B8qsqnNclgh5FclNCznLBqnA81xQxWCcGGX9Yp2qGz-X3fQymjsoBxgwUyBjbd4IkJjEZ87pYx5Co21xGr4DuVYvbOwn-biKHAGfixzcIUQ/s200/IMG_20160527_203039130.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moscow Conservatory<br />
Orchestra</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYjynZLU6ZOlXWK2XBDOS8Ubj8DKhyfnD9lk18mfYnpLn51XApuzccUEV6VXIFAxqn-o9szmjnXRhcBe8IW1nAcmaSPb79jkiaZicPxjZeK8fonfNXCLxW-SLaIXN29yQWMwSFhRYx0AhV/s1600/IMG_20160527_232632689.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYjynZLU6ZOlXWK2XBDOS8Ubj8DKhyfnD9lk18mfYnpLn51XApuzccUEV6VXIFAxqn-o9szmjnXRhcBe8IW1nAcmaSPb79jkiaZicPxjZeK8fonfNXCLxW-SLaIXN29yQWMwSFhRYx0AhV/s320/IMG_20160527_232632689.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saint Basil's Cathedral at night</td></tr>
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From there we walked to the Moscow Conservatory!!! I've been pumped for this concert since I first found out about it, and I was not disappointed. The Conservatory is magnificent; the little of it we saw was grand and ornate, and the concert hall was magnificent. A statue of Tchaikovsky, who was a professor there, towers over the entrance to the hall, and there were portraits of him and Rimsky-Korsokov everywhere. The school is 150 years old, it is the best music school in the country, and is in the top 20 best music schools in the world, so it is no surprise that the orchestra was incredible. Even better, they played Stravinsky <i>and </i>Shostakovich, both of which were composers I'd hoped beyond hope they'd play. The concert was fabulous, and I am definitely going to look more into the conservatory and ask Dr. Shay about it when I get back to school (I already found an international summer program on their website).<br />
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After that we ate at what was the Moscow equivalent of a hipster restaurant: it was a fancy hole in the wall with live music that was overpriced but also delicious. It was then a long walk home, back through the enormous Red Square. Moscow is a ton of walking. After such a good first day, I'm so excited for the rest of this weekend.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-15146180824223858142016-05-30T13:50:00.000-07:002016-05-30T13:50:50.057-07:00Travel Log: Day Eleven<b>Vladimir and Bogolyubovo, Russia 5/26/2016</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcrYtE0PhdfUAsgnAIOGrUZeR8IiUZ5Me4CmB-hqOQ4AH65C8eAfavX2bh6rf71UsGbShTRxUnmUVRDBrA9Jn8tt7Te8kOLWsI5pZqUxZx2re6LhPDurA4sysn1rADajFWS8Zp9XQkjJDa/s1600/IMG_20160526_112120957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcrYtE0PhdfUAsgnAIOGrUZeR8IiUZ5Me4CmB-hqOQ4AH65C8eAfavX2bh6rf71UsGbShTRxUnmUVRDBrA9Jn8tt7Te8kOLWsI5pZqUxZx2re6LhPDurA4sysn1rADajFWS8Zp9XQkjJDa/s320/IMG_20160526_112120957.jpg" width="180" /></a> There were two themes of today: Eastern Orthodox Churches, and Russian mosquitoes. After the morning lessons, we started off the day having a picnic in Bogolyubovo, near a couple of historic cathedrals. All of our lunches were a little strange, seeing as we had to attempt to scrape them together out of a Russian grocery store, in which I of course couldn't read anything - I bought an entire pack of some kind of cheese, a fruit-filled pastry (cherry, probably?), and some fairly sketchy sushi. We bussed to the edge of the city and walked by a large convent on the way to the site of our picnic, which was a lovely field within sight of the Church of the Intercession of the Nerl (I don't know what that means). It was picturesque, rolling fields, a winding river, and the Church, high on a hill in the distance; as soon as we started eating we were swarmed by mosquitoes. I don't know why I thought Russia would be a mosquito-free place, but I was quite wrong. It must've been hilarious to watch, all of us dancing around, trying to eat while shaking the mosquitoes off of us.<br />
After lunch we explored, walking through the fields and into the church (we it's a functioning Orthodox church, so all of the girls had to cover our heads and put on long skirts), and then we went and visited the convent. The church was huge, with shining blue cupolas and an enormously ornate interior. Once again we had to put on head coverings and skirts; David got turned away near the entrance because he was wearing shorts, but I managed to get through despite my visible knees on account of my not understanding the nun trying to make me leave. The cathedral was beautiful, I got to sit and pray for a while, it was very peaceful.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM0WHIS8O5odu5OSTxRa77Abm8bDn6RGb8SX93sqihAT94PZKsiT5LJNfMRBKhNLJd9337cbmwUmWuuUqgfnsDPgLvPZwh81NUmtA3DIOj1UBn2gYraHvU4RRgBvfI5pCjYlsC9BJ-n7qs/s1600/IMG_20160526_121136074_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM0WHIS8O5odu5OSTxRa77Abm8bDn6RGb8SX93sqihAT94PZKsiT5LJNfMRBKhNLJd9337cbmwUmWuuUqgfnsDPgLvPZwh81NUmtA3DIOj1UBn2gYraHvU4RRgBvfI5pCjYlsC9BJ-n7qs/s320/IMG_20160526_121136074_HDR.jpg" width="180" /></a> From there we went back to work in a cemetery in the city; it was at least a few acres, and was very different from American cemeteries. While a graveyard in the US is organized and has been cleared to accommodate the graves, a Russian one is set into the environment: the graves sit among the trees, with families buried together covered in flowers and greenery. It was more of a peaceful place than a sad or creepy one, and there was a beautiful monument to the soldiers of WWII on one end. On the other was the church we worked with. We were put into groups of a couple of American students and several Russian students and we all went out and weeded graves (which was something of a challenge, seeing as how many flowers and other foliage decorated the graves. I got into a very interesting conversation with the priest, who was working with us at our site. We compared religious life in America and in Russia, and it is incredible how different it is. I get the feeling that fewer people are religious in Russia, especially with the youth, but it seems like, for the religious people in Russia, it is more of a vital part of life. We had a little mini-service at the end; Orthodoxy is more like Catholocism than Protestantism in that it is mostly ritual and rite, except that there is no music (other than chant, which was what most of the service was conducted in), everyone stands the whole time, and there is very little movement and no sermon. It was very different from anything I was used to, and I can understand why it doesn't appeal to youth as much, but it was fascinating and everyone's devotion was impressing. I also learned that Russian mosquitoes are huge and more vicious than American ones. The last time my legs were bit up this bad was halfway through my first summer at camp.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-2170939809526072072016-05-25T14:14:00.001-07:002016-05-25T14:22:14.473-07:00Travel Log: Days Nine and Ten<b>Vladimir, Russia: 5/24/2016</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjydDqr_lU7-FBXMWaVw1JY_d_d_4CQHHm7D6V1NTlkaoTajWJO04LNEWFD36URSP5r2I-KPiOvvf0U_YKufowVsBur7NYU0utwGF0g28PNtdMrYZSh5-zySc6lTd70kWTb56KrEsULiEWi/s1600/IMG_20160525_104637631.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjydDqr_lU7-FBXMWaVw1JY_d_d_4CQHHm7D6V1NTlkaoTajWJO04LNEWFD36URSP5r2I-KPiOvvf0U_YKufowVsBur7NYU0utwGF0g28PNtdMrYZSh5-zySc6lTd70kWTb56KrEsULiEWi/s320/IMG_20160525_104637631.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our group riding a bus<br />
somewhere</td></tr>
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Tuesday my immune system finally got the memo that I'd been sleep-deprived in a foreign country and decided to attack me in the form of a vicious cold; I spent a lot of the day coughing and sniffling, trying to combat symptoms with multiple different sprays graciously bought for me by David, and trying not to fall asleep (I got very little sleep from Monday into Tuesday). This entry will be pretty short, because otherwise it was a pretty relaxing day: we had a couple things cancelled and got to walk around and explore downtown Vladimir a bit. I got to walk around by myself a bit, one of my favorite things to do, and I even managed to buy something without help despite my terrible Russian, which I'm pretty proud of. Later, after a lecture on national identity (it was very funny/revealing; at the end we compared our ideas about Russian national identity with American 'national identity,' or stereotypes more like, via drawing and all of our pictures were unsurprisingly poorly-drawn fat men with guns, baseball caps, and numerous American flags), the American Home threw a little trivia game for all the students, American and Russian, which was also a blast, mostly because the trivia was so random that most of the answers were joke answers (varied from 'Obama' to 'Russian bears'). After almost winning (second place, we were robbed), I was so exhausted I went right home and fell straight asleep.<br />
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<b>Vladimir, Russia: 5/25 /2016</b><br />
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<b> </b> We spent most of today volunteering with LIGHT, Vladimir's Association for Handicapped Children. It is an amazing organization that provides free schooling for handicapped children in the city, seeing as there are few other options for students with any kind of disability, physical, mental, etc. According to David, 10-15 years ago school systems used to simply recommend that parents keep these children at home because they didn't know what to do with them. There are no special education programs in the public school system and the teachers are not trained in how to teach them so the kids would fall hopelessly behind. The school we painted walls in today used to be part of a tractor factory during the USSR and it was remodeled and refashioned for its new function almost entirely by parents of the children the school serves, as there is almost no money from the government.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHl3S2huGZsNvXytclfg0ZJ9i8C3Zr7koB-1K6jiDULBCq8dVUFNV0jer3cAO90KuUQ_xcr0usjKRiJ8gfeBAj0he9CSaw3GFdbh9mX52ZknXJ4oN1Sx5M5tyz-zo1l-ul3xe64iqTKo_R/s1600/IMG_20160525_211855.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHl3S2huGZsNvXytclfg0ZJ9i8C3Zr7koB-1K6jiDULBCq8dVUFNV0jer3cAO90KuUQ_xcr0usjKRiJ8gfeBAj0he9CSaw3GFdbh9mX52ZknXJ4oN1Sx5M5tyz-zo1l-ul3xe64iqTKo_R/s320/IMG_20160525_211855.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Selfie in the park with Vandy<br />
and Vladimir students!</td></tr>
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Despite the hardships, they are amazing people. They serve over one hundred kids and administer personal care and attention to them, with different rooms for things like physical therapy, sensory stimulation, the teaching of life skills, etc. The woman who showed us around specialized in speech therapy. They also partner with a horse therapy program that operates in a nearby park. We spent several hours painting their main hallway; I got paint all over myself for the second time in Russia.<br />
After painting, we had a few hours to kill (read: to go home and wash off paint and change out of dirty clothes) before meeting all the university students for pizza. We all had delicious pizza and got to know each other more. We kind of took over the back room of the pizza place; it is not just a stereotype that Americans are super loud, we were definitely the most boisterous party. We all ate, got ice cream, and then walked to the park, talking about things like differences between our countries and where we wanted to travel.<br />
I had a bit of an adventure at the end of the day: they kicked me off my bus (I found out later that it was because they had to get gas; they told me in Russian I had no idea) but I could see my building from where I was so I started to walk; I ended up getting lost and making the walk a lot longer, but I got to see some of the parks around my house and still made my way home before dark. I also found out that the Vladimir sunset is beautiful.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrWtCcxYqGXx6bIowUywhBe7oyGL9A2G2xPCDARFU_dJysxfvHOCdkTgAfA-2OKMKvLypdOofW6igHGiKFvkEnDcogVcWZbe7YHLZxoTY0leBmrlW0QqR2NgD8R0eFSC5ud_m6i5QUhW4Q/s1600/IMG_20160525_203852592_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrWtCcxYqGXx6bIowUywhBe7oyGL9A2G2xPCDARFU_dJysxfvHOCdkTgAfA-2OKMKvLypdOofW6igHGiKFvkEnDcogVcWZbe7YHLZxoTY0leBmrlW0QqR2NgD8R0eFSC5ud_m6i5QUhW4Q/s400/IMG_20160525_203852592_HDR.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-2160993009834659732016-05-25T06:42:00.003-07:002016-05-25T06:42:52.170-07:00Travel Log: Day Eight<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Vladimir, Russia 5/23/2016</b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha0sEnK74-EFpbNrBXMQwXewgV-Q01cYSXJG6W5ox5rkoi631-Bssq0rALCVA1q5UaxZZz2CUgqav33btiZxdUw6XF76Fwy1gIMRiMo376Gf9Z-SsrjvcuwzAdtcn0UzRxAwIPOdqlI963/s1600/IMG_20160518_084046354.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha0sEnK74-EFpbNrBXMQwXewgV-Q01cYSXJG6W5ox5rkoi631-Bssq0rALCVA1q5UaxZZz2CUgqav33btiZxdUw6XF76Fwy1gIMRiMo376Gf9Z-SsrjvcuwzAdtcn0UzRxAwIPOdqlI963/s200/IMG_20160518_084046354.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I didn't take many<br />pictures today, so here<br />is the painting Lera did<br />by the elevator on our<br />floor; below are some<br />misc pictures of<br />Vladimir</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Day two of volunteering! Today, after a lecture on Russian youth, we worked at a veteran's home. It was a wonderful time; first, we cleaned a couple women's apartments, a couple of <i>babushkas</i> that spoke no English and had a hard time moving around. We dusted everywhere and mopped, and the first woman, an adorable old lady who was half my size and started giving out hugs as soon as we finished, teary-eyed because of how thankful she was. She didn't seem to understand that we couldn't speak English, as she just kept babbling to us in Russian; we let her talk, and she seemed touched by the care and attention. It was a fulfilling task in itself, and then I had my concert.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsHnSrUleTE51UbEtxHZRrwZsbiQMOJ1rYTeCjYNkmGr-xneJID-xL_q44qM1tX2RnVXFZPFtcsvd76VMVWmbEDadUCKgUkJj9eXciBJJkJK6lbtv6I2sehtnYySTmO8lwK6koac5hCE-/s1600/IMG_20160519_174328960_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsHnSrUleTE51UbEtxHZRrwZsbiQMOJ1rYTeCjYNkmGr-xneJID-xL_q44qM1tX2RnVXFZPFtcsvd76VMVWmbEDadUCKgUkJj9eXciBJJkJK6lbtv6I2sehtnYySTmO8lwK6koac5hCE-/s200/IMG_20160519_174328960_HDR.jpg" width="112" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn8PMwgWrbecpnnoN3zkLesSYHD2n16A4EETS-WQY4Lzqy3ajHY8Mo0lW2PG_WDMWIN2n86-odJpVQVIkOSTOwNzWdEEwq3epfhyq90zW32esEnAKxjoTo9FB3f8MPDJRrgjdNc79Jp5gq/s1600/Snapchat-7384903530762011100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn8PMwgWrbecpnnoN3zkLesSYHD2n16A4EETS-WQY4Lzqy3ajHY8Mo0lW2PG_WDMWIN2n86-odJpVQVIkOSTOwNzWdEEwq3epfhyq90zW32esEnAKxjoTo9FB3f8MPDJRrgjdNc79Jp5gq/s200/Snapchat-7384903530762011100.jpg" width="121" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> As soon as Alexei, the program coordinator from the Russian side, discovered what I study, he started setting up various little concerts for me to sing at. This is the first that I've been 'hired' for: a little half-hour performance for the residents of the home. I downloaded some music onto my tablet and, sitting at a recently-tuned-for-the-occasion upright piano, I sang some of my rep from the last year and plunked out an incredibly simplified accompaniment. About ten to fifteen residents, a few of the students from the university, and my group all sat and listened while I went through some Heggie, Mozart, and Rachmaninoff. It was a great exercise in singing as communication, as not only did these people not understand many of the languages I sing, they didn't understand much English either. Still, they seemed to enjoy it immensely, asking for an encore (an offer I had to refuse as I only downloaded so much), and a particular highlight was one woman singing along to 'Memory,' from Cats (one of the two musical theatre songs I have memorized on the piano). I befriended her after that, and we sat by each other during the Russian Doll-making master class we went to right after. It was a wonderful opportunity, and Alexei promptly asked me to sing more for the folks at the American Home next Thursday. Also, the students told me my pronunciation on the Rachmaninoff stuff as 'not bad.' </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> After volunteering we had the master class (we made these cute little traditional dolls, I rediscovered how bad I am at sewing) and a couple of us went shopping with some of the university students (black faux-leather jackets are all the rage here apparently, and I had an intense need; I got a really cute one at a store called Zara, it was my first splurge here) and then home. Another wonderful day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Fun Moment of the Day: </b>After I got home, Polly wanted to curl my hair, which was cute. I sat at her desk and she curled my hair while we both watched Jane the Virgin on Netflix (in Russian, with English subtitles). Great non-verbal bonding time. </span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-38204957453073664482016-05-24T13:26:00.003-07:002016-05-24T13:26:43.476-07:00Travel Log: Day Seven<div>
<b>Nizhny-Novgorod, 5/22/2016</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrxD5cwQdPswoccCQNpdNWTxFK7-lugRR_A3n56eVfRjSmDMOYx_RkG-AoPEdzol-urwy-6TMi1v9MidaGKgy6lbz7pRIF-gn4FxntuOaVEa77_TKsCSjhJ8VFnVcDq7FgJE72qNHs4zAC/s1600/IMG_20160522_135115374.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrxD5cwQdPswoccCQNpdNWTxFK7-lugRR_A3n56eVfRjSmDMOYx_RkG-AoPEdzol-urwy-6TMi1v9MidaGKgy6lbz7pRIF-gn4FxntuOaVEa77_TKsCSjhJ8VFnVcDq7FgJE72qNHs4zAC/s320/IMG_20160522_135115374.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bank in Nizhy-<br />Novgorod</td></tr>
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Today was the day set aside for our host families. I'm not gonna lie, this has been the day I've been the most nervous about ever since we got the preliminary schedule (a whole day of unstructured socializing with people who were recently strangers that also don't really speak the same language as me sounds a lot like my nightmares) but it turned out to be one of my favorite days yet. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJz84C7D74xn8Md77dycK0N2lG4ogRNT2w6Vtuvcua94Lr_V_GWngbwMfAsx4PwZQ1iarfdk9Cgi45kzkGTtnUza7j6F3M3LDizacRtBSRvNBOEihrMLxJB5SurBkyr29vevHddwIpzO7f/s1600/IMG_20160522_152022968.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJz84C7D74xn8Md77dycK0N2lG4ogRNT2w6Vtuvcua94Lr_V_GWngbwMfAsx4PwZQ1iarfdk9Cgi45kzkGTtnUza7j6F3M3LDizacRtBSRvNBOEihrMLxJB5SurBkyr29vevHddwIpzO7f/s200/IMG_20160522_152022968.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The View of the<br />Volga </td></tr>
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Polly, Vera, and I all got up around 9:00 and had delicious homemade blini, thin Russian pancakes that are very similar to crepes, before hopping in the car and leaving around 10:00. Nizhny is a three-hour drive from Vladimir, so we packed the car with pillows and blankets and were off. Lera, Polly's older sister (who speaks very good English, thank God) met up with us, with her boyfriend Andrei (likely very soon fiance, if I understand correctly) driving and his mom in the back seat. All six of us packed into two cars and, after a while of Polly and I jamming out to some American music (they love that I actually know most of the words), we fell asleep for most of the road trip. I woke up once or twice over the course of the trip, once to eat a sandwich and once when Vera pointed out a course on which the military teaches people how to drive tanks on the side of the road, but otherwise it was nice to catch up on some much-needed sleep. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpx6vmI2m3Vk5wNFEuuIGeDR2zTi-9uCFJNSkgwlGBJwmtHYyosMIaTSvWt2YJssQok7qa0DY4ys16xSlk0aM45sgwUIM1nUR8oPRPRf7xw7SWdj-ESjo0aL9Rlx-oMabd0RGFwin2B0X2/s1600/IMG_20160522_164727425_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpx6vmI2m3Vk5wNFEuuIGeDR2zTi-9uCFJNSkgwlGBJwmtHYyosMIaTSvWt2YJssQok7qa0DY4ys16xSlk0aM45sgwUIM1nUR8oPRPRf7xw7SWdj-ESjo0aL9Rlx-oMabd0RGFwin2B0X2/s200/IMG_20160522_164727425_HDR.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Aerial Tramway</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgox-Sa4dnw7oT5IFFBcPec9ArMN83FPwsdocPYDDQolI9RU-RKUu1UE0_l9wljTpYoTpa_l1I4DT-ZT_h4dSlaLHd5fDuZKh5Jy_JQORNruPBlqGeK-KyP8f5SD1l09gakOt4v-FznBo8r/s1600/IMG_20160522_164146643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgox-Sa4dnw7oT5IFFBcPec9ArMN83FPwsdocPYDDQolI9RU-RKUu1UE0_l9wljTpYoTpa_l1I4DT-ZT_h4dSlaLHd5fDuZKh5Jy_JQORNruPBlqGeK-KyP8f5SD1l09gakOt4v-FznBo8r/s200/IMG_20160522_164146643.jpg" width="112" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdiPT0khN9kLTH7YM7b6Vr8laaNjr8dqZhF_sjQ0XO7r1stAivgXkvbwjRqGfOcUQ2NxK0b9A64d9k2hYNs2-XYKSO8xGsfH2C22KlFY906vzd_CfGFjpvwlO6IWD70mWtMUXrOYIoVZLd/s1600/IMG_20160522_172226139.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdiPT0khN9kLTH7YM7b6Vr8laaNjr8dqZhF_sjQ0XO7r1stAivgXkvbwjRqGfOcUQ2NxK0b9A64d9k2hYNs2-XYKSO8xGsfH2C22KlFY906vzd_CfGFjpvwlO6IWD70mWtMUXrOYIoVZLd/s320/IMG_20160522_172226139.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One thing I didn't expect<br />to see: it's hard to make<br />out, but this is actually a<br />Russian mosque</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFAmmq4FQhGvPGtp7e26LOtao5LPvJgRREVt4vqsINzwqbeV_wxp-qcjLnj_EXU7WHlKPPzvTTC57Ji0C7LgP_UrGVtSvmZVNAmj1hiS-5NMAO74TLFGVI2Ml62hu2o0POMffaytTQaNu/s1600/IMG_20160522_163903200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFAmmq4FQhGvPGtp7e26LOtao5LPvJgRREVt4vqsINzwqbeV_wxp-qcjLnj_EXU7WHlKPPzvTTC57Ji0C7LgP_UrGVtSvmZVNAmj1hiS-5NMAO74TLFGVI2Ml62hu2o0POMffaytTQaNu/s1600/IMG_20160522_163903200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a> We finally got to Nizhny around 1:00 PM, and I don't know what I expected, but a large, picturesque, somewhat tourist-y city for some reason was not it. The city is on the Volga River, Europe's largest river and the 'national river' of Russia, and it sits high; on many sides of the city you can look out and see for miles around. We parked and walked down one of the main stretches, which had restaurants and stores on every building and street performers and souvenir salesmen on every side. The buildings were old style and beautiful, and we walked past a bank that looked more like a castle than anything else. There were little stone statues everywhere, and my family insisted on taking a photo with every one of them. After stopping to eat lunch (a place called the Three Bears; I had what was essentially a Russian version of a burrito), we stopped by the city Kremlin, which had a wartime museum exhibition, behind which was a park that looked out over the Volga; the view was spectacular, it's one of the biggest rivers I've ever seen, and we were up so high that you could see countless rooftops and cupolas. We took lots of pictures and kept walking around the park. Being able to spend this time with them <i>and </i>Lera was wonderful because she was able to translate for me, and we were able to communicate more easily. Lera and Andrei bought me an ornate Matryoshka doll as a souvenir, which was absolutely wonderful of them; everyone is so incredibly lovely, I am continuously pleasantly surprised at how easy they are to get along with and how much they care for me. It was a great several hours of bonding, topped off by a ride on the Aerial Tramway (connects Nizhny Novgorod to Bor via tram across the Volga, its the way many people commute to work in the mornings apparently), some Russian ice cream (very much like American ice cream, sorry to disappoint), and a trip to Ikea (Vera accidentally broke Ivan's computer chair the other day, and Lera needed things for her and Andrei's apartment, so it turned into a several-hour endeavor). We left the city around 8:00 PM and finally got back, exhausted, around 11:00 PM. </div>
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<b>Funny Moment of the Day: </b>I realized, while singing with Polly in the car, that neither she nor her mother understand the words when I saw that the playlist included, among other similar examples, Salt 'N' Pepa's "Let's Talk About Sex" and the uncensored version of Maroon 5's "This Summer's Gonna Hurt"; Polly knew all the words to both and sang along with gusto, blissfully ignorant, and it took everything I had to keep from bursting out laughing.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFAmmq4FQhGvPGtp7e26LOtao5LPvJgRREVt4vqsINzwqbeV_wxp-qcjLnj_EXU7WHlKPPzvTTC57Ji0C7LgP_UrGVtSvmZVNAmj1hiS-5NMAO74TLFGVI2Ml62hu2o0POMffaytTQaNu/s1600/IMG_20160522_163903200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFAmmq4FQhGvPGtp7e26LOtao5LPvJgRREVt4vqsINzwqbeV_wxp-qcjLnj_EXU7WHlKPPzvTTC57Ji0C7LgP_UrGVtSvmZVNAmj1hiS-5NMAO74TLFGVI2Ml62hu2o0POMffaytTQaNu/s320/IMG_20160522_163903200.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Selfie from the Tramway</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-85882943636226180352016-05-23T14:46:00.000-07:002016-05-24T11:28:44.989-07:00Travel Log: Days Five and Six<b>Suzdal and Sukhovka, 5/20/2016</b><br />
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I haven't had a reliable connection to wi-fi for the last few days, so I'm doing a mega-blog with all three days-worth of information; I am not a concise person but I will do it best to keep it short. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQunDuTCRcYGOLRCPyBqEptiV5_mZTiqRwW7WupNvZ-LT_IqjdFrY9WJQj4LmW7SYJlUyKzoRt8uC3TRkC4g6TkIqCeqgcSUxnEqdTQj3VZja-X9JgOHCM5Vu0sO-QADALg0xnFXq4-dG/s1600/IMG_20160520_131238239.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQunDuTCRcYGOLRCPyBqEptiV5_mZTiqRwW7WupNvZ-LT_IqjdFrY9WJQj4LmW7SYJlUyKzoRt8uC3TRkC4g6TkIqCeqgcSUxnEqdTQj3VZja-X9JgOHCM5Vu0sO-QADALg0xnFXq4-dG/s200/IMG_20160520_131238239.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Selfie Off the Bell Tower</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRTkSOzPP8yZk1toMXSbBT7UXqKukxIGQrcGrsgUeBwXH1BUzfTHGnsi9zR88qhALJ9Eh8jsYlK4-fU-_NsOws6jg5njIW-sVPkLDVFHIz1URh7I8g7hPdk4_rNnKCQ_VB3gEbrynvJd_/s1600/IMG_20160520_130251765.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRTkSOzPP8yZk1toMXSbBT7UXqKukxIGQrcGrsgUeBwXH1BUzfTHGnsi9zR88qhALJ9Eh8jsYlK4-fU-_NsOws6jg5njIW-sVPkLDVFHIz1URh7I8g7hPdk4_rNnKCQ_VB3gEbrynvJd_/s200/IMG_20160520_130251765.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the Suzdal<br />
churches</td></tr>
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Our first out-of-town excursion was to Suzdal, a historic city about thirty minutes from Vladimir. Now, Russia has a lot of churches, but Suzdal had a church every other block. There were numerous monasteries, nunneries, and cathedrals, all with long histories and some half-destroyed. I hadn't realized how much damage the Soviets had done to elements of Russian culture; all the churches we visited throughout the day had been closed when the Soviets came to power and either damaged, converted into something more 'useful', or left to fall into disrepair. There were bells smashed after being thrown off of clock towers, nunneries changed into hotels, and large parts of the city Kremlin were destroyed. Regardless, the museums were fascinating and the architecture of the city was very impressive. Also, Andrei, a native of Suzdal (who had studied abroad at the Vandy Divinity School and was traveling with us today), took us up the tallest clock tower in town, which was tall, dilapidated, and closed to the public: a blast, in a word. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicXu0vjbo7ReQJL0Megq2EorAAbyQwfLwkkC174KKFYLUEp12JKCK2a1Z8yu4wtfOBt__hGnhPpiQuLP9eOE2C_8l0EGC0KcJtqFpVMpeDak7nLZQl0pskUhwfn-4eyeOHmA9oum6_1whj/s1600/IMG_20160521_103538969.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicXu0vjbo7ReQJL0Megq2EorAAbyQwfLwkkC174KKFYLUEp12JKCK2a1Z8yu4wtfOBt__hGnhPpiQuLP9eOE2C_8l0EGC0KcJtqFpVMpeDak7nLZQl0pskUhwfn-4eyeOHmA9oum6_1whj/s320/IMG_20160521_103538969.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pictured: The Dacha<br />
L to R: Vlad, Scott</td></tr>
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After a delicious lunch (in which I finally had my first borsch!) and a tour of the wooden architecture museum, we started the drive to Sukhovka; after fighting through afternoon traffic in Vladimir, we drove out into the most beautiful countryside, to the dacha in Sukhovka. A dacha is a Russian country home, and this one was owned by a lovely couple that also owned a <i>banya</i>. A banya is a Russian sauna, steeped in tradition and way more complicated than you think. Vlad, the father of the family who owned the dacha, said "you aren't Russian until you've been in a banya." The whole group stripped down and sat in the sauna several times to 'warm up' (the heat was unbearable for more than five minutes, it was definitely hotter than a normal suana), while steam and oils 'healthy for the skin' filled the room. After spending ample time relaxing, including massages (mostly involving dried branches from birch trees, covered with oils), we had to jump into a pool outside, which was filled with freezing cold water (this was at least 8:30-9:00 at night by now) to cool off. Apparently some Russians do this weekly. It was the easily the most bizarre thing I've done in a long time; it was also the most relaxing thing I've done in a long time. We all were vaguely terrified when the whole process was explained to us, and, by the end, we all wanted to go again. I definitely plan on keeping an open mind in the future. </div>
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After the banya, we had a late dinner (10:00 or so; we've eaten late most days here) and, exhausted, went to bed.</div>
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<b>Funny Moment of the Day: </b>There were definitely too many to pick one. Turns out when we are all barely dressed in a very foreign 'sauna' type thing there are many opportunities for hilarious situations. </div>
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<b>Sukhovka and Vladimir, 5/21/2016</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6J7uU78VC-hy7aAHz95qgwb8M1h9sya1xAtvcwANvVf5SWI0MsirEsIpwMji6F6YUW6N_0fyQjxIwL3lkA3NTrGSA6uIAwINmbnH8hLGzACOrxNKIRPrFL7kyTO-cW7q_i7ycRq-di20Y/s1600/IMG_20160521_105921254_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6J7uU78VC-hy7aAHz95qgwb8M1h9sya1xAtvcwANvVf5SWI0MsirEsIpwMji6F6YUW6N_0fyQjxIwL3lkA3NTrGSA6uIAwINmbnH8hLGzACOrxNKIRPrFL7kyTO-cW7q_i7ycRq-di20Y/s320/IMG_20160521_105921254_HDR.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Spring At Which We Were Blessed</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpJ_7IC5RzTBZJBkThlUDgLR8Tu-TrB67u-GRN0OHiBDryg60C44juYE3D1Z7A_3K_KxmeptH7csOZTLMGaaYGazqOV5FmPc5azZa7fEscukjkq-peZ9CBN_Goa2mJBDtaEffjNruuVzCr/s1600/IMG_20160521_103355291.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpJ_7IC5RzTBZJBkThlUDgLR8Tu-TrB67u-GRN0OHiBDryg60C44juYE3D1Z7A_3K_KxmeptH7csOZTLMGaaYGazqOV5FmPc5azZa7fEscukjkq-peZ9CBN_Goa2mJBDtaEffjNruuVzCr/s320/IMG_20160521_103355291.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Garden Near the Dacha</td></tr>
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<b> </b> Saturday was fabulous. First of all, we could finally see the countryside around the dacha and it was breathtaking. Trees stretching for miles, forests farther than I realized, and a perfect, twisting river that we spent the morning exploring. After a delicious breakfast and a while of<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6EKFhHiJ5x573_mk8Zc1xFSYP0AefVcB7mUCucYWub0PP6qArejazGvSgG6EzgKwtFw-R8SDECfGjdM0TUIRSw8uwKgXNIDM9LKJFuP0mfOaV0rLfQm7VkuQPvK92YjKcnj7YDO7GvTfK/s1600/IMG_20160521_121913504.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a>
running through the wilderness outside, we went to a nearby village that had a pure, natural spring near the church that had been sanctified by the priests there. Stepping into the freezing cold water and dunking your head under three times, as we would do that day, was meant to be an echo of baptism, and each submersion represents the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, respectively. It was a shockingly cold but strangely calming experience; it was touching to see the belief of the family we were with; more and more Russians are coming back from the religious downturn of the Soviet time, and, as Vlad explained to us, they value their ability to practice their religion all the more because of it. It was a ritual that I was honored to be able to participate in.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6EKFhHiJ5x573_mk8Zc1xFSYP0AefVcB7mUCucYWub0PP6qArejazGvSgG6EzgKwtFw-R8SDECfGjdM0TUIRSw8uwKgXNIDM9LKJFuP0mfOaV0rLfQm7VkuQPvK92YjKcnj7YDO7GvTfK/s1600/IMG_20160521_121913504.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6EKFhHiJ5x573_mk8Zc1xFSYP0AefVcB7mUCucYWub0PP6qArejazGvSgG6EzgKwtFw-R8SDECfGjdM0TUIRSw8uwKgXNIDM9LKJFuP0mfOaV0rLfQm7VkuQPvK92YjKcnj7YDO7GvTfK/s200/IMG_20160521_121913504.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Delicious Homemade<br />
Bread, Made by the Family's<br />
Babushka</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDWdATd2S_Tgfyzp87T9e39dX4B-Ci6SJ_4qegcZjo5xsgaAMXIKVlSu4cMc16o8Qc1MoMZJQXrczJdxtelWWS8DSIsTCS5ZyudgqDjYXZGh6WgmBkoXJR0uBeUBT3TBwrqzxOLm6yS6C0/s1600/IMG_20160521_220338509.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDWdATd2S_Tgfyzp87T9e39dX4B-Ci6SJ_4qegcZjo5xsgaAMXIKVlSu4cMc16o8Qc1MoMZJQXrczJdxtelWWS8DSIsTCS5ZyudgqDjYXZGh6WgmBkoXJR0uBeUBT3TBwrqzxOLm6yS6C0/s200/IMG_20160521_220338509.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Above: The Dmitrievski Cathedral<br />
Lit Up for International Museum<br />
Day<br />
Below: Some of the Students and I</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrBIMvkd55900BQkvWjnvwoRlVpxjtzcTSR-KlPUzqb9g8EKB5fsQ9JcCWZBTPq9URCtAIsn_BCT-IP-2zRN2LtAnCYz6REqaZx1OZcpWgrKaDjdmB2SXH_D6KZzbMemTk0qO9K9WnFzdT/s1600/IMG_20160521_202944212.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrBIMvkd55900BQkvWjnvwoRlVpxjtzcTSR-KlPUzqb9g8EKB5fsQ9JcCWZBTPq9URCtAIsn_BCT-IP-2zRN2LtAnCYz6REqaZx1OZcpWgrKaDjdmB2SXH_D6KZzbMemTk0qO9K9WnFzdT/s200/IMG_20160521_202944212.jpg" width="200" /></a> After spending the whole day at the dacha, eating huge meals (including handsdown the best bread <span style="text-align: center;">I've ever eaten), flying kites, playing with the dog, stacking wood, all kinds of cute, relaxing country things, we drove back to the city to eat dinner with the Vladimir State University students. We had a blast, just us and a bunch of Alexei's students, eating borsch and chatting about nothing. After the meal, we all went to a jazz concert at one of the history museums. Saturday night was International Museum Day, and all of the museums had special programs and were open until midnight, and so the history museum had a concert of famous Russian movie soundtracks (many of which were American movies or artists, which meant lots of the music was Elvis, Ray Charles, etc.). It was a blast, and the Americans all got really excited about the music they knew. The students were wonderful, and we all loved getting to know each other. We'll be seeing plenty of them in the future.</span></div>
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<b>Funny Moment of the Day: </b>During the meal, we were looking for games to play, and it turns out that our Russian counterparts call Truth or Dare 'Truth or Consequences' (which is infinitely better); it was a huge laugh, including when we made Ethan eat a concoction including an orange slice, caviar, sour cream, and more. The Russian students are a great time.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-18660817613764204392016-05-19T14:23:00.001-07:002016-05-19T14:25:46.544-07:00Travel Log, Day Four<b>Vladimir, Russia, 5/19/2016</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Post-Lecture Selfie<br />
Pictured L to R: Leah, Maia,<br />
Sasha (actually Russian), and Me</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Today started with a Russian lesson as usual (there have been so many words in the last four days I don't know how I'll keep them all straight); I was able to remember all the numbers up to twenty and it was the proudest moment of my life. I can also now say 'right' and 'left' and ask where I am. So yeah. I'm basically fluent now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The first scheduled thing post-Russian lesson was a lecture from a leading political scientist in the area about the US and Russia's position in global affairs, and what exactly 'global leadership' meant to each country. We discussed each nation's few of the other, and the trend of anti-Americanism spreading throughout non-Western nations as a result of our foreign policy's focus on spreading democracy, Russia's take on its current position in foreign affairs, and how we could (and must) understand each other and cooperate in the future. In the midst of a ridiculous election cycle like we are right now, where everyone gets caught up in media circuses and party lines, it is refreshing and important (if not daunting) to hear the political perspective of our country from an informed outsider and to be reminded how much our actions affect the world. We talked a lot about how the US is the world power of right now but how many peoples outside of the our borders don't consider that a positive thing; he showed us a recent article from a Russian foreign minister that quoted George Orwell ("All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." -Animal Farm) and went on to explain how the US, though world policeman, is not upholding laws and justice in its interference everywhere, which is a fascinating and jarring opposite view from the many American citizens that believe that it is our Manifest Destiny to bring equality and justice to some conflicted world. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Vladimir Water Tower<br />
Converted to a museum to save it<br />
from destruction under Soviet rule</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The lecturer (and myself, I should add) believed that this was an extreme but not necessarily incorrect take, and that this was the point of view of many Russians and other non-Americans throughout the world (according to a poll by the Kremlin, 44% of Russians believe that the global presence of the US was 'mostly negative,' with only 10% being 'mostly positive'). It was interesting to hear how, in the US (and much of the rest of the West), it is assumed that globalization of political systems benefits everyone equally, but elsewhere that is not necessarily the ideology, particularly since conflict in today's world is still abundant despite the prevalence of democracy; the lecturer spoke about how, post-USSR, Russians had the misguided belief that now everything would be peaceful and that they would have a solid place in the new democracy-infused world order, and how they were disillusioned when they found out neither were the case. I hadn't thought about either concepts that way, and an alternate view on globalization certainly hadn't occurred to me. We talked quite a bit about Russia's struggle to politically reconcile with the West, and how some of the conflicts between the US and Russia may come from Putin's believing that the former makes the latter's ascent to 'world power' status more difficult, as well as how much of the rest of Europe views Russia as the aggressor, which he says is nowadays mostly propaganda. What we need is genuine attempt at understanding, and flexibility in cooperation; the tensions between our nations recently don't really benefit anyone, and the US's relations with the world, in my opinion, need to be navigated more carefully than ever. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It did occur to me part of the way through this lecture to question whether the professor was biased; however, immediately after that thought I pictured <i>any</i> American politician/political scientist speaking to any other nationality of students ever, and how ridiculously biased that person would probably be, and decided to keep an open mind. All in all it was a fascinating and incredibly eye-opening lecture.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuD9ZvBGycIhb3-CHunJvtvuP6lHF6L5g522QT0b2vu5a1UGxGtP1uSU5lq3PFqMp89FNTFJW1gvXAUPZQpHM9XF95W5XVbYg6gEleC_E8B9bGuJeuxxg5upnj67JgCiD-4_uPBzF7mjC6/s1600/IMG_20160519_180621697_HDR+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuD9ZvBGycIhb3-CHunJvtvuP6lHF6L5g522QT0b2vu5a1UGxGtP1uSU5lq3PFqMp89FNTFJW1gvXAUPZQpHM9XF95W5XVbYg6gEleC_E8B9bGuJeuxxg5upnj67JgCiD-4_uPBzF7mjC6/s320/IMG_20160519_180621697_HDR+%25281%2529.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the adorable kids at<br />
tonight's concert</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib1aRr9wJnWV2TUGIU9MtDLPlXBaukgNpmk1DCAsTpqnEo1jpx5w75adhH9RwFn_c9E6OGR28JJkEFAMVCiNyHYbX1C_i70XdfApkgEqdTLvRXSjIHOaBUbkoSmCgIPf00uKPmfKwqmChS/s1600/IMG_20160519_174328960_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib1aRr9wJnWV2TUGIU9MtDLPlXBaukgNpmk1DCAsTpqnEo1jpx5w75adhH9RwFn_c9E6OGR28JJkEFAMVCiNyHYbX1C_i70XdfApkgEqdTLvRXSjIHOaBUbkoSmCgIPf00uKPmfKwqmChS/s200/IMG_20160519_174328960_HDR.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Statue of Sergei Taneyev<br />
outside of the Vladimir<br />
Symphony Hall; a Russian<br />
composer I don't know and<br />
need to look up; considered<br />
the 'Russian Bach' and was<br />
bff's with Tchaikovsky</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuD9ZvBGycIhb3-CHunJvtvuP6lHF6L5g522QT0b2vu5a1UGxGtP1uSU5lq3PFqMp89FNTFJW1gvXAUPZQpHM9XF95W5XVbYg6gEleC_E8B9bGuJeuxxg5upnj67JgCiD-4_uPBzF7mjC6/s1600/IMG_20160519_180621697_HDR+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Another of the perspective changes I've been experiencing the past couple days through a number of avenues is the concept that Russia is fundamentally different in several ways from the rest of the 'big' countries is Western Europe. I suppose that, for some reason I'd always just lumped Russia in with the rest of the well-known European countries in my mind and I'm learning what a mistake that is, through their politics (in today's lecture he made sure to make a large distinction between the West and Russia, which surprised me for some reason), their history (we went on an excursion through an old water tower-turned-museum today and learned more about town history), and through their folk music. I went to another folk concert today, this one primarily performed by children (it was also 2 and a half hours long; I have no idea how those kids were so disciplined for so long), and was reminded again how Russian folk music seems to be a blend between European and Asian traditions. My penchant towards categorizing other cultures into a dichotomy of only 'Western' and 'Not Western' or, more accurately, 'Very Similar to Mine' and 'Nothing Like Mine' is quickly </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">evaporating. It is also important for me to let you know that I am now convinced that Russian boys/men could out-dance just about anyone anywhere. Russian folk dancing for males is absolutely insane, like the most impressive thing I've seen in a while. I'll put a video on Facebook to prove my point eventually.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> We're going to Suzdal tomorrow, a town near here, our first weekend trip. I'm not sure if I'll have wifi but I will of course keep you posted!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Funny Moment of the Day: </b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and Polina!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> After Vera got home and she, Ivan, and I ate dinner (at 9:30; Russians eat hella late dinners), we sat on the couch and they showed me what had to be <i>all</i> of their family photos projected onto the TV. It was a great time, and, after a slew of beautiful vacation pictures from Israel in October, there were at least 10 very unflattering, grouchy-looking selfies of Ivan all in a row. Vera and I laughed our butts off. PS it turns out their daughter Lera is also some kind of champion ballroom dancer (we watched some videos when Polina got home), which adds yet another to her list of things she's exceptionally talented at (painting, drawing speaking English, being super nice, etc.). She's probably my hero, I've spoken to her like once, its fine.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-65953457242916057072016-05-18T14:25:00.003-07:002016-05-18T14:30:59.112-07:00Travel Log, Day Three<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Vladimir, Russia 5/18/2016</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
Today was our first day volunteering. We went over to a large Vladimir preschool and worked outside for a few hours, the girls re-painting playground equipment and the boys digging holes (I never actually found out the reason?). Before we started, though, we were treated to a performance by one class, a group dance that they were performing for some kind of preschool graduation, I believe. They did a short little dance to some Russian pop music that definitely makes my 'Top 10 Cutest Things I've Ever Seen.' The painting itself was fun stuff, I got to sit and talk with the girls while painting, with the children playing outside and the neighbors nearby all looking amused by our accents. Of course, after an hour and a half I looked up to discover that my legs were absolutely covered in splotches of red, yellow, and blue, despite the fact that I had no recollection of getting paint on me at any point <i>and </i>was only using the red. Classic. Nonetheless, it was gratifying work, the women who helped us didn't speak English but we were told that they were very thankful and that we were welcome back anytime.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Golden Gates of Vladimir</td></tr>
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After some delicious 4-cheese Russian pizza, we took a tour of the Golden Gates in the center of town, which were built in the twelfth century and which served as the entrance to the medieval city of Vladimir. They were built to be an impenetrable stronghold and to represent the Golden Gates in Jerusalem, the first of three other Golden Gates important to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. After sketching for a while we took a tour, which, after discussing the architecture of the monument, turned into something of a comprehensive history of Russian warfare through the context of Vladimir. The top of the tower contained a museum with numerous artifacts from the many wars Russia has been involved in, from the Mongol-Tartars through modern times, and throughout I was met with the reality of the incredible hardships the people of Russia have consistently faced throughout history. From the feuding princes, to the Mongols, to Napoleon, to WWII (the Soviet Union had the highest number of military deaths, and almost 200,000,000 deaths total), to the political turmoil of the USSR, the history of Russia seems like conflict after conflict after conflict. Coming from a nation with a relatively short history and one that has seen little violence within its own borders (relative to many others, of course), it is difficult for me to comprehend what having such a war-torn, complicated history is like on a personal level, especially since a more modern Russia has possessed (and continues to possess, as a world leader) the power to bring about significant hardship for other nations, and is hardly an innocent victim on a global scale. The history is complex, but it was certainly a very eye-opening tour, and has helped me to understand the context of this city and this nation today.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyTteoxpmdCM_HJsusRVycm-pco9iXzhKZPDrQGWC4FYHPui4jFa-NTtokiVnnulSWPBON9mC8g5kcONiUjcaex-zxzWBmKIAVMabW0XCaQgWSlExAmkQf-SdaWcsCOoKYRsoGd3ocRHSz/s1600/IMG_20160518_180748239.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyTteoxpmdCM_HJsusRVycm-pco9iXzhKZPDrQGWC4FYHPui4jFa-NTtokiVnnulSWPBON9mC8g5kcONiUjcaex-zxzWBmKIAVMabW0XCaQgWSlExAmkQf-SdaWcsCOoKYRsoGd3ocRHSz/s320/IMG_20160518_180748239.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Russian version of Harry Potter<br />Most important difference: pronounced<br />'Gary Potter'</td></tr>
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After stopping at a book store (see picture), we ended the night with a concert of folk music and dance, and it was endlessly entertaining, despite the fact that I understood next to nothing and only had a partial idea of what was going on. I expect it was what watching opera without subtitles is like: there was a lot of acting on the parts of the performers, and many of the songs and dances were stories that I somewhat caught on to, but I didn't actually understand a word. The performance was still wonderful; Russian folk music is unsurprisingly a mix of European ideas and more Eastern sounds, with a very tribal element to it all. There were a lot of pentatonic scales and percussion instruments, and much of it was very fast-paced. The dancing got increasingly more intense as the show went on, and was certainly very gendered: the men often walked with flexed arms and strong movements while the women did a lot of twirling and handkerchief-waving. The singing was fascinating, too; held notes had lots of stylistic turns and embellishments (that occasionally reminded me of Tuvan throat singing, although there were never actually overtones; also this makes sense because of the history of Russian and Mongolian interaction) and there was never any vibrato, which is a strong argument to why modern northeastern European choral music is almost always written to be performed <i>senza vibrato.</i> It was great fun. Scott and Sasha got pulled up onto the stage to dance with them, which was hilarious, and I ended up being escorted home by Maia's babushka. The night ended with a delicious meal of Russian dumplings (my first legit Russian homemade food!) and Poli introducing me to Russian rap.<br />
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<b>Funny Moment of the Day: </b>After dinner, while I was doing my homework, my host mom called me in to say hi to her aunt and uncle on Skype from Moscow. The aunt didn't speak English but the uncle certainly did, and he sat me down and told me about how his brother had attended University of Iowa in 1991 until the government switch, at which point he'd had to return for some reason, and how leaders in the communist party had traveled to Iowa in the 50's to see our farms and ended up bringing lots of popcorn back. At the end of the conversation, much to my host mom's chagrin, he toasted my trip and good weather with a double shot of vodka from the handle he'd been drinking from throughout the call, which has got to be the most Russian thing I've seen yet.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7IPWCDMlRmnaWY9sCOvBy6lyhYMbGS6xdOmrN-aQqfqySv1jmUodAGJBnnypuqykan6aHZ3mfZFRNYGb0xsc5SF0S6HkDY_MLgSXQHNhcX8FfR-ezLBF-DiRwNoLOzpym93vla9IJs9in/s1600/IMG_20160518_183234862.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7IPWCDMlRmnaWY9sCOvBy6lyhYMbGS6xdOmrN-aQqfqySv1jmUodAGJBnnypuqykan6aHZ3mfZFRNYGb0xsc5SF0S6HkDY_MLgSXQHNhcX8FfR-ezLBF-DiRwNoLOzpym93vla9IJs9in/s320/IMG_20160518_183234862.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Speaking of communists, here's a windy selfie with a statue of Lenin</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-51819069117135581672016-05-17T14:13:00.005-07:002016-05-17T14:13:57.661-07:00Travel Log, Day Two<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Vladimir, Russia, 5/17/2016</b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Assumption Cathedral</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> We went out to the famous Assumption Cathedral today, Russia's oldest functioning Orthodox church. There is a lovely park right next to it that we sat in and sketched for a while before the tour, and the sights from that park were like you wouldn't believe. The cathedral sits on a steep hill and one can see the whole countryside from the edge of the park. The building itself is one of the most beautiful in the whole city, with white stone walls, gold-capped domes, and ornate carvings on all sides. The tour itself was fascinating; our guide knew an impressive amount about architecture, and had a lot of insight on the history of art and architecture in Russia and its relationship to the rest of Europe. For example, at the time the cathedral was built, asymmetry was considered beautiful in Russia, and as the architects of the cathedral were Russian and had not yet been touched by the European love for symmetry, each of the five domes built atop the main part of the cathedral is a slightly different length. The inside was even more breathtaking, in that the multitude of colors that made up all the frescoes and paintings inside were a stark contrast from the mostly white, black, and gold exterior. Every painting had a biblical context, and our guide knew all of them, which was fascinating, and a lot of the art was from different time periods and styles. Additionally, we learned how Russia's history is divided into pre-Mongol-horde and post-Mongol-horde, and about some of the political issues that involved the cathedral from time to time. It was certainly one of the most beautiful churches I've visited in Europe. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view of the Vladimir countryside</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One of today's themes was the Russian school system, and it cleared up some confusion I had speaking with Russian students yesterday. Almost all of the university students we've been introduced to in our time here are in the English department, the curriculum of which is focused on creating competent foreign language teachers; however, when asked the question, "So, are you excited to be a teacher?" nearly all of the students explained that that was not the end goal. Obviously, this thoroughly confused us (and frankly was pretty awkward). However, today we were given a lecture on the state of the Russian school system that provided some context to the situation. The short version is that the schools in Russia aren't generally funded very well, and as a result, primary and secondary school teachers are paid pitifully, and university professors aren't much better. According to today's lecture, the average professor at a Russian university is paid 30,000 rubles a month, which sounds like a lot until you convert it: 30,000 rubles is about $917, which makes around $11,000 per year. It was rather sad today when we saw presentations by Russian student teachers all talking about how much they loved their students, and then all saying that they did not plan on actually entering a profession that is all work and no pay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We ended the day with a small 'get to know you' party with a bunch of the Russian students, in which all seven of us presented short slideshows about our lives at Vanderbilt and we all danced to traditional Russian music and played some games. It was a blast, and all the people around our age continue to be wonderfully friendly. I'm excited to see more of them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Funny Moment of the Day: I got back late, around 9:00, and when Vera and Polina got home, Vera cooked us some chicken legs and noodles. Polina then went to the fridge and got the ketchup, proceeded to drown her pasta in it, and hand it to me with an expectant look. Needless to say, I can mark 'eat lukewarm noodles covered in ketchup' on my list of things I will do to remain polite.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-979889958469413238.post-59980989067096285912016-05-17T13:19:00.000-07:002016-05-17T13:25:24.049-07:00Travel Log, Day One<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Vladimir, Russia 5/16/2016</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I have taken very few Russian classes at Vanderbilt University. Actually, I have taken <i>no </i>Russian classes at Vanderbilt University. Actually, I have taken <i>no Russian classes at all.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> My decision to fly over 5,000 miles to a country that relatively few Americans visit and who's language I do not speak for a full month could not have been born out of extensive knowledge of Russian and Russian culture, because that is knowledge I do not possess. That motivation came more from intense curiosity, love of travel, and desire to learn than from experience of any form; I had little formal interaction with the language or culture, so I had few expectations. That being said, there were a few things that still managed to be completely unexpected. </span></div>
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<li><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My host family speaks very little English.</span></b></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As this trip did not require knowledge of Russian, I was subconsciously operating under the assumption that all of the host families involved would speak fluent English; on a more general level, I rediscovered that, as an American traveling, my arrogant expectation was that most Europeans I'd meet would understand me. It did not take me long to discover my mistake. As I got off the van from Moscow at 10:30 PM Sunday night, I was greeted by my host mother (Vera) and daughter (Polina), both beaming, and both with heavily-accented "Nice to meet you!"'s. That was some of the last English I heard that night, and, while the revelation that they spoke very little of my language terrified me for a few long seconds, the whole family was so welcoming that soon it almost didn't matter. We figured out that we did not understand each other fairly quickly, and then reverted to gestures and cognates, and the little English Polina had learned in school; it was amazing how smothered with enthusiasm and hospitality I was, despite the language barrier. After Vera and her husband Ivan had gone to bed, Poli and I sat awake on the computer, having a conversation via Google Translate and teaching me some Russian words. They were so immediately kind and welcoming that I went to sleep that first night much less worried about living with strangers than I had been even when I thought we'd share a language.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Nights at this time of year are very short</b></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This one I sort of saw coming, but I didn't think it through, and I didn't realize that short nights would mean that, if I slept with the window open, I would both wake up <i>and</i> fall asleep to bird song; also, I made the mistake of sleeping with the curtains open, which meant I would wake up at 4:00 AM in a panic, thinking it was 9:00 and that I was late for my first day at the American Home.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>My cereal for breakfast</b></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I still don't know whether this is a cultural thing or a 'my host family' thing: my first Russian breakfast consisted of some toast, cheese, vegetables, and, most notably, cereal. Not that cereal is notable, of course; no, the thing that shocked me was that my milk, graciously poured for me by Vera, was absolutely scalding hot. Cereal with warm milk is very weird, like oatmeal gone very, very wrong. I ate it anyway, of course, partly out of a wish to be polite and partly because I don't know the Russian word for 'hot.' </span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Russians <i>really </i>like American culture</b></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I know that, when it comes to things like television, movies, and music, American culture can tend to be hegemonic, but I'd assumed that effect lessened the farther east you get in Europe. However, when we visited the Vladimir State University today, they seemed more into American culture than we were. Youth in Russia prefer American and British music especially, and they were almost scornful of contemporary Russian music; when Ben brought up a modern Russian artist he liked, most students actually laughed. Polina even told me today that her favorite artists are Eminem and Snoop Dogg (Snoop Dog E. Dog? Snoop Lion? I don't remember). </span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>There is tea everywhere</b></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm beginning to figure out that a lot of the things that I quirks of a few specific countries I've encountered in the past are actually universal things, and that the US is the weird outlier country that doesn't comply. Tea is one of those things. I used to think tea was a mostly British thing, and then a mostly Western European thing, and at this point, I have been in Russia for more than twenty-four hours and had burning hot tea on three separate occasions, and I'm ready to accept that tea is a thing that everywhere but the US does and accept it.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>My host family really likes Japanese food</b></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My first dinner in Russia was at a sushi joint, and it was surprisingly delicious (I've since been told by people at the American Home that that might have been an anomaly, but whatever the shrimp was great). My host family picked me up from the American home with their eldest daughter, Lera, who speaks very good English, which was very useful as we could clear up some finer communication issues over dinner (I'd slept in the wrong bed the first night, and it made my host mom feel bad; it's my fault, I should've figured this out myself, as I slept pillow-less on the bed that was not made, but hey I'd just made an eight hour time change sue me). Lera was great too and we all colored at the restaurant (there were coloring pages on all the tables; their family is very artistic and mine was definitely the worst) and it was a blast all around. We all sang along to American music in the car on the way home.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Everyone is ridiculously friendly and excited to see us</b></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From my host family to the people at the American Home to the students we met today at Vladimir State University, everyone has been incredibly friendly and, more notably and thankfully, outgoing. It is very helpful, when you're like me and unstructured social interaction is already your nightmare with Americans that you already know, much less people from a different country that you just met, when <i>they </i>approach<i> you</i>; everyone involved with this trip on the Russian side, particularly the students, have been very interested in us and made sure that we felt included and welcomed, coming up to us and initiating interaction more than I expected. We all exchanged Instagram and Facebook information and I'm excited to make more friends throughout my month here. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, this is way longer than I anticipated making it; the rest will probably not be this long (or maybe they will, who knows.) At any rate, I'm excited for tomorrow (we're visiting the huge and gorgeous Assumption Cathedral and having a welcome party kind of thing) and so tired I might fall asleep before I publish this. All in all, a great first day.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04715385369329600381noreply@blogger.com3