Back again!

Hello everyone,

Well, I'm back from my trip to Ryazan. I really needed that weekend away and I feel much more relaxed back in Vladimir.

The trip itself was very fun. We left early Friday morning and drove 4 hours by bus to our hotel in Ryazan. That was long, but our little group made it fun. The hotel was great, it had a shower with hot water and everything. The hot water has not yet been turned on in my apartment yet and although my Russian Babushka and I expect it everyday, we are still waiting. From the hotel we went straight to the military special forces museum (special forces as in paratroopers). Although I understood only a little of what the tour guide said, what I did catch was very interesting. Tour guides in Russia are a very serious profession. These people know an unbelievable amount of information and are really respected. So that was interesting. That night we stayed in the hotel. After the long bus ride and long tour most of us were tried. We just hung out in one hotel room, and the hotel provided the "beverages." Before you get any ideas I don't get drunk, but I did have a very good Russian beer, Baltika #9. (On a side note, Russian beers tend to have more alcohol then American, except Baltika #0 that's non-alcoholic, as one of my friends can now tell you :).

Anyways, Saturday had another 3 museums, all very interesting, but all very long and all in Russian. So I got what I could from them. But the Ryazan Kremlin was very impressive and very beautiful, I hope to post pics soon. We saw Pavlov's house, an art museum, and a Russian poet's, whose name I've forgotten, house. That night we took a boat ride along the Oka river. The boat had a discoteka and bar on board. I stayed away from the dance floor, but several friends gave it a good run. It was also pretty entraining to see some new friends drunk for the first time. It was fun. Then Sunday, we came home, another 4 hour bus ride and then we walked home in the rain.

So that's what I did this weekend and now I am only 2 weeks away from a weekend in Moscow. I promise to get some pictures up soon, but till then, Пока!