Easter and Sochi

So it's the end of the week and in about 24 hours I'll be off to Sochi for 10 days. Man have I been waiting for this! The last two weeks have been pretty grueling, lots of work with school and stuff. This will certainly be a nice little vacation. The train ride there will take about 36 hours, plus will be going down 3rd class, which means everyone hasa bed, but no walls. It's all open to the whole train. I will be hot and long and possible smelly by the end, there are no showers on this trains. But it's all worth it, cause the weather in Sochi is supposed to be excellent and there is the Black Sea and tons of waterfalls and beaches and a Mcdonalds I believe. This also means I'll be pretty silent until about May 9th or 10th. I might send off a quick post if I find a Internet cafe in Sochi, but don't count on it. Well, don't worry, I'll have plenty of posts prepared upon my return, so look forward to it.

I also wanted to mention that I did succesfully attend the Orthodox Easter services last Sat/Sun. Yep all 6 hours of it. Man, I didn't realize just how long that Mass was going to be. I also didn't realize I had the stamina to stand for 6 hours (no seats in Orthodox churhes). But it was worht the experience. The Mass was held in the Asuumption Cathedral here in Vladimir, which is very beautiful and covered in frescos and many other things. Un fortunetely I haven't had the time to sit down and really write a good post on how the Mass went, but don't worry I will! (Here's a hint it's pretty much the same as a Catholic Easter Vigil, but twice as long).

Anyways till Sochi or after Sochi or whenever, don't worry I'll return!

The Big 4000

Looking at my hit counter (as I so often do) I noticed that I'd surpassed the milestone of 4000 hits. So of course this required a post to mark this momentous occasion. This number comes almost 7 months of being in Russia and around 9 months of actual blogging. Ah the memories. Hey you guys remember when I did that post on Moscow? Ya that was great.

Well thanks to all for continuing to check me out, and I do hope you continue to do so. This weekend I'm off to Sochi and you can certianly except some good post after that little vacation.

4000 Yay!

Last Trip to Moscow

So this weekend will be the last time I'll be in Moscow. With just about 4 and 1/2 weeks left, I'm running out of time. My last time to experience the big city, food, fun, and pirated merchandise, hooray! Not to mention that exams are also creepy up. Basically, I have 3 weeks of classes left. The last to weeks are filled with tons of end of semester duties and events, so exams get spread out over about 3 weeks, although we still have classes after we take the exams (lame). Still in a week and 2 days I'll be on the train to Sochi and my pre-summer vacation.

Can't Wait!

Happy Easter

Well well well, I've returned. The big news being that Masstime.org has finally failed me. No, I did not find a Church (Only got to go to Holy Thursday). Here is what happened. The address I got off of Mass times was wrong, no Church there. I asked around, but no Church in the area. Back at the hotel our tour guide mentioned that the Catholic Church was closed, more bad news. However, this meant that there was a Catholic community here, they must be going to Mass somewhere right? Well, upon finding the location of this Church, I walked around for another hour and still found nothing. So as far as I know Yaraslavl has no Catholic Church, at least at this time.

But, I guess it wasn't all bad, the weekend was fun (Yaraslavl is about double the size of Vladimir, with many more things to do). Plus the hotel was full of nothing but singles, so I had my own room, that was awesome. Anyways I think I'll be attending the Orthodox service this coming Sat/Sun. Should be interesting, it will be my first time at an Orthodox Mass.

Well, I hope everyone else had a wonderful Easter, with lots of good will and eggs and celebrating!

Yaraslavl

Hey everyone,

Tomorrow, very early (like 8 in the morning), I leave for 3 days to Yaraslavl. Yaraslavl is actually twice the size of Vladimir, I guessing it will be much like the other weekend trips we take around here. Fun, old museums, and 3 days of much needed vacation. Man, this week has been hard, at least 4 hours of homework a night (5 last night), but it's all over now. It's relaxation time, as well Holy Week. I do hope I find this church in Yaraslavl, I don't really want to break my streak of consecutive Easter Masses (or consecutive Russian Masses). But things are looking good, I have the address and even a few of my friends have expressed interest in going with me! So I'll be out till Monday.

Happy Easter Everyone!

(How about a prayer for my Easter church hunt success?)

Saint Sebastian

Check this picture out, a while back we had a meeting with a Russian lacquer master, after a little presentation we got to try it out for ourselves. This little baby is my own personal creation. I even added the Russian in there for your viewing pleasure (although I'm not really certain on the correctness of the name Sebastian in Russian).

Winter Recap

As the winter comes to a close here in Russia I thought I would share a bit on just what a Russian winter is considering most of you have never seen one.

So I heard from somewhere that this particular winter was one of the worst in recent history. A fact I am inclined to believe after that one week in January with the 30 below temperatures. Ya, that was cold. Ok so in general we got our first snow in Vladimir around November, as I recall I think it had snowed in Maryland, back in the good old US, before I saw snow here. Snow was sparse until mid December. What I mean by sparse is that it would snow and then melt before it snowed again. By the time I left the temperature was hovering around -10 C, I think, I don’t actually recall it being extremely cold in December. Of course I then returned home and was a bit surprised when I got back to Russia.

When I left we had had a lot of snow, enough that it had stopped melting. Now, mid January, there was at least 3 feet piled up around every road and sidewalk, plus a good bit on the roads and sidewalks as well. The temperature, as I said was about -30 C. Going outside, you first notice this temperature by the freezing of your nose. The first breath you take just kind of ices everything. If your dressed properly, you can be outside for a bit with out to much discomfort, but anything long, like a half hour and your legs really start to freeze. Anyways, it didn’t snow too much in January, but the temperature remained about -20 C. February brought a lot of snow, it snow almost constantly, and this snow never melted, it was just too cold to do so. March brought warmer temperatures, around -10 to 0 C. I can’t tell you how nice 0 degrees was after that winter. I mean you walk outside and you really feel the difference, you feel it’s actually warm outside, which is weird when you think about how cold it still is, but no one cared. By April things were starting to melt and by now, April 12th, the snow is almost gone, the temperature is usually around 10 C and we get sun at least 50% of the time, as opposed to 0% in February.

So the snow last from mid November to about April, it does get very cold, but only for about a month and a half. Although by mid April, I really can’t wait for summer. Winter is pretty much over, but it certainly managed to kill almost every plant around here and there is dirt everywhere, it reminds me of disaster clean up. Yet, this happens every year, amazing ( I will also say that the winter is exponential worse the further from Moscow you get, My host family said something about 5 feet of snow around the dacha, village home).

Weird Surprise

I was walking around town the other day and to my surprise I see an orange Nissan 350Z (hardtop). I found this not only surprising in the fact that it was an expensive Japanese car in Vladimir, but that it happens to be my current favorite. I tend to be a big fan of any car that comes in orange, I especially like the metallic finish. But, The 350Z is also one of my dream cars, one I haven't seen in about 7 months. So it was a nice little surprise, and a little weird. I think that has been the only Nissan I've ever seen in Russia.

On another front, has anyone ever heard of "Nochni Dozor"? In the States it'd be called "Night Watch". I believe there is an American remake running around somewhere, but it's actually a Russian movie, along with it's sequel "Day Watch", which has been getting a lot of advertising lately. I saw the first half of "Night Watch" today and it was pretty interesting, vampires and all. If you get a chance check it out.

Weekly update

Pardon my recent absenence everyone, I've been busy registering for the upcoming fall semester and that has really sucked up all of my time.

So I've got 6 weeks left in Russia. The more I think about it, the more it seems like such a short amount of time. In a week it will be Easter, then in 2 more weeks I'll be vacationing in Sochi (Ocean City of Russia), and 2 weeks after I return from Sochi I fly home. Time is really gonna fly!

This Sunday we'll be having our semester feast at our Resident Directors apartment. Last semester this was Thanksgiving, for spring we're doing Easter. We'll be having ham and many other wonderful things. I really can't wait, this will be so good. A week after that I'll be in Yaraslavl. I've managed to find a Catholic Church there so all should be well, assuming I find it. Easter being as important as it gets for Mass I really hope I do, but it should be fine.

So what have I been upto recently. Let's see, I actually saw a really good horror movie, it was English or American, but it was great. I highly recommend it, "The Dark" (which in Russia they translated it to Dark Powers for some reason). It's set in Wales and deals with a lot of the local lore there and some really scary sheep. The tag line read "One of the living for one of the dead" this translates to "You will love this movie!" School has been good for anyone whos wants to know and the weather has been great. It got upto 50 degrees today. I've shedded my winter coat and can't wait to lose the jacket altogether! Tonight I'll be heading to a cafe to celebrat another birthday, always fun.

So you all real soon.

Canals

If you have ever been to St. Petersburg, then you should know that that city is full of canals. In case you haven’t, I’ll just tell you that that city is full of canals. They pretty much all resemble this one in the picture. A funny little piece of history is that this were built by Peter the Great. However, when they were completed they turned out to be too small to allow the major shipping traffic that Peter had hoped to get. Apparently it was a big regret for Peter that he could never have the canals he had wanted. Of course they are still here and are very pretty. The neat thing is that during the winter, with the almost constant freezing temperatures all the canals in the city, as well as much of the Neva (river that runs through Peter), and some of the Gulf of Finland too. As you walk around the city you can see tons of paths that people have made walking across these frozen canals. It’s really cool, I even saw one guy doing jumping jacks in the middle of the Neva (it’s a big river my friends). So of course I had to try this for myself. I mean how many people can say they’ve walked across a river? Not many. We also had a snowball fight on the Gulf of Finland. (Peterhof, next to the Gulf of Finland)

Weird

I'm looking over my college transcript right now (As I'll be registering for classes tomorrow) and I've noticed a little irregularity. I seem to only receive Academic Honors (GPA above 3.5) during the spring semesters. Every spring semester, academic honors, but every fall semester I seem to be just below the line. I wonder what that means. Do I simply take easier courses in the spring? Or, does it actually take me a whole semester to get back into school after 3 months off? Oddly enough I feel this year will be much of the same ... Shall history repeat?

Assisi

So we got to Rome yesterday, but classes don't start again until Monday so I can relax a bit. Assisi was great. I really enjoyed spending a few days in my favorite Italian city. I went with a couple friends during our "Spring Break" (It's really just an extra day and a half off but, good none the less). We spent the whole time just walking around the city, it's very beautiful. Of course I was decked out in my patented yellow, which everyone around here seems to know me for wearing. What can I say, it is my favorite color. I think that after a few months my language skills are definitely improving, but I guess that's easy to say I am here to learn Italian right? I think my favorite part of the 2 days we spent there (Thursday and Friday) was the night life. If you've never been to Assisi, you should go. Every Friday night they flood the all the streets and basically the whole city becomes a huge water slide, it was pretty fun. (In the winter it's a huge skate rink. The bars were fun to, they actually soak you in beer the moment you walk in the door, then you have 5 minutes to dry off or they throw you out, always a blast. Of course the zombies are always a problem, but you get a free 12 gauge when you stay at our hotel, so everyone was fine. The Cathedral there is also extremely beautiful, I went to hourly Mass the whole I was there, it was great.

Well, that's it for now have fun and Happy April 1st!