Vladimir and Suzdal

October 23, 2009

The weekend of October 3 and 4 our group headed to Vladimir and Suzdal to experience “rural” Russia. We were to meet at 7:45am in the lobby of our dorm ready to leave for the three-hour bus trip. However, I had stayed up till 3 or 4am the night before studying for the GRE and my alarm didn’t wake me. Instead, I awoke to a knock on my door, informing me that it was time to go. I threw my things together and managed to join the group. Not surprisingly, I was not the last one in my group to be ready. This group of students in INCREDIBLY slow when it comes to getting ready and a deadline means very little.

When we got on the bus, we met our tour guide for the weekend, Vladimir. Vladimir began our bus ride (at 8:30am) by offering us wine and cookies. I really believed Vladimir was joking, but no. He came around and gave each of us a plastic glass of red wine. Truly Russian.

Our adventures began immediately upon arriving in Vladimir. We saw the gates that had “defended” the city for many years. Really, it was a hill with a gate. And then we heard about the Mongols who attacked year after year after year and the citizens never wised up and changed anything. Instead, they just continued to be attacked. We saw lots of museums and exhibits including a glass museum and some gorgeous views. That evening we stayed at a nice international hotel. Vladimir challenged anyone to play ping-pong and promised if we beat him he would buy us vodka. Two of the boys took his challenge and won. When he bought them their shots, the rest of us met them at the bar. I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow Vladimir also purchased a shot for me.

The hotel had an amazing buffet style dinner. Usually I detest buffets, but this was actually quite good. There was coffee/ hot chocolate and blini as well as all sorts of cookies and buns and каша (basically oatmeal…just Russianized) which has become a staple of my diet. A group of us just sat around the table and talked for a few hours after dinner. We had a really nice time and I informed our group about the Diva Cup (if you don’t know about it…you should!) although the boys were not thrilled with my explanation…at least I waited till after dinner.

Sunday we bussed over to Suzdal and continued our marathon of tours and museums. We visited a monastery and I saw took this picture.

I’m not sure what root vegetable this is, but I think this truck full of them sums up Russia. We were looking at a church and a flower garden and the next thing we know, a truck full of veges. Unbelievable.

Another spot we stopped had beautiful wooden windmills and a seesaw which we took advantage of. There was also a man carving wooden roses out of birch bark. They were beautiful and I knew immediately I would need to purchase one for Larkin.

We stopped for lunch back in Vladimir at a small restaurant. We were shown into a back room where our tables were bordering the wall and a big spot was cleared. The waitress did not understand “vegetarian” so even though the vegetarians were sitting separately and they had been informed about our “restrictions” we were served chicken soup and a main course of fish. Luckily there was a lot of bread and we were able to laugh it off. The big surprise came when a group of 8 or 10 Russian men and women came in and began to dance. There was singing and music and playing of instruments. It became even more surprising when some of the dancers reached across our table to grab hands and have us join them. They involved different groups of us in different dances and we all enjoyed laughing at each other and ourselves. Near the end, they took all of us out of our small room into a larger dining area where others were eating. Then we danced around in a circle holding hands while people in the center played different games. IN one game, someone was blindfolded and had to walk toward someone in the circle and the person they touched had to come to the center and be blindfolded. For another game two people were in the center with tall hats on and they each had a heavy bag on a string. The object of the game was to swing your heavy bag at the other person and try to knock their hat off. None of us really understood this hour of dancing and laughter, but we all enjoyed it very much.