Day 20 ~ Novgorod Archeology Museum

22. July

20 days down! Three weeks already!! Wow, feels like a whole lot longer. Anyways, this morning and during the afternoon my ankle swelling had gone down, but now that I look at my ankles again at 9pm they are swollen. Jeez, I don’t know what’s going on!

I tried to limit my walking; tomorrow we’re going to this place called Scoff. Lots more walking and a 6 hour ride there and back, oh yay… just kidding. At Scoff there is a monastery and catacombs. In the catacombs monks have been buried and their bodies somehow were preserved. If we’re allowed we will be able to see the mummified or preserved remains. It will be worth it if we are allowed, if not, there isn’t anything really spectacular to see. At least we don’t have school or internships!
Today it was really cold in the morning and cloudy. The sun came out later but there was still a cold wind. I was really tired again in the first hour of class but as the day went on I wasn’t as tired.

School was fine, for history class we went to the Novgorod Archeology/ Architecture Museum located inside the Kremlin. Located inside are various items that archeologists have found throughout various digs in the Novgorod.

Many of the items are centuries old, it’s pretty neat looking stuff. It’s best for me to just direct you to pictures of some of the items so you can see what’s been found!

On Saturday we have school because we do not have school tomorrow, so we are going back to the museum to see more things, we only checked out the main floor, but Saturday we’re going to look at icons.

After the museum Michelle and I walked around the city and ran some errands. We were tired of walking and went to another café, Café La Chocolate. Michelle got some really awesome coffee that had chocolate and ice cream in it. This place wasn’t very Russian; from the name and decorations I guess it’s French. There are various locations around the city, so we thought we would check it out.

The internship today was really fun! When I arrived they were watching Snow White in Russian. I’ve never see the full movie in English so it was interesting. While we’re watching, the movie got to the part where Snow White eats the apple, and the bad witch dies. Then a caption comes up and says something like the princess was so beautiful that the dwarfs could not bring themselves to burry her. Right after that the movie ended, and Francesca and I couldn’t figure out if the movie was just shut off or if that was the end of their tape. Francesca thinks that maybe in soviet times movies were cut short so that there would never be happy endings. Haha, interesting thought, but I just think the movie was stopped so we could go outside.
When we got outside we colored for a little bit and then played some ball. Usually a few of the children stand in a circle and we toss it around. Francesca was showing them some volleyball moves, Alla wanted me to keep throwing it to her so she could practice bumping the ball.

Anyways, it was a lot of fun today, I am glad we did more than just one thing for two hours, made the time go by fast.

The workers were also very interested in speaking with me today. They told me that the American banks failed, and I asked, now?!? (I haven’t seen the news in a while so I thought they may have recently). They laughed for quite a while and then said no, in the fall and winter. Then they asked me I or my parents worked and what we did. When I told them my parents did not work (I don’t know the word for retired) they thought I was rich. I had to tell them my parent’s age and then they understood.

I didn’t get home until 7 after a long wait for the bus and then slow traffic! The bus was very full too so it was uncomfortable. Oh well. I worked on homework until Olga came home; she made dinner and then went to say goodbye to her friend Ilena and daughter Masha, who came over last Wednesday. I’ve been doing homework and plan on going to bed early because I have to get up at 6am.

The bus to Pskov leaves at 7:45 because it takes 3 hours to get there! I plan on sleeping on the way there, and reading or more sleeping on the way home! It’s going to be a long day!

Sorry updates are taking me soo long to post lately. We’ve been busy after school every day and I’ve been trying to lighten my book bag this week, therefore I haven’t packed my computer.. I plan on going to the University on Friday to use the internet.
Love,
Sasha.

Picture links for the past three days: Russia ~ Day 18, 19, 20 ~ Wooden Architecture and Archeology