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So just another day of work, waking up at the crack of dawn (Technically, not the crack of dawn, since dawn here is at 5am). My team here is awesome, which is good considering how much time I spend with them!
So much work to do and so little time to do it in!!! Although I truly do not want to work today because I am just sooo excited about going to Moscow!!!
Ok, so a little about the town of Pavlovo I have been working in, other than the fact that today it was 45 degrees at 10am. According to the government, it officially entered history in 1566 when it was referred to in the writings of Ivan the Terrible. It was situated on both the water and land trade routes between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, which aided the development of the iron, steel and leather industries. Among all the villages in Russia, Pavlovo marks itself out as having original and unusual attractions. Local selectors bred their own type of lemon here based on cuttings from Turkey imported during he 19th century. The residents of Pavlovo were real lovers of c*** and goose fights and the melodious song of canaries. Special breeds of these birds were even developed. Every year the club Liubava runs a canary festival and c*** and goose fighting events. (Luckily, I don't think PETA is active over here)
The city of Nizhniy Novgorod, where I stay at night, is actually really interesting..... The city was founded by Grand Duke Yuri II of Russia in 1221 at the confluence of two most important rivers of his principality, the Volga and the Oka. Along with Moscow and Tver, Nizhny Novgorod was among several newly-founded towns that escaped Mongol devastation on account of their insignificance. The enormous red-brick kremlin, one of the strongest and earliest preserved citadels in Russia, was built in 1508-1511 under supervision of Peter the Italian. The city prospered commercially and was chosen by the Stroganovs (the wealthiest merchant family of Russia) as a base for their operations. (They built the Stoganov Virgin's Nativity Church in 1719 that I took a picture of.) During much of the Soviet era, the city was closed to foreigners to safeguard the security of Soviet military research and production facilities. Unusual for a Soviet city of that size, even street maps were not available for sale until the mid-1970s.
Ok, back to what we have been doing. The drive to work still takes about an hour and a half. As I mentioned a couple days ago, I haven't been able to sleep during the ride . After work last night, we stopped on the way home and went to McDonald's for dinner. One of our translators used to live in the USA, and told us how much better the burgers were here in Russia. SHE WAS RIGHT! I swear it was one of the best burgers I ever had! (Charles was rather impressed with the bun of the burger as well.)
We were home by 6pm..... I was tempted to just lie down a little....so I did and I fell asleep until about 9pm. I packed, showerd, and was back in bed by 930, where I slept til 1am... I read a little bit from my Moscow book and fell asleep at about 130 til 530... not bad!! This morning we stopped by our hotel for next week and dropped off our bags so that we don't have to take all of our luggage for the weekend. Then we stopped at McDonalds because our driver was hungry. While the burgers might be better here, it was very difficult to order breakfast. Apparently the only breakfast type food they have are coffee and muffins... but I was trying to order a biscuit or English muffin. I guess some things aren't the same.
Gotta go for now, I promise to write when I am in Moscow, hopefully my hotel room will have internet!! :)
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