Novgorod

Today Katherine and I both woke up at 6:30 AM, headed down to breakfast at 7:00 and realized we were dining alone. We had made a mistake and arrived there half an hour early.

After we ate, I came upstairs and took half an hour nap, but Katherine woke me up to meet the bust at 8:00. The bus ride to Novgorod was really long (four hours!) and we got a flat tire along the way. I read Crime and Punishment the whole time.

Novgorod is the oldest city in Russia, founded in the 800's and has the oldest Orthodox Church. (The Church of St. Sofia). There is a dove perched on the cross on top of the church (in stone) and here is why:

Ivan the terrible killed seven thousand people in Novgorod and the dove flew up to the top of the cross and saw the rivers of blood and turned to stone and then forever after protected the city.

The church was beautiful but needed some restoration on the inside-- there were thousands of beautiful icons. After seeing the church we walked over to the beach (a sanded beach on the river). It was beautiful out and I got sunburned-- so much for our new sweaters!

There's a story about the water too--

There was a Prince Volchov who lived in Novgorod and didn't want to marry. His parents were worried so he promised them if he could go abroad for a year that he would marry. When he was away he fell madly in love with a beautiful woman-- Ladiva-- and brought her many gifts and she kept saying that it was not enough and he kept bringing more and finally, she turned him into river (she was really a witch) and herself into a lake and she forever made him keep bringing her things.

Anyway, we ate lunch on the beach and then crossed a bridge and saw some more old churches. One church-- the "Church of St. Friday" is supposed to bring a woman a husband if she walks around it three times. (We all did it for fun). We went into some souvenir shop there where the lady was really nice and made me take a picture of Ally holding dolls. There was the most beautiful handmade quilt I had ever seen (for $50) but I didn't have enough roubles. It was SO pretty though. I can't stop thinking about it.

After that, we all got back on the bus and drove up towards the monastery. There was also a museum of wooden architecture there. What is was was a bunch of cabins, churches, etc. taken from really old villages in Northern Russia. It was in a beautiful woods and I made a crown out of grass and purple flowers.

After that (at about 5:00 PM) we headed over to the monastery. It is an actual living monastery with monks living there. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside and the girls had to wear long skirts and have their heads covered. There were two monks raking haystacks in the middle of the courtyard, but besides that we didn't see anyone. After the monastery we got back on the bus and I read another hundred pages of Crime and Punishment.

The bus dripped us off in the city center by Moskovskaya Station and we walked the other way down Nevsky to Patio Pizza. My shins hurt REALLY badly and I could hardly walk. I think it's from all the walking we've been doing.

The food there (Italian) was actually pretty good. After that, we all came home, changed into pj's, hung out for a while and around 1:00 AM went to sleep. I WAS DEAD TIRED.