Sergeiv Posad Monastery

On Saturday May 14th I was able to go to this little Monastery outside of Moscow. We got there by a little train that took around an hour and a half to get to. Once we got there I was really happy because this was the Monastery I wanted to see when Gulya was talking about it in culture class. Mainly because I wanted to see the brightly colored blue and gold domes on the one cathedral. There were a lot of little different churches in the area and it was fun to see all the different architectural styles and colors. I went to one of the little shops and bought me a prayer ring. They are really popular here in Russia and it says, "God protect me. God save me." Or something like that!!! Not really sure what the translation is. But it's cute and I really like it. 

Victory Day

On May 9th in Russia it's a big holiday. It's the day they celebrate The Great Patriotic War from 1941-1945. It was a really big war for them as well and so on this day they honor their veterans by giving them lots of flowers and lots of thank yous. There were so many people at Victory Park it was crazy to see. It was such a beautiful day and I had a lot of fun. We are going back to the museum another day because since there were thousands of people there the line was really long to get in. Definitely a great thing to see so many people honoring their Veterans and everything they did for them.

St. Petersburg, Russia

We had a three day weekend the end of April beginning of May so we decided to head up to St. Pete's for a couple of days and just hang out and relax and enjoy a break from teaching. It was so beautiful, I think if I ever came back to Russia I would definitely go to St. Pete's. I didn't get to see everything I wanted to because it was bad weather on Sunday and since we walk everywhere it was too cold and rainy for some of the girls so we just relaxed and saw what we could on our way in and out of buildings trying to stay dry.

So here are a few photos from my journey! Enjoy!

Swan Lake Ballet!!!

 

We were able to finally go to the Ballet on April 23^rd! It was too Swan Lake. The one ballet I wanted to see even before I came here. We bought tickets about 4 weeks after we got here and I don’t think any of us thought that April would actually come and we would get to go. But it did and we had a blast getting ready. We did the girly girl thing and took a few hours to get ready and hang out. Once we got ready we headed out and we went early since we didn’t know where it was and we were on our own to find it. We got off on the right metro stop but it was finding outside that we had the hard time with.  I was wearing my tall black boots and I hardly made it to the bus stop before they were killing my feet but I toughed it out and told myself I would be fine. But when we had to walk all over trying to find the theatre my feet were telling me it was time to take the boots off and put on flats. When I did I had a blister on each of my little toes and they hurt. So I didn’t care I was just wearing flats because they felt way better and besides when we got inside the theatre not that many people were dressed up like I thought. Some people were in shorts and a nice shirt. Or some people were just in Levis. We kind of felt overdressed from our group but then we decided we didn’t care. I specifically bought my dress for the ballet and I was happy to have taken the time to get all dressed up and have a fun night.

 

We didn’t take as many pictures as we would have liked but at least we got a few. So enjoy!!  The performance was amazing. And the music, oh the music gave me chills. I just sat and awed at the talent that all those people had. All the dancers and musicians, it didn’t matter whether they had a small part or the leading role everyone was good. Some of the dancers were literally flying through the air. I couldn’t even comprehend how you would get your body up in the air for that long and still land perfectly back on the ground.  The whole performance was just amazing and to say that I went to the Russian Ballet and saw Swan Lake is something I will never forget! 

War Museum

We didn’t really know what this museum was but we pass it every time we go into town so we figured we would see what it was about. And for the fact that there were tons of tanks, airplanes, missiles and guns, what else could you ask for, for a good time. So enjoy a few pictures I don’t know anything about them because all the information was in Russian but we still had fun looking at everything and just admiring the massive size of the airplanes and the tanks.