I know it's been a while since I've updated, but I've been really busy. There isn't really much down time around here. Plus the only place I have a reliable internet connection is at school. I always say that I'm gonna write at home and just post the next day when I get to school. But that never happens either. Usually when I'm at home I'm either eating, sleeping, or studying/doing homework. The homework for my language class is usually quick and easy, however my ethnic studies class consists of a lot of reading. It's usually really interesting stuff though, so its not bad. The language class is starting to get harder. Right now I still kind of remember what we are doing so its not that hard for me. I'm learning a lot of new words and phrases, but we are just doing basic grammar. We are getting really close to stuff that I don't remember though, so its gonna get a lot harder!
This past weekend, the 13th and 14th, we took a trip to Novgorod. Novgorod is a very old and historic city located southeast of St. Petersburg. The picture is of the bronze monument to the millennium of Russia (1862) in the kremlin of Novgorod. The statue highlights some of the most important figures of Russia's history. It was a pretty intense monument. Novgorod is full of beautiful old cathedrals. There used to be over 200 churches there, but now I think the number is around 30. Which is still impressive for a city with only a little over 200,000 inhabitants.
I think the best part of Novgorod was the traditional Russian banya we went to. Going to the Banya is part of Russian culture so we had to go experience it. For those of you who are unaware of what a banya is, it's something like a bathhouse, or a sauna. It was an exhilarating experience so I'm gonna walk you through it step by step. So we got there and everyone bought a toga, a beer, and a couple of people bought the necessary birch twigs for everyone to share, I'll explain the birch twigs later. So we went into the changing/lounge room to change into our togas. There were several Russian guys just hanging out drinking beer or tea and talking about what guys normally talk about, women, the weather, news, women, and a little politics. It was quite a site, lots of male bonding going on! After changing we moved to the next room where we soaked our birch twigs in hot water to soften them up and shower off a little. Once our twigs were good and soft we made our way into the sauna. This was the most intense sauna I've ever been in. It was blazing hot! About five minutes at a time was all I could handle. And to add to the intensity, this is where the birch twigs come in, the Russian men started beating us with the birch limbs in order to open up our pores. Mind you we were all naked, it was an unusual experience to say the least. But it was only awkward at first. We went back and forth from the sauna to the shower room about two or three times before we went back out to the changing room to drink our beers, then it was back to the sauna. To add to the intensity, as if the experience so far wasn't enough in itself, we went back in the sauna to get nice a toasty and then proceeded to run across the street and jump in the river! Let me just say wow! That's really the only word I can come up with when I think about it. Needless to say the river was freezing! It was probably about 40 degrees at the most outside at the time. It was amazing though, it felt great. Probably the most refreshing thing I've done in a while. Walking back to the hotel was a struggle. My body was so relaxed I could barely walk. The whole experience was phenomenal. We all enjoyed it so much that we decided to start a banya club where we go to the banya every sunday or something like that. So if you ever have a chance to go to a banya and jump in a freezing river, you should probably do it!
