November 22nd -
We finally made it to the Alexander Nevsky cathedral, an early 20th century church comissioned by the Bulgarians in honor of the Russian saint. We thought that we visited the church two different times yesterday, but both churches turned out to be non-Nevsky. The church itself is huge, based on the designs of the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, and we were lucky enough to watch an orthodox baptism. We then made our way back to our hostel to dry off and get ready for our night train to Bucharest.
November 23rd -
We arrived in Bucharest this morning and found our hostel by taking the bus in both directions and then only a couple of wrong turns. We weren’t able to get into our rooms until 12, so we decided to go walk around the city for a while.
Bucharest is plain. Most of the buildings are cement and even the palace of the people, the second biggest building in the world behind the pentagon, looks bulky and out of place. Ironically, the palace isn’t actually open to the people, and the grounds behind the building look like any old abandoned lot. The one redeeming quality of the city is its old quarter. It contains architecture reminiscent of most of old Europe and has more soul than the rest of the city.
After our walking tour, we went back and crashed for the afternoon. I was tired and sick from wearing wet socks the day before, and possibly being out too long in the wind. I spent most of the day in bed, while Noah and Devin took turns walking around and using the internet. Tomorrow we will leave for Brasov, the heartland of Transylvania, which promises to be more interesting.
November 24th -
We got out of Bucharest around 1 today and boarded a train up to Brasov. The train ride was uneventful except for a bunch of Americans who were being unreasonably loud and jubilant. We truly are the most voluable people in the world. I can’t stand us.
We got to our hostel and went out for a walk around the city. The old part of town is full of beautiful squares and buildings that date back to the 14th and 15th centuries. With the snow on the ground the effect of the whole town is enhanced.
November 25th -
This morning we went to Bran castle, the fairytale home of Dracula. The “real” dracula, Vlad Tepes, didn’t actually visit here, but the castle is famous for being the favorite retreat for some of the inbred royals of the Hapsburg dynasty. We then continued to another castle/fortress built upon the hill overlooking Bran, which was much more impressive and fun to run around.
The fortress was used to protect the entire town from invasion, and offers spectacular vies of the mountains and the little town below. It also has all sorts of fun ladders and passages that would make it an ideal place for a paintball game. As it was, we did manage to have a snowball fight, which came out lopsided in favor of me. Devin is ok, but lacks armstrength. Noah needs to turn his shoulder more, his aim is awful.
November 26th -
We finally got on our train at 4 am, and met our connection at 7:30 to Ukraine. The passport checks have been painless and the places we have are comfortable. Devin refuses to share his fake fanta. The only dissapointement was that the Batman movie we were planning on watching turned out to be in French. This cancels out the experience at Carrefour the night before in my opinion. We will be in Kiev tomorrow morning, which will also be Thanksgiving.
November 27th -
Kiev is more hilly than I was prepared for. There are tons of churches, including the Lavra, the heart of the Russian Orthodox Church. Noah and I spent the entire day in and out of different churches. They all kind of blend together since Georgia, when we saw our first concentration of Orthodox churches. Kiev does have a fantastic main artery and a park that runs the length of the Dnipro river, even if it does begin with the “Frienship Arch,” a mammoth steel rainbow.
For Thanksgiving we decided to make a decent meal for ourselves. Tim invited us over for Saturday lunch with a bunch of other volunteers, so that will act as our real T-day, but we bought a chicken, rice, carrots and some apples anyway, and acquitted ourselves nicely.
November 28th -
We spent the day at the Chernobyl museum, which had a lot of interesting personal letters and documents, but wouldn’t be that interesting if you didn’t speak Russian. It is weak on displays of what actually went wrong, and some of the displays are hard to see. After that we went to the Lavra, a system of churches dug into the bank of the Dnipro and set with huge golden domes. We went down through the “caves” where many of the saints of the Orthodox faith are buried. To get into the cool parts, where only prayer passes are allowed, we had to take up the Orthodox way of crossing, which involves going up, down, right, left, as opposed to left right, as is the proper Lutheran way.
Noah and I then went to the circus, which was the best decision we’ve made this trip. There were all kinds of animals, including lions, tigers, bears doing people things, salukis, porcupines, small rats, big rats, hogs and camels. The clowns were hilarious and there were some cool tumbling acts involving innertubes, which was awesome.
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