Novgorod...our home away from home

B: We didn't have a guidebook for Russia, other than our one for the Trans-Siberian, and it only covered St. Petersburg and Moscow. That meant that we had three weeks to spend in Russia and the only places we had any advanced information on were the two most expensive cities. We found out about Novgorod from a pamplet in St. Pete and decided to check it out. It was a couple hours south of the city. It's a smaller city, and the oldest in Russia, founded in 859. It's an alright place, but we found a decent hotel with reasonably friendly staff. We also found a cheap internet place where we did quite a bit of blogging and wore out our welcome.

D: We learned there is a reason why you don't put a bottle of hot champagne next to a computer in an un-air conditioned room. Anyone? Anyone? We really fell in love with this place...at first. A few of you know we left Novgorod-y to head to a holiday spot called Valday. Lets just say if you want water you have to walk a mile down a dirt road and pump it yourself. So we decide to head back to Novgorod for a second round and found it less romantic than before. Needless to say, us two little piggies still loved the food. Here are some shots of Novgorod through our eyes.


There are beautiful old churches all over the place. They're not very well maintained for the most part though. We did some reading and a lot of the old frescos were destroyed during World War II, or the Great Patriotic War, as the Russians call it, when the front line came very close to the area.


Just a moment while I wipe up my drool. We ate here three or four times. This place ROCKED!!! We would eat there right now. In this one of many pictures of me and food, I am having pork SMOTHERED in cheese, mushrooms, pickles, and tomatoes. I know what a lot of you are thinking...gag. Wait till you have had it though. Not to mention the mushrooms baked in cheese and the fried cheese we had for "zakuski"...appetizer.


This should speak for itself. No packaging or refrigeration of any kind in the grocery store without A/C. Keep in mind, Bill and I ate sausages nearly every morning for breakfast...until we saw this.


We also stopped eating pork cutlet as well...no we did not...but maybe we should have.


Outside of town is an old monastery. The main chapel is really really old but visited frequently by religious pilgrims like these ladies in the background. Deni and I lit a few candles ourselves and said a special prayer for her grandpa's brother.








D: A beautiful flower for a beautiful flower.


Near the monastery they've built an old-time wooden town like they used to have in Russia.


B: Hurry D, we have to get all the free pictures we can before the babuskas catch us! (We didn't pay the fee to take pictures.)


D: I have a weird obsession with bell towers and the amazing music that some of them play. We were walking through and heard this music that sounded like a ten piece bell choir coming from an old wooden bell tower. This one gentleman is playing about fifteen to twenty bells by himself. He looks like an old time one-man band with the kazoo in his mouth and cymbals between his legs while he bangs the drum. He played beautifully and with amazing prescision. He played at least two or three with his feet using a peddle, pulled about six to seven with his hands, and only the Lord knows what else he used to play the rest.





We waved at him from the ground and he invited us up to see his office.


D: We gave him a Texas pin and out of his backpack he pulls out his little bell. It seemed to have sentimental value to him. It was nothing shiny or new. Just something he carried with him everyday to work to do his amazing job. This dude was awesome!


What Bill is known best for and won several awards for. Beautiful and amazing scenery pictures. Looks just like we are in Okie-homa.


D: I cannot swear to it, but I do not think there was one "no smoking" sign in this place. I was worried and waiting for this place to go up in flames at any moment. The place was really nice though.









B: Traveling the world is not all fun, games and picture taking. In addition to our blog, we write a whole lot of postcards to our friends and family back home.

D: We sat here and licked about 200 stamps. Does anyone remember that Seinfeld episode? Licking envelopes amd kicking the bucket? We were worried for a while afterwards.

B:Typically, we'll sit down with a stack of them, our address list and a bottle of something and three hours later we'll be done.

D: Usually with a slight buzz jamming out to George Strait. By the way, did you know that Russians do not like him? Ask us another time and we will tell you. They may throw water on you if you try to sing anything George!


B: "Please please please Russian postal system, don't eat our postcards!"


D: Anyone for a nice gooey dip in the river? EVERYONE was out in the sludge swimming in it or drinking it. NO JOKE!


Our last supper in Novgorod.

D: We tried three times to get into this restaurant and on our fourth we were victorious. This was one of the best and felt like a good way to go out. Well, besides the waitress not giving us back our 500 rubles in change thinking that we left her a $20 tip. She insisted that she could not make any change for our 1000 rubles, so she got a $2 tip instead.


A toast to hopping on a train out of Russia in less than a week. Later that evening we boarded a night train to Moscow.





Again, Bill insisting on "hanging out" till we got to Moscow.

Well, this is a dent in the pictures we have left for Russia. I hope this settles everyone's appetite for now. We are waiting for nice Chinese lady to come with our change for our time on the internet. We have not seen her in about two hours. Hint?