Places to Go

This past week has been pretty busy... Which is a really nice break from the monotony of Vladimir.
Last Thursday I went to Moscow to meet a group of students who had come over on a Spring Break trip. It was great to spend some time with other Mason folks and with my GMU Russian professors.
GMU had organized a tremendously exciting trip for the students. It seemed like they really got to see a lot of Russia during their week in the country.
With the GMU group I traveled to Zagursk (now Sergiyev Posad), the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church. The "Vatican" there, is a really small enclosed area with a couple of churches a seminary and a monastery.
I also went with Dr Levine (GMU Russian professor) on a tour of the Museum of Vodka. The museum is conveniently located next to Hotel Izmailovsko.
On Sunday, with a different GMU professor, I saw the church where Pushkin was married in Moscow.
I traveled back to Vladimir on Sunday night. We made it in a record time of 2 hours and 40 mins, on the bus!
This past Friday, with my ACTR group, we took a tour of neighboring Bogolubogo. It is an old town with a monastery and churches. Now that I think about it: You can describe probably all Russian towns as being: Old and possessing lots of churches and monasteries.
I like Bogolubogo because it has my favorite church in Russia (the one on the river: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0oGklbLsgdGmiEAkYBXNyoA?p=bogolubovo&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-452&x=wrt&fr2=tab-web ). It is an old church built right on the side of the river. It is tremendously beautiful.
I also attended another Uzbek party... Its always a good time!
Poka!