My Dear Dear People

That just happens to be the mantra for Friday because our lovely tour guide in Vladimir and Suzdal said it about every 10 minutes. Now, I like being a dear dear person, but it got a little annoying when- God Forbid- we take a picture without her telling us about our surroundings or the buildings first. (Now that that little rant is out of the way...)
Vladimir and Suzdal are two [маленький] Russian cities with a ton of history, churches, and specific limestone architecture to the time in which they were built. Now- I cannot tell you half of the things the guide said, one reason being, it was a very long day and she talked a lot and by the end of it we all just wanted to chill out and have somе Медовуха- which is a alcoholic honey type drink. I guess it is similar to mead. Peasant drink... Can't afford the водка. Second being my mind has never been great at absorbing vast amounts of detail quickly and without being read. So needless to say, tours aren't that great information-wise for me, I need to see it in print. But if you are really interested, you could always Wikipedia it, because they are actually very interesting cities.
Anyway, the churchs were magnificant- so much detail and extravagence that I don't even have the space (or your patience) to describe. Also, it was 100p to take pictures inside, but I didn't do that, so, I will just let your imagination wander about the beautiful art and dressings of the insides of the buildings. Or- you can google it. One of them is called The Assumption Cathedral. Between the two cities, there are tons of old buildings and a monestary, and more churches, and replicas of towns, and so many other things. They were pretty cool. I couldn't live there, a little too boring. Its like Rome, but with more trees and farms- if you can imagine such a thing!- very picturesqe and I could go there for a vacation, but I am too used to drag racing and car horns as the melodic track while I am falling asleep, plus birds in the morning...not exactly my favorite thing in the world. This is my conclusion for why people went bird shooting for sport. They are far too annoying (sorry to all you bird-lovers out there).
Let's see, what else. Oh yes! The bus ride. A four hour drive each way half of each trip was spent getting through Moscow. We probably could have been there in maybe less than half the time. I slept there. But on the way back...it was too much sleep. Even for me. Needless to say, it was a very very long day. Enjoyable, but at the end of if I was glad to get back to my room.
As for the paperwork in Russia- this is probably what has me the most on edge. America should be thanking Russia, because now they will make a ton of money off me when I get home and check myself into an institution. Because it is making me a little mental, and frustrated, and totally and completely confused. There are roughly 3257 different offices to go to, each with its own set of paperwork- sometimes it not even ready for you to do anything with it- so one needs to go back a couple weeks later to see if they have their shit together. Then you have to take that said paper, make a copy of it, then go to another room hand it to some lady, who obviously knows you are from the США therefore treats you like an idiot because you are American and can't speak the Russian language [well]. Then after she finally writes everything down for you and gives you one document, you have to take those said documents to a different room, where they give you more paperwork. And it goes on and on and on. Am I boring you yet? See, I would be bored too, if it wasn't driving me insane.


My dear dear people, I am out for now!
<3