Akron Hotel Novgorod

So here I am with only 3 days left in this long trip. It is hard to believe that it is coming to an end. I have some museums visits and the like to write about here but today I just wanted to write a couple of lists...

Things I will miss about Russia:

1. Russian language - pretty self explanatory. I know that when I get back to the States it will be so strange to hear English around me in place of the swishing sounds of Russian and will be even ...

... with at least 3 different ticket offices that we saw and very very long lines. After waiting through lines at two different ticket offices, a task that cost us over an hour, we finally found the regional rail ticket counter where we were promptly informed that you cannot buy tickets in advance ...

... the time we had (about 4 hours) exploring the Kremlin there. Interestingly, the entire place was under renovation and there was actually an archeological dig going on right there in the middle of everything! The two highlights for me were visiting the 12th-century St. Sophia Cathedral and climbing to the top of Kokui tower which provided a beautiful view of Novgorod. After visiting the Kremlin we walked around town a while. The ...

Petit passage a Nijni-Novgorod, ville historique de Russie (3e capitale apres Moscow et St petersbourg). A notre sortie du train notre hote Evgeny (=Genia, tout les russes ont un surnom pour racourcir leur prenom) nous attendait. Arrivé chez eux sa femme Macha (de Maria) avait preparé un delicieux diner. Ce couple est tres interessant et tres chaleureux, ils nous expliquent tout ce qu'il faut ...

... de la place, le sul que j'avais trouve proposait des chambres a 5000 roubles (140 Euros), j'ai senti une pointe de lassitude poindre, avant de finalement trouver un hotel tout pourris, pour seulement 2000 roubles, c'etait ca ou bien je tentais la gare (option non retenue). Le lendemain, visite du Kremlin de la ville, le temps ne s'ameliore pas et j'ai gagne un etat grippal.

... the monastery, or if it was open to the public so we headed back to the hotel. The next day, we were planning on going to another monastery some 60km down the river Volga but no boats were running on the Saturday. So we wondered around the city some more and found this small church up one of the many hills. There we met a lovely girl who spoke good English and she offered us tea and bread. She explained that the 2nd ...

... http://wikitravel.org/en/Nizhniy_Novgor od http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizhniy_No vgorod http://www.waytorussia.net/TalkLounge/

... nothing in between St. Petersburg and Novgorod, in terms of towns. Instead, there were houses built along the side of the highway. They were all small and really run down. With nothing for miles around, I started wondering what the hell these people do all day. The other very weird thing, left over from communism, is that, suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, there's apartments. Just rows and rows of high-rise ...

Nizny Novgorod was not stop we planned in the beginning, but was recommended by people we met and Tim wanted to see the Volga of the Boatmen. It was a very nice town with lots of nice looking churches and a kremlin on top of the hill. A girl in Mcdonalds seemed surprised that tourists would come to Nizny Novgorod but its a nice spot. We arrived in the morning and booked the train to go that night (saves accomodation!) so had a day to wander.

... we lined up. Rhian, Stacey and I walked around and then up to the dome. Here the Russian's played an evil trick on us. When you started at the bottom of the spiral staircase it said 250, and every 10 stairs it would tell you how many stairs were left. Around step 190 I was getting tired, but could see the end nearing... 30...20...10... we rounded a corner and saw 50 more stairs!!!! Sneaky little buggers!!! At the top we ran into Jenn, David and Kristy who were just ...