I'm guessing my main problem with the random deletions has to do with posting pictures; therefore, I'm going to try and find one of those online gallery things and use that. So there'll be no more pretty pictures on this blog. You'll just have to use your imaginations...
Where was I? Oh, yes. Vladimir. Umm, really, besides the cathedrals, there's not much to Vladimir. Our second day there, we took a trip out to Suzdal, where we went to this one cathedral where the guy in the bell tower controlled all 20 or so of the bells via a system of ropes and foot pedals. The resulting performance sounded a little like Balinese Gamelan and looked, from a distance, like a guy struggling to keep up in a step aerobics class.
Here's what I wrote a week ago about our trip to Moscow:
Monday afternoon and evening was spent exploring the more touristy parts of the city and getting acclimated to the metro system. It’s slightly more complicated than ours, but what really threw me off was the recorded voice that tells people when the doors are about to close. I have to say, I like our guy in Petersburg better—he’s much more fatherly and reassuring.
We started off Tuesday with the requisite Lenin visit (surprisingly, less creepy than I’d remembered) and Kremlin tour. The afternoon was spent at the Honey Fair. You know how there are things like the “Apple Festival” or “Pumpkin Day” where there are one or two things having to do with the fair’s namesake surrounded by generic fair attractions like craft booths, games and rides? This is not the case with the Honey Fair. Imagine, if you will, a fairground packed with literally hundreds of booths. At each booth, there’s a bowl of tasting sticks next to a row of honey jars and a honey seller attempting to convince you that his or her particular kind of honey is superior to all the others. I bought a tub, basically at random, to give to my host family. This left me free to wander around, tasting at will. I didn’t think it was possible for me to overload my taste buds’ “sweet” circuits, but I damn near succeeded.
More to come, soon, I promise...
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
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2 comments:
Your descriptions of the bell ringer and honey fair were great. I could get a picture in my mind from your writing.
I used to enjoy the travel books of Paul Theroux. You can see some of his stuff here. A good travel writer can make the world seem like a more understandable place. Your description of the step aerobics class was a perfect example of how the bell ringer's actions were wrapped in an experience I could understand.
Anyway, if you are interested in going anywhere with your travel writing, I just found a resource for travel writers. I can't vouch for how good they are, but the website seems useful.
Have fun!
so a friend of mine just told me that those spam comments aren't even people (not even bored, shameless people), but ROBOTS, some even so advanced they can take little bits of your entry and insert it into their spiel to make it sound like they actually read it. Well, to that, I just want to say: I actually read it. And I enjoyed it. Keep up the random church-seeing (I'm getting worried about church burnout), the strange subway voices (which reminds me of a story to long to tell here), the strange relationship of a post-communist country with its... um... history, mostly, i guess, but then again, as a history major, everything looks like history to me.
sam
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