russia: tver

Another weekend, another trip. Tver was originally on the calendar for another weekend, but due to my laziness we switched the plan.

Getting to Tver was easy, fast, and cheap. We took an express suburban train, called a lastochka. The price worked out to about $8USD, the ride was about 90 minutes.

It was snowing when we arrived, which we weren't ready for mentally. All three of us had been checking the weather all week, and hadn't seen word one about snow. Oh well.

After a bit of hanging out inside, we walked into the center of town. I'd booked us a place to stay, but we couldn't check in until 1400, so we had some time to kill. Right around then we saw a giant mosaic mural on a wall near a school, which was really eye catching.

Also nearby was a Baskin Robbins ice cream store. We figured we hadn't taken an ice cream selfie in a while, and we had the time, so why not.

After ice cream we walked through a park. We saw people cross country skiing on several paths of the park, which looked fun. I've always wanted to try it, but I bet on the first try I'd last only about ten minutes. Anywho.

In the middle of the park is what is called the Veterans Pantheon, a war memorial. There was an 'eternal flame' in the middle of it all, but in this case it wasn't eternal. The spot where the flame would normally be was completely covered by snow.

After going through the park we were back on the closest main road, conveniently only a block or so from our accomodation. Checking in took about 3 minutes, after which we relaxed in our flat for a while.

Upon walking back outside we headed in the direction of our first real sight of the day: a statue of Lenin. This one was a little different from many of the others we've seen in that his name was written near the bottom of the pedestal. 

Most of the time I guess the people who put up the Lenin statue in a town assume you know who he was.

After taking a team photo at the statue we walked up a pedestrian street to our next sight, a goat museum. A goat museum!!!

The museum was small, only 3 rooms in total. It was basically a really really big collection of all things goat. There were some kitchen tools with goat legs as the handles, glass goats, stuffed goats, etc...

There was a giant display case with a fake mountain in the middle, with small goats all around. One of the docents told us we could count all the goats and enter a contest, but we didn't take the time to do so.

We learned a bit about the way goats are part of many cultures around the world. According to this museum, (the docent, anywho,) the people of Tver are nicknamed goats. I've never heard that before, but since I'm not a Russian speaker that wouldn't be random knowledge that simply gets absorbed.

It didn't take us long to see the entire museum, we were in there only 30 minutes or so. After the museum we walked back in the general direction of our flat, picking up sushi and breakfast food along the way.

The next morning we were pretty proud of ourselves for checking out and leaving the flat before 1100. A long walk took us back along the pedestrian street from the day before, over to a main artery through town, and over a bridge.

While crossing the bridge we spent a lot of time looking at the river below. It was covered in snow, and looked frozen, but we also noticed spots that looked rather melted. As we watched, we saw a couple people ice fishing, and three others crossing the river on foot. I have no idea how people had the confidence to do that, since the air temperature was over freezing, and we could see soft and completely melted spots.

Anywho, on the other side of the river we climbed down stairs to the embankment and walked along it for a while. The path was a mix of soft snow, hard pack, and ice, so it wasn't always easy to walk. We weren't the only people out, but the path wasn't exactly crowded.

Eventually we got to a corner of sorts. There was a big city name sign at this corner, perfect for a team photo.

After the team photo we walked back along the embankment. We walked under the bridge and continued along the other side, staying near the river. This side looked the same as the other, in that there were some soft spots, but it also looked frozen. Either way, we stayed on the embankment, not going anywhere near the river/ice.

We eventually came to another bridge, the modern version of the first bridge tying together the two sides of the river. 

The sign said the first bridge was several centuries ago, and had originally been a pontoon bridge.

Back over on the first side of the river we came followed the road to the entrance of the Imperial Palace. The palace was built in the 18^th century as a place for Catherine to Great to rest during her travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow. It is now a beautiful art museum.

We checked our coats and bags, and put on our shoe covers. I hate the sound these shoe covers make, but it wasn't an option. When we went to the ticket counter we read the price list and got our money ready, only to be told that the price was twice as high as we thought.

The ticket lady said 'foreign price.' We took a closer look at the price list, and over on one side of the paper, written in Russian, it did indeed list a price for foreign citizens.

Since we've been through this before we immediately pulled out our passports and registrations to prove that we live in Russia, and didn't want to pay the fee for foreign citizens.

The lady let us pay the 'local' fee, though this left a bad taste in our mouths. I hate when foreigners are charged more to enter a place, and it was even worse that it was only written in Russian. It's so sneaky. We only knew because we looked carefully, how often are other visitors surprised?

The museum turned out to be awesome. We didn't go through the entire thing, but we enjoyed the part we did see quite a bit. Each room was well organized and looked slightly different. There was a docent in every other room or so. A few of the rooms were very very grand, to the point that I whispered 'whoa' while walking in. Beautiful rooms, absolutely beautiful. I should also mention that Angela notcied a marble sculpture titled "Eva." Of course I took a photo with myself.

From the palace we walked back toward the pedestrian street, stopping to pick up food along the way. We also got more ice cream, just because we wanted to, and had the time to do so. From there we hopped a bus to the train station.

Buying tickets to get back to Moscow was easy, as was finding and boarding our train. 90 minutes after departure we were back in Moscow. Here's to another successful weekend.

usa: indiana: west baden springs and columbus

The next day was Saturday. We didn't have anything specific planned, but Dad was up for my idea of a day trip to West Baden Springs hotel. I'd never been there, but I knew he had, as had other family members. Every photo I'd of the place looked pretty amazing.

We stopped for lunch at a fast food place along the way, nothing exciting. As we drove I made note of the petrol prices, as they were considerably lower than what was available in Bloomington. (I hate the way people in Bloomington pay higher prices for rent, mortgage, petrol, etc... because we're a captive audience.)

Indiana is mostly made up of small towns, we drove through a number of them. Life in rural towns isn't great economically these days, and you can see that when you drive through. What I also noticed was that petrol prices were considerably cheaper than in Bloomington.

West Baden Springs hotel was built when you could take a train from Chicago all the way to southern Indiana. I'm pretty sure that isn't possible anymore. The town of West Baden Springs was originally developed by Germans (hence the name) and was known for natural springs.

The hotel itself is pretty amazing. The grounds are huge, no matter which approach you use. The atrium you walk into is stunning. The roof of the atrium is giant, and the whole thing is a skylight. The hotel was originally built at the beginning of the 20^th century, and after a while fell into disrepair. At some point Jesuits used it as a monastery, and darn them they capped off the springs. I think renovations started in the late 80s or 90s, something like that? The renovations were done really well, the place looks fantastic, and looks just the old photos from way back.

We walked through the atrium, unable to miss the GIANT skylight letting in a huge amount of natural light to the room. The engineering of the whole thing is really impressive. There are couches and chairs set in groups throughout the room, it's a great place to hang out with your friends and family.
We also walked through the hallway that encircles the atrium. We also checked out the porch, which had plenty of rocking chairs. If it hadn't felt like a sauna outside I would've been super keen to sit on one of the chairs and read for a couple hours.
The last area we explored was an area of landscaped gardens. Two of the old springs (also capped by the Jesuits when they 'owned' the property, argh,) were on the edge of these gardens. A pretty area, but too darn hot to dawdle in the sun.

Even though I'd brought water with me, and grabbed a couple bottles from a cooler, I was still feeling the heat. Instead of going to another sight in southern Indiana I told Dad I was ready to go home. We got home mid evening, so it was probably good that we didn't go anywhere else.

Of course, if we'd planned the day ahead of time and gotten moving a bit earlier, we could've done more. Oh well.
Three days later, I did a road trip with my sister.
Just like everyone else in my immediate family, my sister has lived abroad at least twice. Though she now lives in Bloomington, she and her husband (and now my nephew) still travel, but it's domestic travel. They've done an amazing job of finding places in and around Indiana, places I didn't know anything about before receiving a postcard from Hana.

We wanted to spend time together again, and decided to do it by going on a day long road trip, to a nearby city called Columbus, Indiana.
On the way there I asked her to stop so I could take a photo of myself with the city sign for Gnaw Bone. Yes, there is a town called Gnaw Bone in Indiana. Not surprisingly, it is not a giant metropolis.

I'd been to Columbus more times than I can count or remember, but every previous visit was while I was a competitive swimmer. I remember many an early morning driving through the quiet streets of Columbus, not really knowing the city at all.

There are two high schools in the city, I've swum at both of them. There is also a swim club that had a summer meet and a winter meet, adding to the number of Columbus visits every year. This time I wanted to see what Columbus is known for, it's architecture. Buildings all around the city are unique.

We started by going to the visitors center. I was excited when Hana told me the glass sculptures were made by Chihuly, because I've seen photos of those sculptures from around the country and they're always beautiful. It was a really nice visitors center.

From there we walked. I suppose that's all we did, but it was nice. The weather was reasonable, which made a huge difference.

I took a lot of photos, of course. I took one of the old armory. I took one of a church. I took several of various sculptures. I took several inside the play area inside a mall.
I took pictures of the bridge you are likely to cross if you're coming in from Bloomington. I took pictures of the courthouse, and the nearby veterans memorial.
I took more than a few pictures of my nephew as he took in the world around him.

I did not take a picture of lunch, as it wasn't anything to get excited about. After the main part of lunch (soup, salad, sandwich,) we stopped into an old time ice cream shop. It looked great, they've done a good job staying with the style of places back then. The ice cream was so so, I doubt I would go back for more.

After eating, we drove a little, to Mill Race Park. There is a nice walking trail around the park, and the best part is the covered bridge. Cars still drive through the covered bridge, so when I convinced Hana to take a photo with me, we had to keep an eye out for any traffic.

We probably would've walked through more of the park, but the weather wasn't so pleasant anymore, becoming more and more humid. It's not much fun to walk around when you feel like you're in a sauna.

After the park we felt like we were done for a while. I can always walk around any town for hours, but my nephew was done for the day, and we had one more stop to make.

There is a series of outlet stores in a town called Edinburgh, not far from Columbus. Hana likes one of them in particular, so we went shopping.

I found one thing I liked, but it looked awful on me, so my wallet was spared, hee hee.

My nephew was tired of course, but like most babies, did not want to go to sleep. He screamed for a while, then fell asleep, just as we knew he would.

I love spending time with my sister.