Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Quest for the Missing Monastery

On Friday, we headed out in search for Donskoi monastery because our teacher had talked about it in class on Wednesday. He told us the metro station and so we headed off in the afternoon. It was very cold that day (and getting colder) in Moscow. I had a brain freeze from the weather. I can't understand how people survive even worse weather than we've had this past week. I am a desert girl at heart I guess.

Anyway, we followed the rudimentary directions that we were given and we ended up walking and walking and... walking. No monastery. We saw the "fake monastery", which we were supposed to look out for, but never found the actual monastery. We asked a couple of people where it was located, but to no avail. Their directions I'm sure were correct, but they were too vague for us to follow successfully. So, after a very long time of walking in the cold, we decided to give up and go to Kruzhka. Stephanie and I had blinis with sour cream, cheese, and mushrooms (so good!). She is the other resident vegetarian, which is cool. At Kruzhka (which is an excellent bar because the beer is so cheap; 50 rubles for .5 litres... less than 2 dollars!) we all had lots of beer and vodka shots between us. We debated everything from vegetarianism (I am innocent! I did not start that one) to what was the best sport on earth. A thoroughly fun night. This week I'd like to try Lisya Nora (The Fox Hole), which is a pub with cheap beer on tap and apparently a good atmosphere. I think I might go tonight if I can get people to go. Class has been so hard lately! It's driving me to drink. ;)

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