OMG!! I thought that the car journey from the airport was
hair raising enough but I hadn’t experienced the journey to the country house
with ‘M’ driving. (The family have two drivers; for the purpose of this blog we
will call one ‘M’ and the other ‘A’. A
is very friendly and tries to communicate with me through hand signals and
broken English, M just grunts when I try and talk to him, but I won’t give up…
I will make him communicate with me by the time I leave here!!)
It takes about 45 mins to an hour to get to the country house from Kazan and I seriously thought I was going to end up in a horrific car accident more than once as we raced along the roads at speeds of about 160km/h weaving in and out of the traffic. But we made it there and back in one piece…just got to do the trip all over again tomorrow!!
Today’s journey was not as bad, ‘A’ was driving so we didn’t go as fast or weave as much! On the way we stopped at the Raifa Monastery to collect some water from a spring they have there. Apparently ‘the water is very pure with a low content of salts and other admixtures. It has been consecrated and so is a good means of purification, it also last a long time!’ (I picked up a guide book)
Whilst we were there ‘A’ pointed out some ice sculptures that were at the bottom of a little hill. We went down and had a look at them; they were all carved by the monks and made to look like the inside of a church. I had a quick walk around before getting back into the car; it was -24
C and I was beginning
to think that my nose would fall off!
After work today I went out to the little shop or the продуктовый магазин, which is pronounced - produktovyy magazin. It's a funny little place with two shops in one. One side is for fresh stuff, like bread and cured meet, the other side is for everything else! It's very much like how shops used to be in the UK years ago, with everything behind a counter and you have to ask for what you want. I didn't want to be to ambitions on my first shopping trip alone so thought I would just try and buy some bread! Well I was able to point to the bread I wanted but didn't get so much as a smile or even eye contact from the lady behind the counter!! Maybe next time I'll go to the left side of the shop and see if they are more friendly!?!?
It takes about 45 mins to an hour to get to the country house from Kazan and I seriously thought I was going to end up in a horrific car accident more than once as we raced along the roads at speeds of about 160km/h weaving in and out of the traffic. But we made it there and back in one piece…just got to do the trip all over again tomorrow!!
Today’s journey was not as bad, ‘A’ was driving so we didn’t go as fast or weave as much! On the way we stopped at the Raifa Monastery to collect some water from a spring they have there. Apparently ‘the water is very pure with a low content of salts and other admixtures. It has been consecrated and so is a good means of purification, it also last a long time!’ (I picked up a guide book)
Whilst we were there ‘A’ pointed out some ice sculptures that were at the bottom of a little hill. We went down and had a look at them; they were all carved by the monks and made to look like the inside of a church. I had a quick walk around before getting back into the car; it was -24
As the girls were having their
afternoon nap, I got out the guide book to see if I could find any information
in it about the sculptures, it was whilst reading that I realised they were
built on the middle of a LAKE! The book explained that on Epiphany day an ice
hole is cut into the lake and hundreds of pilgrims dive into it. I don't know if I'd be brave enough to just walk on as I did it I'd known it was ice, but then again they did have 100's of people standing on it in January I'm sure it will be able to hold my weight!!
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