Vacation in the Caucasus

So last week, I got on a train in Voronezh in the rainish snow to find that we had the worst seats ever. Being a 22-hour ride, I was hoping for something a little more liveable than this:

But life goes on, and Slava Bogu (thank god) that I wore shorts underneath my jeans so that I didn't have to sit in that sauna in jeans the whole 22 hours.

Next phase, beautiful, sunny (and green! because the grass actually grows there) Kislovodsk. Who wants to guess at what degree of latitude this city is? I'm sure you could find it online or in an atlas, but I'll save you some trouble...it's at almost 44 degrees. Last time I checked, that's north of where I live in New York... Anyway, the first day was relatively laid back and relaxed, and we just walked around the (huge!) local park and saw all the cool stuff they had there, like a concrete crocodile. Interestingly, the Russian word for crocodile is very easy to say, but that might only be because it is the same in English...Needless to say, the 17 international college students climbed on the thing like four year olds.

We also paid a bunch of money to hold birds of prey with their beaks taped shut. Well, I kind of thought a peacock was cooler, so I picked that one up instead. Oh the crazy things we do in Mother Russia.

It wasn't until the next day (Thursday) that we began our wonderful bus excursions. By wonderful, I mean awful, as far as the riding in the bus was concerned. The excursions themselves were actually a lot of fun, and I got a bunch of neat pictures. The first place we went was a place the Russians creatively named "The Ring." This is what it looked like...

Kind of tall...

Then I rode a camel. Yeah, that's right. Woo. Her name was "Umnitsa," which, in Russian, means intelligent or wise one (feminine).

I'm not sure what I'm doing...maybe I thought I was cool...

More to say, but I'll say it tomorrow.