Prologue: outside the station....
Here is a large Lenin Monument. We were wondering if this had been torn down during the siege.
Outside most of the metro and train stations you can usually see old ladies selling either flowers or fruit.
Aaaand Welcome to Lake Lagoda, an absolutely GINORMOUS lake in the north of Russia. ("A" was our camping spot, St. Petersburg towards the bottom, and ohhellofinland to the left). Since it is pretty north, the White Nights were even more prominent. It maybe got dark-ish around 3? But then it would brighten back up before 4. We would usually go to bed around 4:30, so it was pretty light by then.
Our trip - first we take a 3 1/2 hour train to the rural parts of Russia. It's amazing how different it was from St. Petersburg. But to tell you the truth, this is how I pictured Russia: fields and fields with scattered cabins/houses throughout. So peaceful. All it needs are the dancing bears and my vision is set. Then we get on a rickety bus with an insane driver. From various movies, picture the stereotypical Russian sleez-ball (skinny, losing hair, crazy voice, shouts randomly, plays gypsy music on the radio, practically drives our bus off cliffs). yea. He even stopped at a market for 'water,' but reminded us that we could buy alcohol inside if we wanted. So begins our wonderful trip. haha
Once we get to the site (after some more walking - we were really in the middle of nowhere), we see that people are already there. I actually got to meet Russian gypsies (or at least that's how I'm describing them)! A bunch of хозяйки joined us on our trip as well. These were of the younger crowd, maybe just two or three years older than us. They were all wonderful people and meshed amazingly with our group (the guys were great soccer players, just sayin').
The main camp was in a little clearing in the forest, but a group of us decided to set up our tents on the beach. Best idea ever. It was wonderful waking up to the lake every morning (bad because it was freezing during the night and a sauna in the morning, but totally worth it). And it motivated me to do some yoga on the beach. Makes me wonder why I never did it before.
We spent our time there between cooking meals, cutting down trees, and wandering the beach. In the evenings I joined the guys in soccer games in the sand (which is ridiculously difficult). I actually made a goal. Go me! :D
[By now you must all be saying: why, Natasha, how did you survive missing the Germany-Argentina game on Saturday?!
Well, my young friends, we managed to get updates via texts as someone's хозяйн kept asking people back in the city. You can imagine my excitement when I got the final score :D Ah, those were happier times....]
We also reverted back to our younger selves and started building sand castles (or Russian Cathedrals :P). I also realized that once you hit a certain age, you really just want to dig as deep of a hole as you can. No real goal in mind, just to dig. At least, that was the case for some guys in our group (they wanted to build a sauna?). Bronco wanted to be covered in sand, so we decided to get creative with it and make him into a giant dinosaur-turtle-thing. We had a whole story set up, and an unveiling. yea, 5 years old are we?
There was also canoeing! The lake is much much much larger than you think it is, and an island that seems close by is twice as far as you thought. (you heard me, this lake had multiple islands). We didn't get to see them all, but the ones we know of are as follows: squishy moss island (known in some circles as shimmy island?), naked island, and bird island. All pretty self-explanatory.
While I had avoided falling into the lake (can't say so for some other people...), on the second day we all decided to brave the freezing waters and jump in together. Live together, dietogether, catch hypothermia together, all along those lines. IT WAS FREEZING. I mean, we did jump in right after playing soccer, so we were all warmed up, but it was still SO COLD. I have no idea how those Scandinavian kids do it. It got to a point where my legs were heating up, which I took to be a bad sign. Needless to say, our game of frisbee in the lake ended pretty quickly.
And one of my absolute most favorite moments was when we all gathered on a smaller inlet and watched the sunset (at 11:30). My group got lost at first, and ended up on top of a mountain. It was gorgeous, and reminded me of FOOT :)
Scratch that. My favorite moment must have been right after, where I helped lead a campfire sing-a-long that lasted 3 hours. What started with Classic Rock songs moved to 90s hits (Mambo #5, anyone?) and later to foreign pieces (picked up a few good Russian songs, as well as an attempt at Numa Numa). Loved it.
Also, I'm currently heart broken over the German loss last night. I watched the game at a bar with a German and an Englishman (who switched over to support Germany after England's loss). Let's just say it was a UN of dispair.
Cutting off here - heading on my train to Moscow in T-minus 40 minutes!
Пока!
--Н.И--
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