July 10, 2007

Private dentist office in Vladimir.

Market in Vladimir.

We started out our day with a class on Russian food.  Since we had been eating the food since we arrived, the lesson was a tad bit late.  My suggestion would be to move the class to the beginning of the trip in order to educate folks on the food.

We left the American Home to visit a private dentist office, a market, and a photo shop.  The dentist office was very nice – the inside looked just like a dentist office in the United States.  I’d be curious to compare a state run dentist office to this private office.  We had to wear booties on our shoes since it was a sterile environment.  We then traveled to an open market where a Russian could purchase just about any food possible.  We were not allowed to take photos at first so I only took a picture from the beginning.  Galina was able to gain special permission for us to take photos but I didn’t know about it until the end.  Meat and fish were on display – no ice or refrigeration.  Milk, cheese, eggs, etc – all out on a table with no refrigeration.  Fruits and veggies were also available for purchase.  Our last stop was a photo shop.  We met with the owner and she shared some of her most famous pictures – local famous folks in Vladimir.

Our next task:  a scavenger hunt.  I really didn’t want to participate – it was pouring raining and just didn’t sound like a ton of fun.  I had Tom and Rick on my team.  We also had a Russian teacher with us n case we needed a translator but the objective was to purchase enough ingredients for “American sandwiches” for 5 people and find our way back to the American Home in  two hours.  We were given 600 rubles ($24.00) to purchase our ingredients, buy drinks, purchase tickets for our bus ride back, and buy one “inexpensive Vladimir” souvenir. At the same time, we had to take photos of signs in Russian – useful and helpful vocabulary words.  We also had to locate the Oblast Tourist Info Center and ask for airfare to a American city (our city was Washington DC).  We had to be back at the American Home with our sandwiches prepared no later than 2:00 pm (we started at Noon).  We bought bread, cheese, bologna, juice, our tickets for the bus, a cheap sovenir (a pen that said Vladimir) for 300 rubles!  In fact, our team got the award for being the cheapest!  Various awards were given:  the team that finished the fastest – the team that had the best sandwich, etc.  It was an interesting activity to end our visit in Vladimir.

 Got back to the AH and we prepared the sandwiches.  Some sandwiches were better than others. 🙂

After lunch, we heard from Percy Gurvitch, a professor of German – he’s also a survivor of the concentration camps in Poland and the Gulag labor camps in Russia.  He was an amazing speaker – he spoke to us about Putin.

We were supposed to have free time afterwards but since it was raining, I stayed at the AH to check email and tried to access my blog.  I was only able to do a quick post – WordPress won’t work here for some reason.

My host family picked me up and we went back to the flat for our last meal together.  I’m sad.  I’ve had such a lovely visit with them and will miss them.  I took their picture and Dusia the Cat too! 🙂