Maverick

Today is our last day in Volgograd. Sorry for missing a few days, but it was hard to find a good internet cafe. We got here on wednesday night and were excited that the weather was much warmer. It is still a little cold, but not nearly as cold as the previous destinations on our trip. The hotel we stayed in was less then stellar, Eden was immediately confronted with a real dilemma, pay a lot of money to go somewhere else, or be a true adventurer and experience the awesomeness of our "budget priced" hotel. And by "budget" I mean most expensive one yet. We will upload pictures later.

Breakfast at the hoyel consisted of some pastries, rolls and cheese, followed by a plate of warm hot dogs and peas. It was a litttle out of the ordinary for us, but we found plenty to eat other places. We spent the first day going to the market and some stores. We ate a picnic lunch on the shore of the volga river and it was a pretty sight to behold, mostly because the water was not a sheet of ice. At the market we came accross large tubs of cavier. Eden again decided to branch out and try some. Her take on it was "its kind of chewy and salty, gooey balls of salt." She still has yet to try the chips, I think she may have "accidently" left them behind for the hotel maid to enjoy.

That night we went to visit my russian friend Gregory, AKA Maverick. He was surprised, but since this was the second time that I've dropped in on him unexpectedly he got over the shock quickly. His kids have grown up a lot and I hardly recognized them. The next day Gregory took us around to many of the famous world war II sights, including the giant motherland statue that was pictured in our first post. We ran in to some missionaries later who referred to her as the "big mamma." Then we went to a museum that had a lot of artifacts from the war. If you have seen the movie "enemy at the gates" (starring Jude Law) then you are familiar with some of the major heroes of the war. Alot of their personal items are on display.

Gregory's wife Natasha made us some traditional russian food for lunch. It called "salanka" and it is a soup made up of tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, cucumber, calbasa sausage, and spices. Eden says that was the best russian food we have had so far. That night we went to another friends house, Ivan. His family had also grown up but he hadn't changed. He is a very loud, good natured russian man. We had a bunch of pastries for dinner and then called it a day. We fly out to moscow tonight, and then to Italy tomorrow.