17 Sivan/30 May, 2010
May. 30th, 2010 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyToday we took a road trip to Mir and Nesvizh, two small towns about 100km south of Minsk. There are old castles/houses there, both undergoing restoration and are now tourist sites. At the same time we got to enjoy the countryside (including cows and goats). Belarusian flora and landscape, especially on a sunny and warm (21C or 70F) day like today, is so painfully beautiful. Flat green fields and birches and other similar leafy trees are all very pretty. We also made an accidental detour into a village. In Mir, all village houses have TV satellite dishes, of course, so even the villages are thoroughly modern.
We went on our trip in two cars. Car 1: Sasha, Aunt Vera, Uncle Tolya, Mama and Lenya. Car 2: Vitalik, Papa, Sveta, Lika and I.
First, we drove to Mir. Mir has beautiful castle exteriors. We took lots and lots of pictures but didn’t go inside since there is not much there yet. The town had many Jews at one time too. We tried to find the old synagogue but couldn’t. I got a souvenir for Adviser – something medievalish and a magnet for myself. We also walked to the main square.
Lika was a trooper all day. With the promise of ice-cream, she walked everywhere (well, sometimes she rode on her papa’s shoulders), didn’t whine and generally behaved herself. She was not shy this time. She gave me her toys to hold in the car and she held my hand sometimes too as we walked.
We walked around Mir not for too long, and then we drove to Nesvizh. We had trouble finding a place to eat there as many cafes were booked for some reason. There were very many tourists. Finally, we found a restaurant at the center square and we had a wonderful lunch –salad, potatoes and fish (Papa and I had fish, others had pork). When the server was giving us options for what the restaurant had, she also, like others here, first asked how much we planned to spend. They were also surprised at our answer that price doesn’t matter. And it was all very cheap too. Papa paid only $40 for 10 people. Granted we didn’t have soup with our meal, as is traditional for dinner, but still, it was a nice deal.
After lunch, we walked to the castle grounds where old Radiwill family residence is slowly being restored. There, my parents, Aunt Vera, Sveta and I went on a tour while the rest walked the grounds. We listened in on some tour group guides. That place used to have a gigantic library and archives, which immediately sparked my interest. I love touring old houses, or mock ups of rooms and seeing how people lived. It is my favorite kind of tour. A house with a gigantic library sets my nerd heart aflutter. After the tour, we joined the rest of our party and walked in the local park and a neighboring church. Both were also very pretty. We heard and saw lots of toads. Then we had some ice-cream at the end of our trip. Sasha ended up having two since Lenya had an upset stomach and didn’t want his, very sensibly.
As Vitalik drove us home, he drove is through Dubki (a local neighborhood with lots of oak trees, where Sveta and I used to go sledding as kids). The streets were super narrow with all the parked cars.
At home I had some pelmeni (dumplings) that Aunt Vera made for dinner and called Bear and my grandfather. Then we looked at Uncle Tolya’s photos of the day. Then at my old photos from my flash drive. We showed them pictures of our Vermont trip from last year, New Year and even old Halloween pictures. I should probably clean up my flash drive a bit.
Then, in the evening, I had some tea and Uncle Tolya, Lenya and I watched a humor parody program on tv that had mockery of Harry Potter, gangster films of the 90s, a song parody of “I want to be with you” by Nautilius Pompilus” about a car and others. It was pretty funny. My favorite joke included Voldemort exclaiming about his broken wand “Made in China. I knew it!” Today was a really fun weekend day.
We went on our trip in two cars. Car 1: Sasha, Aunt Vera, Uncle Tolya, Mama and Lenya. Car 2: Vitalik, Papa, Sveta, Lika and I.
First, we drove to Mir. Mir has beautiful castle exteriors. We took lots and lots of pictures but didn’t go inside since there is not much there yet. The town had many Jews at one time too. We tried to find the old synagogue but couldn’t. I got a souvenir for Adviser – something medievalish and a magnet for myself. We also walked to the main square.
Lika was a trooper all day. With the promise of ice-cream, she walked everywhere (well, sometimes she rode on her papa’s shoulders), didn’t whine and generally behaved herself. She was not shy this time. She gave me her toys to hold in the car and she held my hand sometimes too as we walked.
We walked around Mir not for too long, and then we drove to Nesvizh. We had trouble finding a place to eat there as many cafes were booked for some reason. There were very many tourists. Finally, we found a restaurant at the center square and we had a wonderful lunch –salad, potatoes and fish (Papa and I had fish, others had pork). When the server was giving us options for what the restaurant had, she also, like others here, first asked how much we planned to spend. They were also surprised at our answer that price doesn’t matter. And it was all very cheap too. Papa paid only $40 for 10 people. Granted we didn’t have soup with our meal, as is traditional for dinner, but still, it was a nice deal.
After lunch, we walked to the castle grounds where old Radiwill family residence is slowly being restored. There, my parents, Aunt Vera, Sveta and I went on a tour while the rest walked the grounds. We listened in on some tour group guides. That place used to have a gigantic library and archives, which immediately sparked my interest. I love touring old houses, or mock ups of rooms and seeing how people lived. It is my favorite kind of tour. A house with a gigantic library sets my nerd heart aflutter. After the tour, we joined the rest of our party and walked in the local park and a neighboring church. Both were also very pretty. We heard and saw lots of toads. Then we had some ice-cream at the end of our trip. Sasha ended up having two since Lenya had an upset stomach and didn’t want his, very sensibly.
As Vitalik drove us home, he drove is through Dubki (a local neighborhood with lots of oak trees, where Sveta and I used to go sledding as kids). The streets were super narrow with all the parked cars.
At home I had some pelmeni (dumplings) that Aunt Vera made for dinner and called Bear and my grandfather. Then we looked at Uncle Tolya’s photos of the day. Then at my old photos from my flash drive. We showed them pictures of our Vermont trip from last year, New Year and even old Halloween pictures. I should probably clean up my flash drive a bit.
Then, in the evening, I had some tea and Uncle Tolya, Lenya and I watched a humor parody program on tv that had mockery of Harry Potter, gangster films of the 90s, a song parody of “I want to be with you” by Nautilius Pompilus” about a car and others. It was pretty funny. My favorite joke included Voldemort exclaiming about his broken wand “Made in China. I knew it!” Today was a really fun weekend day.