This past weekend i went with liza to veliky novgorod (which means the great new city). it is actually one the oldest cities which had an independent government in russia. this is the city where the most revered alexander nevsky (basically the patron saint of russia, who i have seen depicted just like jesus, but with slightly shorter hair) was prince. liza and i arrived by electric train (4 hours from petersburg by this method) at about 1200 on sunday. at about 1205 it started raining. we got on a city bus we believed was heading toward our hotel, but instead of crossing the river, it turned left and headed out into the very soviet suburbs. liza asked the bus conducter it we were heading in that direction eventually, and she told us to get off
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