Novgorod the Great

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If that isn't self promotion, I don't know what is. The name of the town is "Novgorod the Great". I would like to say something about the bus ride from St Petersburg to Novgorod, I really would. I can't really comment too much though as the windows on our bus were so covered with grime that no one could see out. Well, hopefully the driver could. Dirty cars in Russia are quite a problem at this time of year. The Russians use a combination of salt and sand to grit down the roads. The ensuing dust gets everywhere and results in the Russians not bothering to wash their cars until spring.

Somewhere along the way (about half way ish I guess), we stopped for a toilet break. Literally, we were in a car park, well actually, car park is too strong a word. We were in a flatish bit of ground that didn't have many weeds growing on it. It had a toilet and a wee little shop with a Russian inside. The toilet you had to pay for, which nearly created a riot amongst the men-folk who wanted to know why they had to pay to go inside, when for free they could do the same thing outside. The shop was the kind where you go to the window, make an order, pay for it and get handed your goods.

Eventually, we were in Novgorod. Alex pointed out the department store, which we took careful note of. Now that our bags were definately not coming, we decided to go and buy a few essentials such as shirts, socks, mascara etc. The department store had quite an interesting layout: skimpy clothing, lingerie, boots and fur coats. This leads me to believe that Russian women wear boots, lingerie, skimpy clothing and fur coats. I can confirm the boots and fur coats, however always got halted in the process of validating (for purely scientific reasons) the other two.

Once Cheri's intention of actually buying clothing in one of these shops (The T-Shirt shop, thankfully not the fur coats and unfortunately not the lingerie) a flurry of Russian activity surrounded us. The shop keepers began picking out clothes and ferrying them from the rack to the changing room for Cheri's approval. Cheri could then try them on, request something a bit different or reject them entirely. It was like that shopping scene from Pretty Woman. There were a few cultural barriers to cross though, Cheri wanted something that would actually cover her body and the Russians were very disapproving.

Later in the lobby bar we tried to order dinner. This can be a lot of fun in Russia. Firstly, everything that can be sold at the bar must be on the menu. Everything. So this includes chewing gum, cigarettes, beer (by glass, pint, bottle etc). When you ask for the menu you usually get handed a weighty tome the size of a family bible. Even more fun is the food. We never once went to a restaurant that had everything on the menu. Typically, you make your choice, order it and the waiter tells you they don't have it. They sometimes tell you what they do and don't have in advance, but not often. We attempted to order Beef Stroganoff. I thought we had. Some careful negotiations from Amber, revealed that a) we had orderd the trout as there is no Beef and b) dinner would be a small wait away of 2 hours.

Out into the cold Novgorod night we fled to find food. We managed to find a nice Russian place (funnily enough being Russia, there are a lot of Russian places) where we had a good meal and a bottle of vodka between the three of us. Actually the meal might not have been all that fabulous, because the vodka was really, really good.

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