Monday Morning

It's Monday morning and it's pouring outside. Although the rain is extremely welcome after such a hot spell in Moscow, I have to say that I'm a little disapointed. We had planned to walk to the forest around the area where I lived when I first moved here. It's a beautiful walk through the forest to an underground spring there with pure water that i'm guess has been blessed by an orthodox priest at some point in history. Our plan was to load up all our water bottles and fill them up for the train while enjoying the natural beauty of the forest (wonderful - aside from the heavy water bottles and mosquitos!).

I would still like to visit the Novodevichy Convent and so hopefully if the rain subsides a little we will be able to do that. In every country I go to I always try and visit a cemetary or a graveyard. I love the history, the symbolism, the beauty, and the peacefullness. There are several fascinating cemetaries in Ryazan (the city where I spent the last 3 years living) that I would have like to take Katie to, but unfortunately we won't be making a trip there this time. There is a WWII cemetary there and I love to walk up and down reading the plain white gravestones. It's not hard to calculate the ages of the young men when they died because they were all around 18 or 19. Anyway, I'll tell you more about Novodevichy a little later. I have to get off the computer and eat some breakfast!