To Minsk (Минск) and Beyond!

Final Week in Review

This has been a good week.  Sunday was a pleasant day (warm but not as bad as other days).  Our trek to and from church was good and we enjoyed the church services.  It is weird to think that we only have one more Sunday at the Minsk branch.  After church we had a typical late afternoon/evening and had a video chat with my parents.  It was a good day. 

Monday was a fairly casual day.  Both Jacque and I spent a good amount of time working on our class preparation for the upcoming fall semester.  We also had the weekly shopping trip and spent some time at the park.  Other than that, it was a pretty typical day. 

Tuesday was the big trip to the Minsk Zoo.  We took 7 metro stops and then walked a kilometer to final get to the zoo.  We were pleasantly surprised to find that the dolphin show is at the zoo too (we had heard a lot about it, but could not figure out where it actually was).  So we spent most of the day walking around the zoo and seeing the animals, and then we went to the dolphin show later in the afternoon.  The Minsk Zoo is interesting because you can get so close to the animals.  The enclosures are pretty small in the first place so the animals are close up anyway, but then there really is not much buffer zone between the animals and the visitors.  That made it kind of neat, but also a bit odd.  You could literally stick your hand in the lion enclosure and touch the lion.  We also saw a lot of overweight animals (probably overfeeding, coupled with small enclosures with little opportunity to exercise).  But it was fun to see the animals and we had a great time.  And while the weather was mostly nice, there was about an hour and a half where there sky got really dark and it was super windy.  We thought we would get poured on, but then the sky cleared up and everything was fine.  On the way home we got some McDonalds for dinner and then got home exhausted from a long day of walking.  It was a good day.  You can see more pictures here.

After the big day on Tuesday, Wednesday was very casual and we mostly hung around the apartment.  We played a lot around the apartment and probably watched too much Netflix.  Then we had a nice Skype session with a friend in the evening after the kids were in bed.  That was about it.

Thursday was a rather casual day and we stuck around the apartment for most of the morning.  Late afternoon we met up with the Johns for a yummy Belarusian dinner and then we took the kids back to the butterfly exhibit (Sara has been asking to go back since we went the first time).  After we got home, we got the kids to bed and Jacque and I got everything ready for an early departure for Lithuania the next morning.

Friday morning started early and we got everyone ready and were out the door to head to the train station at 6:45.  Finding the correct train and getting everyone situated was easier than expected.  We were off by 7:45 and the kids were so excited to be on their first major train ride.  We had our own private compartment and everyone was quite comfortable.  We had the obligatory stops on both sides of the Lithuanian border, where they checked passports and such.  It added some time to the trip, but it was still pretty quick and by 11 am we were there in Vilnius, Lithuania for the day.   

Jacque put together an extensive walking tour of the city on her iPad and we spent the next 7+ hours seeing 20+ historical sites all over.  A lot of them were historical churches, but also a lot of other historic architecture, museums, and monuments/memorials.  Over the course of the day we walked a TON and saw so many great places around the city (both the old and new town areas; my favorite places were in the old town).  We figure we squished a 3 day trip into one day!  By 6:45pm we were back at the train station and ready to head back to Minsk.  You can see more pictures of the day here.

 

The kids were so excited to get in the beds in our compartment, but first we had to go past the border control again.  The Lithuania side was no problem, but we were nervous for the Belarusian border check.  We have all of the necessary documentation (and then some), but that hasn’t always worked in the past (and we were specifically warned that they might give us some trouble at the border upon re-entry into the country).  But we actually had a very nice lady checking passports/visas, and though there was a tense moment when they were trying to ask for some other documentation but we couldn’t understand their Russian (and I must admit, I got pretty nervous at this point), they finally got another agent come over who spoke a little English and we were able to show the additional documents and then were good to go.   Once we were past the border station, we got the kids situated in their beds!

We pulled into the Minsk train station around 10:45 pm and then got back to the apartment around 11:15 and got the kids to bed.  Jacque and I were able to get in bed before midnight.  It was a long, very good day!

Saturday was a casual day.  Jacque was up with David for an hour in the middle of the night and then I was up at 6 am and hung with the kids for most of the morning to let Jacque sleep in.  We were all still pretty tired from the day before, so today we have pretty much been bumming it around the apartment.  But it has been a really nice contrast to the long, busy day yesterday.   

Now we are down to just our last few days in the country.  We are very excited to get home, get the kids into school, start the new semester at UVU, find our new home, etc.  It will be a busy time, but that is the way we like it!