After visiting Vladimir's historic churches and seeing the city center, my family and I got in a cab and headed for my apartment, where my host mom had made us lunch. The cab ride took us from the mostly-presentable city center out into post-apocalyptic Soviet apartment building land (beat-up grey apartment buildings and trashy garages everywhere you look). I think my mom was in a state of shock: As we left the cab, she said something like, "We gave you such a beautiful place to grow up." But, as anyone who has lived in Russia knows, you can't get discouraged by the ugly buildings; usually the apartments inside are nice and filled with completely normal people. My host mom made some of the best borshch I've ever had, and, after this great lunch, we headed downtown again to see more sights. We met up with one of the other teachers and a few other people visited a beautiful botanical garden, the museum inside the Golden Gates, and a museum glassware produced in Vladimir Oblast. After taking a quick catnap at the American Home (our early morning was catching up with us), we went back to my apartment for dinner. My host family was waiting with homemade pelmeni and more of that delicious borshch. It was a great evening, and it was so cool that my family got to finally see where I live and meet the people who so graciously have hosted me this year.

View from the botanical garden

 Backside of downtown

Famous WWII-era recruitment poster

The group in the botanical garden

A diorama in the Golden Gates museum. It depicts the Mongol invasion of Vladimir in the 13th century 

A WWII bomb fragment

Inside the glass museum 

Walking up to the American Home 

It was a long day

Dinner