Ahhhh, sleep at last.......
After a small birthday celebration in the office for one of our developers, we headed out for dinner. By this time, I was going on 36 hours with only 3 hours of sleep. Kinda wobbly. We collected Sarah, the head of our EDU product team in the process. She was hanging out in St. Petersburg at the G8 summit for a few days prior. We went back to The Bronx, where they have a nice Italian restaurant downstairs. The meal was fantastic and contained all of my favorites: bruschetta, caprese salad, and pesto pasta. Additionally, Belarus is known for it's wide variety of very high quality mushrooms. We sampled a few more last evening and they lived up to their billing. I prepared myself for a long night of sleep with one vodka tonic and a game of pool. Managed to hit the sack by midnight and don't remember a thing before my alarm went off at 7 a.m. today.
The weather today is brilliant. Not a cloud in the sky and temperatures in the high 60's accompanied by a gentle breeze. Perfect for the Jay man. I headed out into the park for 6 mile jaunt. More familiar and comfortable with surroundings now, I ventured further down the river. The park is huge and the comparison to New York's central park is a fair one. The advantage Minsk has over NYC is that the park doesn't smell like 10 years of dried urine at any point.
This is my last full day in Belarus and I can say honestly that I'll miss being here and that I would be more than happy to come back at any time. I'm going this afternoon to see the WWII museum with Viktor, he's an avid student of military history, I'm so looking forward to it. I still can't shake the image of the memorial we saw yesterday. 5000 Jews from a local ghetto exterminated in one day. I think what makes it so hauntingly awful is the statue placed at the memorial (pictured above). It immortalizes a row of men, women, and children being forced down into a pit already half full with the corpses of their murdered countrymen. The evil of such an act is incomprehensible, the emotion of putting oneself into the place of the victims is so completely horrifying that I find my brain going into an unconscious self-defense, not allowing my imagination to conjure the scene for more than a moment before being overcome by a chilling numbness.
Well, back to work now. I will post more pictures later. Until then, be well.
After a small birthday celebration in the office for one of our developers, we headed out for dinner. By this time, I was going on 36 hours with only 3 hours of sleep. Kinda wobbly. We collected Sarah, the head of our EDU product team in the process. She was hanging out in St. Petersburg at the G8 summit for a few days prior. We went back to The Bronx, where they have a nice Italian restaurant downstairs. The meal was fantastic and contained all of my favorites: bruschetta, caprese salad, and pesto pasta. Additionally, Belarus is known for it's wide variety of very high quality mushrooms. We sampled a few more last evening and they lived up to their billing. I prepared myself for a long night of sleep with one vodka tonic and a game of pool. Managed to hit the sack by midnight and don't remember a thing before my alarm went off at 7 a.m. today.
The weather today is brilliant. Not a cloud in the sky and temperatures in the high 60's accompanied by a gentle breeze. Perfect for the Jay man. I headed out into the park for 6 mile jaunt. More familiar and comfortable with surroundings now, I ventured further down the river. The park is huge and the comparison to New York's central park is a fair one. The advantage Minsk has over NYC is that the park doesn't smell like 10 years of dried urine at any point.
This is my last full day in Belarus and I can say honestly that I'll miss being here and that I would be more than happy to come back at any time. I'm going this afternoon to see the WWII museum with Viktor, he's an avid student of military history, I'm so looking forward to it. I still can't shake the image of the memorial we saw yesterday. 5000 Jews from a local ghetto exterminated in one day. I think what makes it so hauntingly awful is the statue placed at the memorial (pictured above). It immortalizes a row of men, women, and children being forced down into a pit already half full with the corpses of their murdered countrymen. The evil of such an act is incomprehensible, the emotion of putting oneself into the place of the victims is so completely horrifying that I find my brain going into an unconscious self-defense, not allowing my imagination to conjure the scene for more than a moment before being overcome by a chilling numbness.
Well, back to work now. I will post more pictures later. Until then, be well.
posted by Jaybeau at
12:35 AM
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