On Thursday I decided to stay in Yoshkar-Ola for a little while longer because I was having so much fun. So I made arrangements to return to Moscow on an Aeroflot jet Sunday morning instead of the train Friday night. So Friday morning after doing some shopping I returned to the hotel to extend my stay for another day. But they would only allow it if I extended for 3 days through the weekend. I decided I would not do that so I went up to my room tp pack my things but because it was after 12:00 I was locked out of it. I went back down to the front desk and they would not allow me back in the room unless I extended the room because I was past the check out time. I did not believe that my dirty clothes were worth 6000 rubels so I declined. Then Tatyana convinced them to give me 3 hours at 300 rubels. So apparently in Russia even nice hotels will rent a room by the hour and it is a new first for me, I have never rented a room by the hour before!
While I was packing Tatyana contacted the manager of an apartment building and aranged for me to spend Friday night and Saturday in an apartment. So I got to stay in an apartment building full of Russian families. These pictures are of my apartment. In some ways they are ahead of us and in some ways they are behind. For instance their plumbning insures hot towels in the bathroom, very nice. Then again it has not occurred to them yet apparently that it would be convenient when going uop stairs if all of the steps were the same size, especiall for those of us who do not see that well.
The bathroom plumbing was very unique. You see that there is one set of knobs for both the sink and the bath tub. You just move the faucet back and forth depending on whee you want the water to go. Also, all of the towel rods have hot water running thru them so that tyour towels are always hot.
