Saturday we went to the Tsar's/Pushkin's village. The village has two names because before the revolution it was the location of the Tsar's summer homes but after the revolution the village couldn't keep such a blatantly Tsarist name, so the village was renamed in honor of the most famous pupil to attend the Lyceum, a school built on the grounds of the palace. The student was the adored Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The palace is a mixture of Rococo, Baroque and Classical styles that don't always mesh together particularly well, but it is incredibly beautiful. It was almost completely distroyed by bombs and German inhabitation during World War II but has been almost completely restored. This palace is the site of the famous Amber room, where the walls are covered in panels of amber (sadly, no pictures allowed). The park that surrounds the palace is incredibly beautiful and has many small architectura elements, like chapels, towers and a Chinese 'village.' The park was originally intended to be a garden of fountains similar to Versaille, but the grounds didn't have the necessary springs. Instead, there is an incredible, man-made lake and one solitary fountain of a milk maid crying over some spilt milk. So, which came first? The fountain of the girl crying, or the saying 'don't cry over spilt milk?' We did have trouble getting lunch so I ended up eating popcorn. Later that night, one of the other Aggies named Dalton made a pasta dinner for me and some of the other A&M kids (Chris, Zac, Cody) and I made some cheese-y bread to go with it. Dalton insisted that I take a picture because his mom would never believe he cooked otherwise. It was a very yummy meal!