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08:33 pm - Final Travel Log
Friday, June 20th
So Sunday's thunderstorm wasn't very exciting. I ended up just sleeping through it. I think it just thundered a few times, then rained long enough to get the ground wet. I don't really remember what we did Sunday night, but it was probably just hanging out with the Canadians in their room.
It has also been a pretty quiet week. We had a final exams, which were in class for Russian class, and take home for culture and civilization. Every night we went and hung out with the Canadians. Monday night, Amy and I went down to the lookout with Dawny, Lena, and Corey. We got a beer, watched the fire dancer, poked around a bit, ate a crapdog, then headed back.
Tuesday was another slow day. Nothing really happened. I was trying to figure out my housing situation, since I am getting kicked out of the dorm. The program officially ended on Thursday—yesterday—and we were allowed to stay in the dorms until Saturday. If we had spoken to the university before we came, like Brian and Lindsay did, we could arrange a room to stay longer in the dorms. I, however, am supposed to be in Japan right now, but since that trip got canceled, I had to figure out a new place to stay, and quick. We were trying to see if there were any dorm rooms available for me to move into, but it ended up that it couldn't be done. So I've spent this week trying to figure out where I'm going to stay. For the sake of my mom's sanity, I kept this little secret between the people here, no need for my States friends and family to know. Well, except Haley, she knows. Anyway, it's all figured out now, so I'm happy.
Tuesday night I called my friend Aleksey, the student, and he came to my room. We hung out for a while, and I got him to translate something for us. When we were in St. Petersburg, Kim stole a bag from the bar that contained a jacket and a bunch of pieces of paper. I needed to know what exactly these papers were, since there were about 40 or 45 of them. Amy had joined us as we walked through the uncomfortable atmosphere of the common room with the assholes. Aleksey read the papers, and gave a good laugh. These papers were the cheat notes for someone. The jacket that was in the bag had two makeshift pockets on the inside of it, which is where the papers were. Someone was preparing for their final examination, which in Russia are HUGE deals for graduating seniors. These tests are much like our graduate exams for students pursuing their MA. They are given a list of about 40 to 45 topics, and they have to be able to answer whichever one question they are asked. So, in short, we totally fucked over some person in St. Petersburg!! Aleksey and I headed up to his room and got a he gave me the address of a club he likes—The Real McCoy, plus an address where UPS and FedEx were located, for the people on my program who needed to ship stuff home.
Wednesday was slow as well, just class, and in the afternoon I slept a bunch. In class we had a little test, which we were totally not expecting. It wasn't too hard, so no big deal. Wednesday night we hung out in the Canadians' room, drank a little, and just had a lot of laughs. The best part of Wednesday, by far, was Aida.
Walking from the main building to Sector Ж at around 8pm, I see this girl giving this guy a lap dance on the little sitting area outside of our sector. I get almost to the door, and I hear a voice yell
«Hello! Are you American?»
«Yeah.»
«Come here and sit with me!!»
Andy, Kim, and I decide what the hell?, and so we joined her. Her name was Aida, an 18 year old student from Kazakhstan, and this was her friend, Vova, from the Caucuses. The two of them had gotten up at 3:30 and drank a bottle of vodka, and she repeatedly told us how drunk she was. She was one of the cheeriest drunks I have ever met. We sat there for about an hour and a half, just listening to her talk, and we all just laughed and joked the whole time. Highlights of the conversation were
«I am so drunk!»
«No, you're not drunk, you're happy!»
«I am so happy!!»
«My boyfriend is going to be so mad at me!»
«Why?»
«Because I am so drunk! I mean, I am so happy!»
The only bad part was when the assholes all came up, and Aida stopped them. Aida was collecting American friends this day, and so she talked to them for a minute, stole 2 cigarettes off of James, and after about 10 minutes they went on inside. Aida wanted to dance, and we didn't have any music for her, so she kept using her phone, which had a song, that she kept replaying so she could dance to it. The fun part was how delightful she was, she put the music right into all of us, and we all had a little dancing going on. Eventually, we convinced Aida to join us up in the Canadians' room. Vova said he would wait for Aida's boyfriend to arrive, and until then, she would go with us.
When walking up to the Охрана, we asked Aida if she had her пропуск, and said no. We figured, since she was fluent in Russian, she could get past the guards. We all pulled out our IDs, and Aida walked right up the guard, looked at him, gave a big, corny shrug, and she headed, right past him. He looked shocked, and started to follow her, then just decided fuck it and we went on in. Laughing our asses off, we asked how she did it, and she was like «I don't know!»
We drank in the room for a while, and Aida's boyfriend called her, so she had to go see him. She left, and after about a minute we see her RUN past our room down the hall, so we go to follow her and make sure she's ok. She runs down the stairs, and Andy goes to follow her. In the stairs, he yells «AIDA!» She responds, and immediately the guard starts yelling something at Andy and running up the stairs. We haul ass back to our room, shut the door, and hide for a minute. Sharing another good laugh, we hung out for a while, and Aida came back to join us about an hour later. She said she put her boyfriend to bed, and he sleeps now. We hung out for a while longer, and it was pushing 1am by this point, so we parted ways for the night, after agreeing that we would check out The Real McCoy the following night.
Our last day of classes was Thursday, and we only had our morning class. At noon, we quickly were off to continue a Russian tradition—students must buy their teachers flowers at the end of the class. Aida told me that Киевская was the best place to buy flowers, and despite Tristan's ridiculous whining, we went, and for damn sure, it was the place to buy them. There were the very pushy salesmen, homeless women, everyone selling flowers of all kinds and prices. We picked out what we wanted, and went back to the university. Everyone got dressed for our banquet, and we gathered. Brian and I had to practice our poems a few times on the way. We got there, and in this tiny little room we stuffed about 30 people. They served us a pretty nice lunch, several bottles of wine, ice cream. Brian and I recited our poems, and it was toast time. We all toasted to everything: Nina Aleksandrevna, the students, our teachers, the university, the program directors, everything. After the toasts, we gave the teachers their flowers, and parted ways.
In the afternoon, Brian and I went to the train station. It was about 8 that we got to the train station, and we had quite a time trying to figure out where to buy our tickets for St. Petersburg. We asked around, and we figured out what line we wanted to be in. We stood in line for about an hour, and then realized that we couldn't do this without our passports, and also that the window was going to close before we got to the front of the line. So we abandoned, and decided to get up at around noon the next day and try again. We headed back, but not before I purchased a little suitcase to be a better carry-on that my other one, and a man-purse. That's right, I gave into the European style and bought a man-purse—mostly because I wanted to carry my camera around St. Petersburg, and it's too big to fit in my pocket. I don't care how Euro-Trash I look, I like it.
That evening, we had all planned to go to the Candians' room, pregame, then go to The Real McCoy. We did many shots of vodka, and had gathered about 20 people to go check it out. In the end, the 20 dwindled down to Andy, Amy, and I. We ended up missing the Metro, because we were waiting on Kim and Ryan. They ended up ditching us completely, not telling us anything. In an attempt to save the night, we ended up just going to Propaganda for my last night on the town with the Americans. Like I said, we got to the metro right after it closed, so we had to take a gypsy taxi. I waved my arm in the street and got a car to stop for us. I told the guy where I wanted to go, and we negotiated 400 rubles for him to take us. We agreed, and all hopped in his car. We got to Propaganda, and it was pretty cool. It was full of people, and we were excited to get right through face control. We get our drinks and managed to find a table. Well, we were all a little upset with everyone, and the mood just wasn't good for going out. We only ended up staying about 2 hours, then decided to just grab another gypsy taxi and head back. Andy was more sober than I was, and got the guy to 300 rubles to get us back to the university. We got home around 4:30, and went to bed.
Friday would be my last day in the dorm. I had to pack up all of my stuff, pack my clothes, and check out of my room. It was really sad. As shitty as the Russian dorm was, it was my home, and it meant the beginning of the last leg of my Russian journey. It took about an hour and a half to get everything together, and I stored my stuff in Brian's room. Around 4 we finally got to the train station, equipped with our passports, Russian-English dictionary, and a little wariness about making the transaction. We stood in line for two hours, and managed to get to the front of the line just in time for the lady to go on break. When she finally came back, we were moderately successful getting what we wanted. The lady behind us spoke a little English, and she helped out some, but the most helpful lady was this elderly lady who spoke no English, but was able to talk to us in Russian so that we could understand. 6500 rubles later, Brian and I had our train tickets to and from St. Petersburg.
We returned to the university, and got the last of our things together. We had dinner with Andy, Amy, Dan, and Jeff, and we had a good laugh about headbutting Amanda again. I don't care that she'll never forgive me, I still think it is funny as hell. Who gets headbutted? Honestly!
We had a farewells to everyone on our trip, the people going to Baikal, and Brian and I left around 9:30 to catch our 11:20 train.
Upon arriving at the train station, we boarded and got to our cabin. It was exactly what we wanted—four beds and a private door. These three Russians were in there, young people with a little bit of English, and they were pretty nice. Unfortunately, they had a mistake on their tickets, and had to leave. Instead of them, we had a young lady, her 4 or 5 year old son, and his grandmother in our cabin. It was actually a lot of fun. He was pretty cute, and he spoke a simplified Russian, so we could understand everything he was saying. Brian and I played cards for a while, and decided to go ahead and go to bed instead of keeping them up. During the 9 hour train ride, I slept about an hour and a half. It was truly miserable. I had nothing to read, nothing to do, no where to go, nothing to drink but water, no food. I laid there staring at the ceiling, and occasionally out the window, for about 6 hours. By the end of it, I basically wanted to kill myself. Around 8am, the kid woke up, and for some reason, I was finally able to doze off.
Nothing will wake you up like a Russian man grabbing your ankle and demanding something from you. I was so confused, but I perked right up and figured out what he wanted. We stripped our beds and waited to disembark.
We got off the train, and immediately realized that we were not at the right train station. Last time, we arrived at Московский Вокзал, which was just down the street from the hostel we were staying in. This time, we were somewhere completely different, in what seemed like an industrial section of town, rather than Невский Проспект. We had to get a taxi to take us to the right place, which ended up costing us 900 rubles. We arrived at the hostel, and met Olga, Brian's friend, who was one of the people in charge of the hostel. Completely exhausted, we passed out for a couple of hours. It was amazing. It was the second bed in Russia I've been in that was actually long enough for me. I also had an excessive amount of pillows. What else could you ask for?
Brian and I wandered around for a bit, got dinner, went around the city, and returned to the hostel. We took another nap, and got ready to go out to Жопа Бар. It was Brian and I, Olga, Marshall from New York, Kent from Malaysia, Chris and his girlfriend from California, Nikki and her friend from New Zealand, Bernard from Austria, Alex from Manchester, and Katya from St. Petersburg. Before we could leave, we had to watch Russia defeat the Netherlands in soccer. We were all excited, and the streets were wild with people celebrating. We headed out, yelling and cheering all down the street. I gave three guys high fives as they drove by in a car. We got to the bar, and everyone got their drinks. My stomach was bothering me, so I just got a vodka tonic, which I nursed all night. I didn't want to dance or anything, so I just sat around, talked to Kent, and occasionally the soft-core porn playing on the projector screen would catch my attention. Around 3 or 4, Kent, the New Zealand girls, and I headed back to the hostel. I crashed pretty hard, very fast.
I woke up around 1 the following afternoon, and chilled out for a while until Brian got up. He and I walked around for a while, up and down Невский. Olga then took us on a little tour of the artistic region of the city, which was pretty damn sketchy. One room in this building was filled with about 12 people openly smoking weed. Another was a movie theater. We sat down in a café and had tea and beer. We went to Теремок, the blini place, and had awesome borscht and a blini.
After dinner we headed back to the hostel. We met up with Tanya, Olga's sister. The four of us ended up going to a bar to meet up with Alex. It was pretty fun, but super packed. I wasn't drunk enough to dance, so we just sat around with our beers. We then went to a second club, which was too crowded to merit staying. We went to the third bar, which was next door to the other two. This one was very quiet, with only about 10 people in it. I was telling Olga we needed to get Brian drunk, because he's so funny when he's smashed. Tanya bought us a round of sambuca shots. This was my first time doing a sambuca shot. The way it works is they put three coffee beans in a glass, and put about 2 ounces of sambuca in with the beans. They then light the sambuca on fire, and pour it into another glass. Immediately, they cover the glass with a coaster, and they hold the glass to you while you breathe in the fumes. The sambuca is returned to the original glass, and you drink the shot. Afterwards, the glass is turned upside down on the table, they give you a straw, and you breathe in the fumes again. It gives you such a great boost of energy, it's awesome. I was pretty impressed by the whole thing.
We left the bar moderately early, waved a gypsy taxi down, and we headed back to the hostel.
I woke up the next morning around eleven, and decided I wanted to go to St. Isaac's Cathedral. This massive church has a top deck that you can go out on, and see the whole city. I hopped on the metro and went down to the church. I got in the line to go up, and saw the prices being 150 rubles to go up, plus 30 to take pictures. If you're a student, it's only 100 rubles. I heard the people in front of me, 4 college age students, were speaking American, so I made some quick friends. They were from Chicago, and were spending a week in St. Petersburg. We went up the 288 steps to the top and walked around. I took a lot of pictures, especially since I had already been to pretty much everything in the city. I got to see everything from afar. It was cool. St. Petersburg isn't a tall city—few buildings are more than 3 stories. My new friends and I descended and went to the little park across the square to get some souvenirs. I finally found what I wanted to buy Chayton—a Cheburashka Doll. He's got a bunch of little phrases he says. I'm proud of it.
I had a bottle of water with the Chicago kids, and then left them to join Brian at the little souvenir market. I didn't like the market—way overpriced. Even more expensive than Moscow. I didn't buy anything from them, the bastards! Brian and I walked around a little bit, went to a bookstore, and eventually headed back to the hostel.
We started playing rummy, teaching Kent how to play it. He caught on pretty well. Then we started playing Monopoly, since Olga had just learned how to play it, and really likes it. We played until around 12:45, at which point Brian and I had to head to the train station. We bid everyone farewell, and Olga walked us to the station. She saw us off, and we boarded the train. This time Brian and I were with this middle aged couple. We were extremely uncomfortable. We asked if we could have one side, and them the other, so that we could safely store our stuff under the bottom bed, but they refused. We had to sleep on the top beds, with both of us stiffly hanging onto our passports and wallets. Brian had about 3 ounces of vodka left in his bag, so I took that away from him. After drinking it, I went on to sleep, and was out for the whole night, until we arrived in Moscow.
Tuesday morning, June 24th, We got off the train, went to the metro, and I got off at Библиотека имени Ленина to switch to Арбатъская, where my hostel is. I eventually found my hostel, and checked in. I wish I had taken pictures, because the place was beautiful. It was by far the nicest place I had been in Russia. Especially the bathroom. It was all so nice. When I was there, there really weren't many people there. But I didn't really care, I knew plenty of people in the city, so it wasn't a problem for me. I headed to do the thing I needed to the most--I had to go see the body of Vladimir Lenin.
Lenin's mausoleum is a prominent building in Red Square, but I had never had the opportunity to see his body. It is only open from 10am until 1pm, Tuesday through Thursday, and on the weekends. It was hard for us to get the opportunity to see it, but I was determined to see his body before I left Russia. So as soon as I checked into my hostel in Moscow, I ran down. It was already noon, so I was thinking there was minimal chance of getting in, since the line was exceptionally long. Walking toward the line, this lady stopped me and asked "Excuse me, do you speak English?"
"yeah, English and Russian"
"Do you want to see Lenin? I can get you in without waiting in line. You will not get in if you get in line now."
"Ok, how much" -me
"6 Euros" -lady
"In rubles. I don't do euros or dollars."
"400 rubles" -lady
"No. Too much. I'm a student."
"Ok, 300 rubles."
"Done."
So she walks me away from the line, we do the money exchange, then she walks me to the front of the line, pushes me in front of everyone, and she walks me past the guard. I figured out that she bribes the guard with a cut of her profits to skip people past the line. Anyway, I went in, checked my camera with security, and went into the mausoleum.
Entering the building was terrifying. I was walking ahead of the next person behind me, so I walked into the building, and before me stood three royal guards, standing at perfect attention. As I approached, one gives a small hand gesture to proceed to the left. I turned and headed down an extremely dark stairway. I could barely see the black marble stairs, but I could clearly see the three Royal Guards at the bottom of this stairway. I turned to the right, and headed down another stairway, which also had three perfectly still Royal Guards lit at the bottom of the dark room. I turned to the right, and entered the room where Lenin's body lay. The Russians had done a great job of making this the kind of place where you do not mess around. I knew the rules-no talking, you must keep walking, no hats, NO PICTURES, no phones, nothing. It is such a reverent atmosphere. There are four guards in this room making sure no bullshit occurs. The other guy in the room got yelled at for standing still. I walked very slowly, looking closely at his body. He looks fake. For a man who died in 1924, he looks pretty good. But he looks very fake--all wax. They use wax to preserve his appearance. His left hand lay flat on his lap, while his right is curved into a first. This is because one of his fingers fell off a few years, and they had to make a fake one out of wax. They hide this by having it in a fist. I wanted to find out where I could tell he was seriously decaying, and if you look at the back of his head, against the pillow, his skin is all green and black. Pretty gross! So I left, passed the graves of many soviet leaders, including Stalin, whose grave is literally covered with flowers.
I headed back to the University to grab some lunch, and then tried to figure out how to get my suitcase out of Brian's room. Since Dawny would be going to the airport on Thursday morning in the same taxi as I would be, she said she would hold my big suitcase, so I didn't have to tote it down to the hostel across town. I went and talked to the дeжёрная, where I got all the paperwork I needed to move my suitcase out of the dorm. They are very strict about who moves stuff when. I was hoping it was going to be Clefty, my adorable little guard who looks like he's about 13 years old, cleft lip, and takes his job so seriously it's awesome. Unfortunately, it was another guy, but I knew this one wasn't bad. I passed on through, and stored my stuff in Dawny's room. We hung out for a while, and
I wnet and joined my friend, Dmitri, to go see The Incredible Hulk.....in Russian! It was pretty damn cool. I understood the movie relatively well. Dmitri said to me afterwards: "There was not a lot of dialogue, so I think you could understand most of it." I agreed.
So Dmitri headed up to his room, and it was getting late, so I headed back to the hostel. I was hoping to meet some of my roommates who wanted to go out.
I got to the hostel, and met Will, a New Yorker, who was having a bunch of trouble with his train ticket to Irkutsk. Apparently the people he paid to get the ticket didn't get it, so he was pretty pissed. It was pretty late, and a little too late to do anything about it, but he was very frustrated. I also met these three guys from Brazil, Andre, Daniel, and Eduardo. They wanted to go around, as they had just got into town. They liked that I spoke Russian, since they didn't know a word. We left, and headed toward Red Square. They got some pictures, walked around, I gave them history lessons, and then we headed toward Propaganda. We headed down to Propaganda, and walked toward these five drunk Russian guys. I could smell trouble, and as we passed, one started talking shit to one of the Brazilians. The Russian was getting all in his face, and I moved in between them and told the Russians that my friend doesn't speak any Russian, and the guy then tried to pick a fight with me. I played dumber than I am, and the guy's friends stepped in a pulled him away. We got away from them and went to the door.
Well, it turned out that Propaganda wasn't setting up the club tonight, and was just going to be a bar/restaurant. So we left and went to find another bar. I asked a young guy on the street where a good place was, and he offered to walk us there. We were taken to a place called "Che", named after Che Guevara. Well, face control wouldn't let us in, and so we headed off to find something else. Feeling disheartened, we wound up at this VERY nice little restaurant. It was expensive as hell, but we were desperate, so we stayed. I taught them to drink like Russians, doing the natural Russian toasts first, then any toast you desire. We also smoked a hookah, delicious mint. I spent WAY more money than we needed to, but it was fun, and I'm on vacation, so I was okay with it. We headed to get some food, and went to McDonald's. After eating, we went back to the hostel and crashed around 5:30.
I woke up at 9:30 since I had plans to go to the market one last time with Dawny and Marty. I knew the Brazilians were interested in going to the market and getting some souvenirs, so I wrote out directions for them to get there. I left, and we had lunch at the university. It would be my last lunch there. So sad.
I met up with the ladies, and we headed toward the market. I knew I still had to buy something for my brother, I needed my Moscow flag, a Russia flag for Amy, and some malachite. We spent a couple of hours there, and I ran into my Brazillians and Will there--they were very happy with my directions. I told them I would meet up with them later at the hostel. We finished at the market, and then headed down to Old Arbat, since I hadn't been there yet. Old Arbat is a very historical street, which used to be an old market street. We shopped there, and I was able to buy my flag there. I also picked up a small Russian flag. Dawny picked up a U2 matroshka. From there, we parted ways, and I headed back to my hostel. Dawny and Marty went home to the university, and I bade them farewell for the evening, until we meet again at 7am the next morning for our taxi to the airport.
I went back to the hostel, and met up with the Brazilians, Will, and two new girls, I think from Canada. I am relatively sure they were waiting on me to arrive, to take them out. As soon as I was there, we killed the second bottle of vodka we had purchased the night before, then talked about where we wanted to go. I wanted to go to The Real McCoy, the American 1920s prohibition themed Speakeasy. The girls wanted to go somewhere more Russian, so we decided to try and get into "Che" again. We went, and the girls were kinda bitchy most of the way. I wasn't too crazy about them. When we got to the bar, the bouncer did the same thing he did the previous night--said they were reservation only. The bitchy girls were ready to go home, and so they decided to walk back. I wasn't going to send them into a gypsy taxi by themselves, so we, being the gentlemanly types we are, told them we would walk them back, then head to another club. Well, our livers got the best of us, and they went off alone, and we headed toward the next club--one not too far away that allowed foreigners in for free. We walk a good ways, probably 20 to 30 minutes. We head down a deserted and sketchy street. I guess the Brazilians are from a nice town, because they weren't too comfortable with the quiet, dark street. I've been in Moscow long enough to know that tends to be where the good clubs are. So we get there, and they are closed. Finally, the guys agree to try The Real McCoy. They ask how far it is, and I know it is a LONG walk. I didn't know exactly how far, but I knew it would be quite a long way. I wave a taxi down, and he prices us 300 rubles, but he won't take all five of us, only four. I tell him no, and my friends were wary about a gypsy taxi. They didn't think it would be safe at all. They were discussing it in Portuguese, and finally Eduardo looks at me and asks "Would you get in a car with some guy right now?" I told him as long as one other person gets in there with me, "definitely." That sold the deal for them, and the third car I talked to agreed to let all 5 of us squeeze in for 400 rubles. Sounded good to us, and we were on our way. It ended up taking about 10 to 15 minutes to drive there, which would have SUCKED on foot. It was clear across the city.
We arrive at the bar, and paid the guy off, and we went inside. It wasn't a club, like I was expecting, but rather a totally laid back bar. I walked in and saw two Canadians I knew--Lisa and Charles. We joined them, and started pounding the vodka and beer. It wasn't the good vodka we like, but rather some shitty vodka, so the shots were a little rough. Charles was SUPER wasted by the time we got there, and so that was thoroughly entertaining. Around 4:00, they ended up leaving for the university, and it was just the five of us. We talked and joked around, promising to all see each other again, reunite some time, maybe in Brazil. 5:15 came around, and it was time for the metro to open, and time for Josh to hurry his ass up.
My situation--I had to go back to the hostel, grab my suitcase, and get back on the metro and to the university by 7am to catch my taxi to the airport. Otherwise, I was going to have to find a way of getting there, and pay for it myself.
Well, I was very drunk. I don't remember the metro ride at all.
What I do remember is this: on the escalator down to the train, Eduardo decided to slide down the metal part next to the handrail. As he approached the bottom, he fell off, banged himself up, and busted his head a little bit. He was bleeding from the head a little bit, and I tried to get down to him as quick as possible--by sliding down the handrail. Instead of going down feet first, like Eduardo, I went down sideways, so I could hold on to the rubber handrail and monitor my speed. On the way down, I kept bashing my shoulder on things sticking out of the wall. So we take the train and get to the metro station. Well, I guess I'm not the drunk tour guide I thought I was, because we came out at the wrong station. I knew where we were, but it wasn't close to where we needed to be, and it was already after 6. Eduardo and Daniel went to pee, and I talked to the taxi driver about how much it would cost to run us to the hostel, and then me to the university. He wanted WAY too much money, so I told him no. Meanwhile, Andre and trying to tell me to go on, take a cab, they'll be fine, but I just couldn't leave them like that with no idea how to get home. Finally, we agreed that I would take bleeding Eduardo and Daniel back to the hostel with me in a gypsy, and Andre and Will would have to try and get home on the metro. I wished them the best of luck, and waved a car down. The guy offered 500 rubles for the whole ride--to go the hostel, wait for me to grab my suitcase, then take me to the university. We agreed, and the three of us jumped in and hauled ass to the hostel. We arrive at about 6:45am. I'm getting nervous, and I RUN upstairs to get my stuff. I grab everything I can coherently see, then rush to back to the car. He's still there, and we jump in and go. We talk the whole way, all in Russian, and he is really nice. He felt bad that my friend was hurt, and he knew I had only about 10 minutes to do a 15 minute drive.
Well, the best gypsy cab driver ever got me to the university at 7:01, and I see my friends out front waiting for me. I paid the taxi driver twice what he asked since he saved my ass, and he tried to refuse it, but I forced him to take it. I grab my big suitcase, and we get in the car. I'm so drunk, the ride seemed like about 10 minutes, but was apparently an hour and a half. Dawny said I talked the ENTIRE way, and I had to apologize for that. We got to the airport, and just kinda chilled out for a while. I used this opportunity to store the rest of my souvenirs, and we hung out until Marty had to leave for her flight. We all said bye, and she left. It was just Dawny and I. We grabbed a bite to eat, and waited until it was my time to go. I was called, and we said a quick goodbye, though we were quite sure we'd see each other on the other side of customs---waiting for the actual plane. So I go and face the customs agents, have no problems checking into my flight, and get in line for Passport Control. Dawny comes in a few minutes after me, and I let her skip into my line and stand with me. As soon as she does, I look into the diplomat line. I then saw someone I had totally forgotten about--the 35 year old lady I hooked up with at Karma Bar during my second week in Moscow. I turned immediately away and told Dawny I was NOT turning around! She laughed, we joked about that for a while, then we both passed through security with no problems. We hung around the airport until it was time to pass through security, then into the plane. We both went through, and I could tell I was still a little drunk, but definitely very tired. On the other side, it was time for Dawny and I to say farewell, and we gave our goodbyes, and I boarded the plane.
On the plane, I agreed to change my seat twice so some girls could sit with their friends. I ended up with a window seat next to a young Russian girl, so it was fine. I passed out before the plane left the gate, and woke up at some point during the flight. The flight was, for the most part, fine. I was very tired, slept a few times, woke up for a while, wrote a little of this, slept again, watched some movie, slept some more, and eventually arrived in JFK.
I experienced a strange feeling when I was landing. I had such a feeling of utter contempt for America. I looked out my window, and all I could think of was how much American bullshit I was going to have to deal with--bad drivers, rude selfish people, fat people, laziness, self-centered populace. Everything. I just didn't want to be there at all. It was the most unpatriotic I had ever felt. It was very strange. Never had I felt that before. Sure, I loved Russia, truly loved Russia, but I didn't realize how much until I got back to America.
JFK was JFK. We had to park in a remote location, so we had to take a shuttle to the terminal. Passport control was a breeze, and I grabbed my bag and went to the JetBlue terminal. Well, I was 2 hours too early to check my bag, so I went upstairs and went to the bar. They were playing the Russia Spain futbol game, so I ordered a Bud Light and watched it. Of course, as is my luck, my card was declined, but the French guy next to me was nice enough to pay for it. I watched Russia get its ass handed to them, then went to check in. Afterwards, I went to the JetBlue gate area, found that my card worked in an ATM, grabbed dinner, tried to get online, and fucked around for about 4 hours. The burger I got was delicious, and so was the milkshake, even if it was 13 bucks. What really threw me off was the sales tax. That was mind boggling. I had forgotten all about it.
So board my plane at 9pm, and we had to wait for like 30 minutes for our co-pilot to arrive, then we were off. This consisted of a crying baby in front of me, and a little bastard behind me kicking me chair. It was so bad I had to move over a chair eventually. Luckily, I had all three of my seats to myself. I slept a little on the plane, and waited and waited to get to Jacksonville.
I arrived right on time, grabbed my bags, and about 5 minutes later heard "JOSHIE!" Immediately recognizing Kasey's voice, I was welcomed back by Kasey, Kelly, and Layne. We hopped in the car and Kelly drove us back. I told stories, they updated me on thiings I've missed, and we chatted until we finally got home at 3am. I immediately crashed.
Thus ended my travels. This experience was priceless, and I acquired more from this journey than I had ever done before. I can't wait for the opportunity to arise in which I can return to Russia. I am forever in debt to the people who got me this opportunity. It was, in a word, incredible. Best experience of my life.
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June 15th, 2008
09:32 pm - Travel Log 11
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Friday’s trip to Tolsoy’s estate absolutely wore us out. We got back to the university about 11:30. Everyone was completely worn out, since it was nearly impossible to sleep on that terrible bus ride. Andy, Kim, Amy, and I ended up calling Mike from Titusville, who had been SMS-ing me the way home, wanting to hang out. When we got home, I called him and told him to come on over. He joined us in our sector, and we hung out in my room for a while. Amy was falling asleep all over herself, so about 1am everyone left. I went right to sleep, and had one of the best night’s sleeps I’ve had in Russia.
Saturday, I woke up at 8:15 to go to the market. Because girls are slow, we didn’t end up leaving until about 9:15. We arrived just after 10, and I had to meet with a certain vendor, Ivan, before he sold what I ordered. Ivan is overpriced, but he’s probably the best salesman I’ve ever met. I would buy anything from this guy if he told me to buy it. He is in his early 20s, has a great sense of humor, and knows his shit. I would tell what I bought, but it would ruin the surprise for the people I bought them for. He recognized me immediately, and pulled out my order. I was really happy with them, so I took them and we wandered around the market for the next 5 hours. I bought all the gifts for people I needed to buy. If I go back next weekend, which I probably will, it is shopping for me time! Amy got something pretty cool. She found a Baritone, which is what she plays in the Marching Chiefs. I talked the guy down from 1500 rubles to 1300, and she took it. That girl is in love with it, but will have fun getting it home! I think she’s going to find the UPS place and ship it. I found one thing I had to buy. It was a book from the 1970s of bunch of Disney stories translated into Russian—Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Snow White, etc. I got my reading material for the ride home!
We left around 3:00 and went to Ёлки Палки, this awesome restaurant with excellent prices. Last time there I ate the best ribs I have ever eaten. Yes, better than Sticky Fingers. They're amazing. This time, I wasn't very hungry since I ate this thing at the market, so I got something a lot cheaper. It wasn't good at all. It tasted like bland ground beef. The potatos were good, though. After that, we, in utter exhaustion, stumbled back to the dorm. It's about a 20 minute walk from the Metro station Университет to the dorm, and as tired as we all were, it was a rough walk. I had to do laundry, or else I was freeballing it the next day, so I grabbed my clothes and computer, went down to the internet café downstairs after dropping off my clothes, and got online for a while. When my laundry was done, I packed it all up, and went to my room, where I crashed.
I slept from 6:30 until 9:30. It was, without a doubt, the best nap I have ever taken. I woke up completely refreshed, and ready for some club action!!
We went up to Mike and Ryan's room in Sector B (pronounced like V) for a while for some pregaming. There were a bunch of Canadians in there, and we had a great time. We left about 11:30 for Propganda. We really like that club, as you may can tell! It's like my Bullwinkles! Cheap drinks, fun people, good dancing, hot girls, and Mike was enjoying the boys too!
We got there, and we had 4 guys and only 2 girls. We devised a plan—this was a gay friendly bar. So Mike and I went in together, and the bouncers just let us right through. No problems at all. We told them we were together, and walked right in. The other 4 had gone to McDonalds, and when they got there, they had a little trouble with Face Control. Mike talked to the bouncer for a minute, while I stood outside watching. Eventually they made it in, and off we went. I decided I didn't want to spend a bunch of money, so I was drinking vodka tonics nice and slow. We talked to these two girls who didn't really speak English. Well, Ryan was talking to them, and he needed my help a few times. They were pretty fun, and wanted to go to another club. I was up for it, and Ryan was too, but Amy and Andy said Ryan was way too drunk to leave. He was pretty fucked up. So we told the girls we would leave in an hour, depending on what state Ryan was in. Since we had so many people, I had to sit on the end of the booth of the next table over. Eventually, I ended up talking to Aleksei and his girlfriend……never caught her name, but she was GORGEOUS. We took a few pictures with them. Aleksei's friend was with him, who is training to be the Arm Wrestling Champion of Russia. He was really nice too, but spent the whole night making out with one of the girls I was supposed to go to another club with—the ugly one, so it was ok.
Aleksei bought me and him shots, and we hung out for a long time. My friends and I had decided, just once, we wanted to shut down a club. That meant we were there until 6:00. I danced with Aleksei's girlfriend for a while, and we all talked and joked around until the club eventually closed. Just like America, they just kill the music and turn all the lights on.
We left, and headed toward McDonald's. We love us some McDonald's breakfast! Well, McDonald's was closed, so we stopped at this little diner. I only bought tea, since it was pretty expensive there. One of the girls, the Canadian chick, was passing out, so Andy, Amy, and whoever else was left headed home, with the exception of Mike and I. I drank my tea and we talked to these two girls who were at our club for a while. Most of the conversation was in Russian, with a little English in there. They left, and Mike and I followed after a couple of minutes.
We decided we wanted McDonald's, damn it, so we got off at a Metro station where we knew there was one. It was delicious.
I got back to my dorm at 9:15 this morning, and saw the douchebags in the lobby. They were gathering for class (on Sunday, that sucks). I got to my room and passed out. I woke up at 1:30, grabbed lunch with Jeff, and talked to him for a while.
Now it is about to storm, which I'm pretty excited about. I haven't seen a Russian thunderstorm before, so hopefully it is going to be cool!
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June 14th, 2008
05:30 pm - Travel log 10
Friday, June 13, 2008
Wedneday's trip to the gay club, Propaganda, ended up being a lot of fun. It wasn't technically a gay club, just a gay friendly bar. Russia isn't the most tolerant nation in that respect, but certain clubs are fine with it. So we got ready went to out to the club. It took a litte bit of time for us to get there, but we got there about 11ish. We grabbed a table and some vodka shots. I went with Jenn, Kim, Amy L, Andy, and Mark. We met up with the douchebags from Pennsyvania from our sector, Kelsey, and Lindsey.
I guess I haven't really talked about the douchebags. They are from several schools in and around Pennsylvania. I only know the names of a few, and I only like one of them. His name is Chris, and he's pretty cool. The others just have an air about them, that just reeks of douchebaggery.
So we met them there, but since we aren't fans of the douche, we just went off on our own. We grabbed a table and started hitting the vodka shots. I did a few, got a long island, and had every intention of being inebriated by 1am. About 12:45 I called the office with an international drunk dial, and got to speak to Summer and Niffer. It was a pretty expensive phone call, so it wasn't too long. Afterwards, I drunk dialed my mom, and I just remembered telling her «I'm in Russia and I'm drunk! In a gay bar!» I remember her laughing a lot. It was pretty sweet.
I kept ordering a vodka tonic and a second shot of vodka all night. I hung out with Jenn, Andy, Kim, and Amy most of the night. I met this Russian couple who were pretty cool. The guy wasn't drinking, but his girlfriend was, so Andy named him Mr. Sober. Mr. Sober, drunk girlfriend, and I talked for a while. He spoke excellent English, and she spoke some, so the discussion was switching between the two languages. It was pretty fun. At one point, while Mr. Sober was down at the bar and it was just Drunk Girlfriend and I, Andy came up to give me a lapdance, and I proceeded to try to throw him down the stairs.
As the night wore on, people from our group were filtering out and getting taxis home. I stayed the whole night through, made some conversation with some random people, and ended up leaving with Amy, the douchebags, and Kelsey. We stumbled to the metro, and someone had the brilliant idea—let's go to Red Square and get McDonald's breakfast!
I don't remember much of the metro ride, but I know I slept on Amy. We got to McDonalds, and had some of the best breakfast food I've ever had. Amy got a sweet picture of me sleeping on the sidewalk. We ate our delicious food, then headed back to the metro. After sleeping some more metro ride away, I decided I wanted more food from the street vendor. The douchebags left Amy and I at the stand. Jerks. I was pretty conscious by this point, but since I was as tired as I was, the stumbling was extremely difficult and probably hilarious. 7:30am was a delightful bedtime!
Thursday was a holiday! No class! The holiday was originally called «Independence Day», but then the Russians realized that they weren't really independent from anything. So they changed the name to my preferred title of the day: Day of the Adoption of the Sovereignty of the Russian Federation (I will be calling it DASRF). It was later shorted to Russia Day, or День Россия.
I woke up at 12:45 and joined everyone in the Столовная. After lunch, people wanted to go to sleep, but I convinced Amy, Andy, and Kim to go to Red Square. There was supposed to be a Tatu concert, so they agreed to go. We went to the Square, and there were so many people there. Red Square itself was closed off, and the 120000 militsia were standing around guarding it. Everyone was just chilling out, laying out all over the grass, couples making out, children chasing pidgeons, and just generally enjoying DASRF. We found a spot, and since we were all exhausted, spent about 2 hours laying in the grass. Amy threw a rock and hit me in the head. Three Russians were listening to music on their computer, so we were entertained. Eventually, we decided to head back and get some rest before going out again. Propoganda would again be our destination on this fine DASRF.
Back at the dorm, I slept a very hard nap, which only lasted about two hours. I had really hoped to sleep all day, and waking up at 12:45 was rough. I got up and we all had a shot of vodka before going out. We—Andy, Kim, Amy, Mark, and I—hopped on the metro and headed toward Propaganda. On board, about half the car away from us, was an EXTREMELY drunk man in his 40s or 50s. His wife was trying her best to control him but it was no use. He was harassing the guy next to him, a guy about my age who was with his girlfriend. The wife kept trying to pull Drunky off of the young guy, and Drunky knocked her hand away. We were freaked out, trying not to stare, but we wanted to know what was happening. The metro slowed down for a station, and the young guy and his lady got up and went to the door to get off. Drunky got up, followed them to the door, and pulled out a pocketknife. Safe to say, we were officially scared at this point. It was time to switch to another train, and get away from this man. The door opens, and the young guy slipped out and got off. We ran to the next car back, and sat down. The train started moving again, and we notice that Drunky sees us. He starts walking toward the back of his car, front of ours, and begins trying extremely hard to get the door that connects the trains open. He was trying with all his drunken might to open the door, while yelling something at us. The door fails to open, so he angrily bangs on the glass of the window. I made the executive decision that we were getting off this train, letting Drunky ride on ahead, and we'll just wait for the next one. At the next station, we get off and nearly run up the stairs and out of his sight. After the train doors closed, we slipped back slowly to make sure he hadn't gotten off. To our great pleasure, he had not left the train, and we were safe. Altogether, it was a quite sobering experience. I think we can all agree that first shot of vodka was completely wasted!
So we went on to the club, but since it was so early we stopped at McDonalds and ate. At the door, we were subject to face control. Face control is when the bouncers decide if they are going to let you in strictly based on your appearance. It is not about clothes, but your own face. We find that usually if you have equal numbers of guys and girls, or more girls, there is no problem. This time, however, it was 3 guys and 2 girls. The bouncer told me he would let 4 of us in. We decided to wait a little bit, and after 3 or 4 minutes he said we could go in. Personally, I don't think he liked Mark, since I was paired with Amy and Andy with Kim.
We went in, met up with Tristan and Jenn, grabbed some shots, and decided to give a toast to «Not getting stabbed.» The workers were breaking down the tables to make room for the dance floor, so we moved upstairs, then back downstairs to a booth. I decided I wanted to take it easy this night. The night before I had a really good time and didn't get too drunk, but my liver deserves a beer night every once in a while. I've found that I like Fosters quite a bit. Anyway, we went sat watching the dancing for a long while. These Russians love to dance. I think it is a lot more fun than American dancing, because no one gives a damn what people are doing. Me, I don’t dance until I have a couple of drinks in me, so we just watched. Tristan was being a royal pain in the ass, since she didn't want to be at this club in the first place. She wanted to go to this other club that plays American rock, instead of the techno of Propaganda. We told her we were staying here. «But the other club doesn't have fog!» I like fog! Eventually we lost our seats, so we moved upstairs. It was probably about 1:30 or 2:00, but I was feeling good. I figured beer would wear me out, but I was fine.
There aren't a lot of chairs upstairs. We stood around a table, and this guy at a table by himself offered for us to join him. He looked near my age, and he started talking to us. His name is Peter, 25 years old, and he and I ended up talking for about 3 hours about everything. He works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has met Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Bill Clinton, and a whole slew of other political figures. Peter was with his girlfriend, Caterina, and we hung out just talking.
Tristan had made it her goal to ruin the evening for everyone, and sat at the table sulking. I dealt with this by being very engaged in this conversation. Andy and Kim dealt with it by making out. Jenn had left a while ago, so poor Amy was forced to sit there and deal with Tristan. I felt bad about it later…but I didn't even notice at the time. Around 3:30, Amy, Kim, Andy, Tristan, and Mark decided they wanted to go home. They were drunk and very tired. I felt totally fine and awake, but I told them to go ahead without me, and that I was going to stay with my new friends until the metro opened at 5:30. They grabbed a taxi and went back to the dorms. We kept talking for a while, and Peter convinced me to go out dancing with them somewhere around 4:15. We went down there, and it was pretty fun. I prefer to be a little more intoxicated than I was, but it was fun nonetheless. About 5:15 I told Peter I was going to head out, so we exchanged phone numbers and I was on my way home.
I walked to the metro station, and that one didn't open until 6:30. Damn. So I headed to Red Square, which was only about 500 meters away. Red Square was still blocked off from the events of DASRF, and the militsia wouldn't let me go through to get to the metro. Therefore I had to walk to the only other station I knew of—Tretyakovskaya. It took about 30 minutes to walk there from Red Square. Lucky for me, there was a McDonalds outside the metro station, so I went to order food. I checked out the menu and knew I had just enough money for a sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffin. In line was a very drunk guy of about 27. After thinking about the previous events of when I was around people of that level of sobriety, and considering the fact that I was completely by myself, I bypassed McDonald's and headed onto the metro. The rest of my journey was uneventful, and I got home at 7:30. I stripped down, left my shoes where my roommate would know I am home, and went to bed.
Friday, June 13th, 2008
Kim came to our room at 8:30 to make sure we were awake. My alarm had just gone off, and I was rolling in bed. I hopped up, jumped in the shower, and started getting ready for our 9:30 excursion. I was in mid-shave when Kim came in the room, met Andy on his way out, and said «You guys know we gotta be there in like 10 minutes.» TEN MINUTES?! I should have 40! No, sir! I was under the wrong impression, and we were meeting at 9. I bolted out the door and hauled ass to the bus on the other side of the university. We loaded up and began a very exhausted ride toward Ясная Польяна, the estate of Leo Tolstoy, where he was born, grew up, lived almost all his life, and is buried. This estate is absolutely beautiful and massive. We toured the house, saw Tolstoy's bedroom, dinning room, study—which is also where he was born, and wrote nearly all of his books—and the rest of his house. In his foyer, he has the trophy of this massive deer skull that he killed. Tolstoy was apparently quite the passionate hunter before he became a vegetarian in the 1880s. Everything in the house is exactly as it was when Tolstoy died, and every piece is authentic. The art, the books, his rifles, everything. It wasn't the most impressive house we've been in, but it was very cool to see it exactly as it was in 1910 when he died. We saw the couch he was born on, as well as all 13 of his children. His grave is quite impressive as well. It is located in the middle of the woods, and it is just a small hill. He wanted no headstone, no crosses, no monuments. Just his grave. It was awesome. We went to his favorite bench, the fields he wrote about in War and Peace, the love tree. I have not read a lot of Tolstoy, but it was awesome to see all of this in his home.
We left the estate and am currently heading toward Moscow. It's going to be about a 3 to 4 hour bus ride, and we're about an hour in so far.
Oh, our bus! How could I forget to tell about that? We are on a Mercedes Tour bus. Sounds nice, right? Nope. It is very old, and the whole thing shakes violently. I don't think it has any sort of shock absorbers. It's miserable. Running on an hour of sleep plus the tiny little naps I get in here before being thrown around, I can't wait to get back to my terrible little dorm bed!
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June 11th, 2008
05:50 pm - Travel Log 9
Friday I woke up a little late. At 10:15 my roommate yells at me to get up, and I jump out of bed and am ready to meet the group and leave at 10:45. We meet up with our two tour guides, two Russian students who take us to the metro. We get off at our station, and we walk to the Novodevichy Convent. I was severely annoyed for multiple reasons, the main being that I hate when our tour guides treat us like we are 4 years old and need someone to hold our hand as we cross the street. Anyway, we get there and see the convent. Nothing too special. Some old graves, churches, icons, nuns, a monk, things we’re extremely used to by this point. After about three hours, we finally leave, and they take us to a cemetery that is next door.
This cemetery was freaking sweet! Everything was really closely packed in, and it was a lot of fun trying to see who all we could find. I saw Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, and Boris Yeltsin. There are tons of famous people buried in there. Joseph Stalin’s family is in there, but we couldn’t find their graves. After a while, our tour guides came frantically looking for us. They were deeply concerned that we had gotten lost. This was frustrating, since we definitely know how to get around this city by now.
We get back to the metro, and it’s about 3pm at this point. None of us have had lunch, and so Amanda, Amy, Dan, and I decide to stay in this part of town and find a place to have lunch. I told the tour guides to go on without us, and this caused quite a bit of stress to them. Anyway, we stayed, they left, and we went to this awesome little underground restaurant. It was freaking sweet! For 180 rubles, I got a salad (which ended up being chopped beets, which were awful), kidney and pickle soup, which was surprisingly delicious, a sausage, and buckwheat. For under 8 dollars, it was a great lunch!
We headed back to the school, got online, messed around for a while, and eventually got ready to go out.
We decided we wanted to go out to a club, so I went to the liquor store and picked up some vodka. We all met in the park and drank it. Afterwards, we headed to the metro station where the club Свалка is located. The bar translates into «Dump», and it's a wasteland themed club, with junk cars and fake garbage as the décor. We spent about 2 hours searching for the club, and finally gave up. We tried some other bar, but after seeing the prices on the menus, and refusing to pay 10 to 15 dollars a drink, we did the walk of shame out of there.
I was really annoyed with several people with us, one girl in particular. I had the directions, and I had the address. I google mapped it, and so I had a general idea of where it was. However, the directions were very unspecific, and I made sure everyone knew that we were going to try to find the place. So the one girl is in the back, and making comments the whole time about me not knowing where we were doing. I nearly snapped at her, but I kept my calm. I was just annoyed that after making it clear that I wasn't sure about where we were going, I was still being condemned for making her walk around. Go home!
Anyway, eventually we gave up and went back. It was after 1am, and the metro was closing soon. So, defeated, we went back to the dorm.
Saturday was nothing short of an adventure. I had decided I would go to the рынок with Andy, Amy, Jenn, Kim, and Tristan. We ended up meeting a two guys named Ryan and Mike. They are both here with a group from Canada, though Mike is from Titusville, Florida. We hung out for a long while, and Ryan ended up having to leave, so Mike joined us, and we headed to the market. First, we decided to go to Red Square, since I had to try to refund my Aeroflot ticket since I'm not going to Japan anymore. So I left the group on the metro and went to my station. I found the office with relatively little trouble, and stood in line for about an hour and fifteen minutes. Once they called my number, I sat down with the lady, and did a pretty good job of getting my point across. The lady next to our booth spoke English, and she explained that I had to give this paper to my travel agent in America to get my refund. I got everything I needed, and went to join everyone at the market. I found them relatively quickly, and we did some shopping for a couple of hours. I got some gifts and some things for myself, then we all headed back to the school.
We had more plans to find another club, this time starting a little earlier. Well, it was Kelsey's birthday, but she had been sick for a couple of days. We decided, however, that if she is feeling well enough, that we would go celebrate her birthday with her. She was filled with life back in the dorm, and the plan was to go to this club called «Fabrique». It was supposed to be a very nice club, with strict entrance policy, so we all dressed up. It was Amy, Amanda, other Amy, Kelsey, Lindsay, John, Mike, Brian, James, and I. The others decided they didn't have enough nice clothes to go to this club, so they went elsewhere. We get there after a long period of trying to find the place, and we go in.
It was the nicest place I have ever been. The upper floor had tables, and we found the upstairs bar. It was outside, in this little courtyard. The drinks were damn expensive, so I only wanted to do shots of vodka. The mixers in this country make drinks cost too much, since everything is bottled. Nothing on tap, except beer in some places on draught. We did a birthday shot for Kelsey, and we wandered around. There was a staircase with red leather walls that headed down to the dance floor. The dance floor had these bright and shiny things all hanging from the ceiling, and there were lots of people dancing. My favorite was this moderately buff dude who was just out there dancing by himself. It reminded me of the Dane Cook quote «You never hear of guys wanting to just go dancing! : Hey Mike! Fuck girls tonight, I just want to dance!» He was cracking us all up. I was drinking my gin and tonic that Brian topped off with his vodka he snuck in. Amy and I decided to go do another shot together, and things got a little fuzzy at that point. Amy agreed to write out the rest of my travel log from Saturday night, since she remembers everything.
Sunday
So we got back to the dorm around 7am, and I went to bed. I woke up at 3:30 and found out all the events of the night before, including headbutting Amanda, the 1000 ruble drink, and all sorts of other antics. It sounded like a hell of a night to me!
Since we all spent way too much money the night before, our wallets were hurting pretty bad. We stayed in, ate in the cafeteria, went to the internet café, but mostly just hung out around the dorm. It was a pretty fun day, surprisingly. Andy, Kim, and I did take a walk down to Crapdogs for some hotdogs, where we were accosted by homeless people.
The first one was an elderly lady, head all wrapped in a scarf, with black teeth. She came over wanting money, but I told Kim to not speak any Russian. She came over and said «денги, денги, денги!», and I looked at her, shrugged, and said «No Russki!» We let Andy talk to her in Russian, since he just started learning it on this trip. She then said «Money» and we were like «OH». Andy told her we were students, and I told her (in English) that I spent it all. She then said something and was gesturing during the trees, so she and I played charades, where it was my goal to fail.
Trees!
Mustache!
Black! Black! Black!
Armageddon! (Not kidding about this one, she actually said it)
After that she walked off, and we had a good laugh. We decided she must be a prophet, telling us about the end of the world. We decided we didn't feel bad about giving her nothing, since she world was about to end, she had more pressing matters than food.
The next one came when we went to the Blini stand. I wasn't buying one, but Andy and Kim wanted a chocolate one. The second homeless lady came over, this one tiny with a weird eye. She spoke to me in Russian, and I said «No Russki!». This didn't work out so well, since she then started talking to me in English. I was like «SHIT!» She said she was homeeress and needed money. I gave her like 5 rubles to get rid of her. She walked off, and the prophet came back. Andy had just gotten his blini, and the prophet looked at him, and make a guesture that she wanted a bite. He told her НЕТ! And we walked off. We joked the whole way home, and went back to Kim's room to hang out for the rest of the night. It was pretty fun.
Monday I woke up, went to class, and came home and took a nice long nap—like 3 hours. Afterwards, I met up with Andy and we went to the internet café. We made plans to go to a random metro station and try to find food. Well, the whiny ass girl from earlier came, and it was quite annoying. We ended up meeting some older friends who Andy had met earlier that day, and convinced them to join us. They just got in yesterday, and were quite jetlagged, but still wanted to join us. We eventually ended up at a restaurant called Ёлки Палки, which used to be an offensive exclaimation about 200 years ago, but now it's a restaurant chain. For 460 rubles, I got the best, and I mean the BEST, ribs I have ever eaten, french fries, a shot of vodka, and a Pepsi. Not bad, and it was delicious. The place was really cool too, with the waitresses in traditional Russian dresses, everything inside was wood, and the grill is in the center of the resturant.
After dinner, Andy, Kim, and I parted ways with everyone else, and we joined Mike and Ryan. We went for a little walk through Red Square, got rained on, and went to McDonalds. We ate, then headed back to the school.
I went to bed at 2am, but it's quarter until 5 now and I still can't sleep. Too bad the sun is rising and it is completely bright outside. Tomorrow (today) is going to suck!
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
So, I was right, class was a little rough. I went back to my room after my nap and absolutely crashed. Slept a good 3 hours, then my roommate got me up. We headed to Café Max, the internet café. We ended up staying for 1.5 hours, and then headed down for food. We didn't see the prophet, and I was a little saddened by this. We saw the language scholar, but we walked right past her. We had Crapdogs, and then went home. We were meeting everyone at 730 to go to a restaurant called MooMoo. We had heard it was good and cheap, so we went to check it out.
We walked forever and finally got there. It reminded me of Piccadilly's, where you go through a line and get whatever you want, and take it to a table. I got pork ribs and this TERRIBLE salad, consisting mostly of mushrooms. It was horrible. Afterwards, we went to Red Square to take some pictures of St. Basil's. I already had several, so Mike and I went back to the school.
I got home, wrote some postcards, did homework, and went to bed.
Wednesday, June 10, 2008
After class, I went back to my room and took a 45 minute nap, then went to Art class. Immediately afterwards, it was nap time again. When I woke up, we headed to the internet café in the school. I'm here now, drinking hot tea, and I ate this terrible little salad. Tonight, gay club. Should be interesting.
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June 5th, 2008
02:46 pm - Travel Log 8! Problem and solution!
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
It has been quite a taxing couple of days. I don’t think I have ever experienced anything as damning as being stuck with no access to my money. Monday’s adventures of wandering around, bank to bank, with everyone telling me that I was screwed was horrible. Even Citibank said no, and that lady spoke English and understood my situation completely. When I left there, I knew that I was fucked. I definitely had tears in my eyes walking to the metro. It was such a feeling of complete failure and desolation. I can always immediately handle whatever situation comes my way, in one way or another. I am very capable of finding a solution, no matter what. But in this case, I was completely out of options. There was nothing I could do, and worse, all possibly solutions were entirely out of my control. I was forced to rely completely on other people, no, companies, to get something done.
In the mean time, I have been forced to borrow money from other people. That has been equally horrible. I hate being in debt; I hate the idea of lending friends money, and even more borrowing from friends. It just never ends well. I’ve been trying to do it as minimally as possible, which is why I didn’t eat anything Monday. Tuesday, for dinner, I cleaned up everyone’s plates. I let Amy buy my dinner today, and I had a little left over from what Andy gave me to buy my lunch today.
What really upset me was that I borrowed 100 rubles from one girl. I said I needed it for food, but I spent it on putting it on my phone so I could try and get this taken care of. Today at lunch, she asked me if I had her 100 rubles to pay her back. Of course I didn’t, I wanted to snap at her. She knows my situation and how hard this is for me, and it just make me really upset when she asked that.
Of course, Visa swore my card would be in my hand today. It never showed up. I got the tracking number and phone number for their Moscow office, and I’m calling them at 8:30 tomorrow morning, the minute they open. I’m also skipping class to go get this taken care of, because I think this is slightly more urgent. I also decided I wasn’t borrowing from anyone else until it was done. Hopefully this will all be behind me tomorrow.
I joined the group at the English Pub tonight, just because I needed to get out of the dorm. It sucked being in a bar and not having a drink, but I finished Amy’s beer for her, and it was wonderful.
I can’t wait to be able to buy alcohol.
Sorry this entry wasn’t as much fun as they usually are, but I kind of wanted to get this out.
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
2:42 pm
I FINALLY got my card today! I called UPS this morning and was told the delivery guy would be here between 1 and 2pm. I waited in the lobby of my dorm, where it would be delivered, and at 2:10 it came!!
I’m on cloud 9, and it is time to spend some MONEY!
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