Broken Locks, Bar Fights and Hijacking Internet... this is Russia!

Well, this won't be terribly long, not that anyone wants to listen to my drunken ramblings anyway? Wait? Did I say drunken? No, not quite yet, but it's in the mail for sure. Tonight is our first boat ride and as I've said in the past, it's one of my absolute favorite things to do in this city. I'm not sure if Igor will be on the boat, he already felt my biceps to see if I was lifting waits during the year in hopes of toppling the mighty Russian, little does he know of my climbing endeavors. Then again, he's younger and quicker, bastards... "starast ne radast" as the saying goes in Russia.

So I'm not going to sit here and type out quite everything that has transpired since my less than glorious arrival to St. Petersburg through Munich after missing my connection in London. Let's just say it was a bloody long trip, however, this was the easiest time ever dealing with passport control, and cutest I might add. She just stamped my migration form and passport and sent me on my way, done. The trouble began then. Did I say trouble?

My luggage arrived almost 3 days after I did. I did laundry in the shower while I washed the grime from a full day of travel then hung my quick drying REI shirt to demoisten in the breaze of white nights. We've had a good day here, maybe two, there was some wind and today it's been raining most of the day. The weather is supposed to be wet on and off all week. This means two things: 1) less opportunity for pictures and an absolute necessity for the banya 2) when there is an opportunity, with the way that the wind blows these arctic storms around, there should be some really dramatic cloud scapes for some nice HDR stuff... wooo hooo...

Sergei, remember him? My young driver with the fantastic stories, the Mario Andretski of ST. Pete's is off to do some kind of military training. He actually told Katia he wanted to go on a tour around St. Pete's with me again, I would've happily paid him double this time and spent a couple more hours driving around with him. He's a totally sweet kid, he'll be back on the weekend, I might hit him up this coming weekend or maybe the weekend before I leave for a little bit of his time... hopefully the weather will cooperate.

So let me see, in summation, it's been rough, a couple 5 am kind of nights filled with friends I've missed terribly over the year, some really good conversations, catching up with Olmstead who I haven't seen since my 1st year here as a student, late nights/early mornings in the beer garden, a bottle of whiskey while waiting for lock smiths to break into my room as the lock in my door at the hostel stopped working. I tell you, it was ironic that just after I get my suitcase, change, spend less than 12 hours with the joy of clean clothing and stuff, I get locked out the minute that Boobar arrives and I'm taking him to our den of iniquity that we've inhabited for the past 2 years. JD is staying here in the mini hotel with me, it's really great to have a friend here from the bay area, just a nice touch from home. Poor guy isn't able to withdraw cash from his ATM his credit union says no dice in Russia, so he's been taking out a marker from the bank of len.

Yes, so last night there was a bar fight, not clear on the details, someone spilled a beer and one of our folks got punched. First time in the history of SLS, 9 years strong that it happened. An open fight in a bar can happen in any country, I suppose this might color your opinion of the locals, but let's face it, I don't care if you're from tibet or from timbuktu, drunk is drunk is drunk. It was resolved quickly and we ushered our guy to the hotel and I was able to rustle up a bag of ice to replace the ice cream msandwhiches that were applied to his very bloody nose which left a clear trail for me to follow through the inn to his room on the 4th floor. Poor sod...

Alright, the combination of Indonesian food, vodka and beer made me sleepy and I lay down for a spell but I just stared at the ceiling thinking if I fall asleep I will completely miss the boat and or feel like crap from when I wake up to catch the boat... so with that, I'm waiting for the camera battery to charge and then I'm off to the store for bottles and bottles of beer for the boat to go with the cuban cigars that Tom is bringing... STOGIES!

Shislivo vsem... more very soon now that I've hijacked another working internet connection that's fast enough to post pictures on... go check em out.