Somehwere in headacheville

It wasn't the beluga, or the sevruga, or the ostreiga, or the russian standard platinum with beef tongue salad and pickled herring, no, it definately wasn't any of htat, it was the beer afterall. Shit... but I'll get to that later.

I started a post the day before, a rather lengthy one, that vanished, like tears in rain, when I tried to post. This wireless line in the hostel is as much a curse when you try and rely on it, as it is a blessing if and when it actually chooses to work. So I think it was this past Sunday when I went to Peterhoff with my folks. I was the other liason along with Sasha, who took the tour group from the program to Peterhoff. I was somewhat excited to go down there as I'd never quite been able to make it inside the castle which was destroyed and brought to complete ruin during WWII. The russian government, having saved as much of the interior pieces, art, tapestry, wall paper and hand carved oak panels from the library, used these basic materials to rebuild it and the gravity fountains all along the spill way that drains into the bay of finland. The castle's interior is a hodge podge of blue silk wallpaper, turkish motifs, chinese opium themed dens with rich lacquered paints, a room with 365 portraits of women meant to show off all the styles of the day and Peter the Great's original Oak Study. The castle is known as the versailles of Russia, albeit much smaller.

Now some of the frustrations: american travellers, in the bathroom, I over heard "this shit is so gaudy! they love that gaudy shit don't they?" I wanted to turn to the black knee highed and shorted speaker and screamm "well what would you call vegas you inbreader?!" But i didn't, I just wished that he would fall into the bay of finland and vanish from this planet leaving the tour groups to get in just a bit smaller. The palace gardens are my favorite, walking amonth the various sprays of water, and the long tree lined pathways out to the ocean is a treat, even if you're sharing it with tens of thousands of other people.

Finally, after a bite to eat, a little more wandering, it was time to head back, and this is when I totally felt like crap, well, most of the day was an uphill battle. I had only slept 2 hours the night before. I can hardly, at this point, remember what the hell we were doing that kept me up to the wee hours of the morning, oh wait, I remember now, we were saying goodbye to Nathan. He left back to New York on Sunday morning. Nathan recently got a jo as an editor at the rolling stone and as such couldn't stay for more than a week. It was sad to say goodbye, but hey, I'll see him in the big apple for sure. At the very least, I got to speak to his wife, Kelly McEvers of NPR broadcasting fame, on the phone. She was in Armenia, a little incapacittated by the local cognac, can't blame here, that's good stuff.

When the bus pulled into our final destination back at number 6 Kazanskaya, Sasha gently woke me up and I felt a wave of diziness come over me. I warbled, said goodbye to the folks and then headed back to the hostel to get some shut eye. This plan worked out, I went to bed and slept for 6 hours. I woke around 11 at night, changed my sweat soaked shirt, have I mentioned this is the hottest year I've seen here? Its only rained once since I arrived, its in the low 80s right now and muggy as all hell. Tomorrow will be hotter, and then friday about the same as today, with some cooling and rain, finally, on saturday. That'll be nice to get the contrast to this blazing sun. I'm very much missing my Richmond fog bank... can someone please send me some fog from back home? So it was off to dinner at Fasol around the corner (fasol, in Russian means bean, like a kidney bean). Albeit the name of the restaurant is somewhat provinncial, evoking something of the heartiness of country food, its anything but. The menu is eclectic and the kitchen serves everything from russian fare to sushi and Italian. I settled for a soup with cabbage and duck and for the main course it was all about roast liver and potatoes, a pot of mint tea (which I'm thinking about now) rounded out the experience. Seems to be a favorite of the young and hip, I notced that the waitress from Kafe Haus on Nevsky was eating sushi there, her mass of blonde tight curls pulled back, and the somewhat cheerful expression she had when she brought Mariya and I our cherry strudel, was replaced with a look of concentration.

The rest of the night was supposed to be an alcohol free kind of experience. I had planned on hanging out at the hotel, avoiding my cell phone and generally doing little of anything, well these plans went south just as I sat down to edit my manuscript a bit... in comes Tom with a sack of beers and a bottle of vodka. We drank and talked till four in the morning at which point he lifted himself and sauntered off to bed. I was glad for the company, but more glad for being able to fall asleep. I managed another five hours, starting around 5 or 6 in the morning.

The next day, hm... Monday... there was an open mic reading at the mayakovsky that I mc'ed. After the reading I took a large group of participants to Uzbeki. The belly dancer, of my, she turned some heads and I watched as certain eyes shrank and slightly dialated to the rhythm of her girating hips. I, a veteran of caravan sarai, was equally moved, butt I think I just had way to much fun watching the newly initated succumb to her charms. Ofcourse Tony had to go and ruin it, that little shit. The dance is one of seduction, its a beautiful thing to watch, its not a fucken strip tease! When she came up around him, he stood from his chair and began to freak her waist, as he barely comes up past it. We all yelled for him to sit down. I really wish he hadn't have gone with us, I would've been ar happier without him there.

So after dinner I made my way back to the hotel to drop off gear (camera), and suit up like some cowboy for "the night watch". Jenya met me at the gribojedeva canal where we set out for Avla Bar and an eventual loop to datcha. There was a small band of merry SLSers watching a match on the wall that was being fed by a projector from the back of the open air seating. We sat and talked, when Tanya came up, I took her by the hand and we went to Datcha for a quick peak in to see which of our less than bright participants went to try and score with wasted russian. The joint, it and Fidel's, were empty. On the way back I told her that I had lost a contingent, two people, on the walk back from uzbeki. They chose to go to Purgo (purgatorio) a bar where every night is new year's eve somewhere on the Fontanka. I haven't been there yet, nor do I realy have a desire to see it. I handed her the remained of my cigarettes and sent her on a mission to fish Tony and Uday out from purgatario. She truly is an angel that way, she is she is she is.

Mission successful, and after another bottle of water, Tom had the bright idea that maybe "we" he Stacy, Jenya and I, should go to Datch for a quick vodka, a dance or two, and then we can split while its early. Well guess what, not happening... no the leaving early part at least. We did have that vodka, then another, then we were dancing, as Swafford arrived with nancy and wendy, to the B52s and Jet, along with something other... that I can't remember. Jenya and I stopped after two shots and a few dances. Wendy was already 6 sheets to the wind when she arrived, and wound up dancing on a table, a low table mind you, but the ceiling isn't that high and she stands at 6'1" without heels, so you get the picture. After a while Jenya began to feel guilty that we were shirking our responsibility, I didn't think so, we were preempting what I knew would happen that night, everyone would wind up at datcha and fidel's. This did come to pass mind you. We left Datch and went for a walk holding hands and walking very close to pretend we're a couple. The cops are less likely to stop you if you engage in something like that, they were driving by in groups of 2 and four every five minutes, looking to get paid. This is something I detest about this country, really I do. We cleared the guantlet, get to the beer garden, that we received an SMS message about was a haven for some participants and no one is there. We walk down Kazanskaya to check The Office, its empty too, and then we see, as we're approaching, a group of our participants heading toward Datcha... AHA! They run away from us, namely Tony, when I call his name, I really was thinking evil things at this point, cool man cool... as he always says. We caught up with them onthe griffon bridge, the same one we told them to stay the fuck off of at night. They were hanging out, granted there were six of them, its stupid, to hang out on the bridge, yet there they were. How you like them apples? Jenya and I shoed them off the bride, went back to Datcha and began a long night of standing between Fidel's and Datcha, watching them run back and forth until I finally through in the towel around four thirty in the morning. I called Parker and said that three morons were left and they weren't leaving despite my best efforts to offer them trips of safe passage back along with meals. "Fuck em" was our general thought at that point. Jenya and I went to Laima with Morgon, also drunk, shushing him when cops drove by so they wouldn't hear his English while she and I bantered in Russian. He couldn't have been more looking like a foreigner if he tried, white shorts, an orange polo shirt, and a timbuktu bag... hello... oh but I forgot to tell you the best part... I took Wendy back to the Astoria.. its one of the 2 most expensive hotels in St. petersburg, and yes she has money... she was hammered and falling down in Datcha. One of my three problem children thinks he's being a gentleman by getting her a cab and sending her off in it alone. I see Dannny walking her out on the street, still wearing that black dress she wore to the opera earlier that night. I take hold of the situation, tell jenya I'll be back in 15 and tell Danny to fuck off as he's a moron thinking he can put her in a cab alone in this condition. After like 2 seconds of holding my arm out, a cab stops, says he wants 200 rubles for a round trip. I'm still feeling cheap, even though wendy's purse is stuffed with 1000 ruble notes, I get him down to 150, throw her in the back and off we go.

So the cabby asks me as we hit the Gribojedeva canal "Brother, you wouldn't happen to be rich in cigarettes?" I say yes to him in Russian and hand him 2, one for the way there and another for the way back. He laughs, thanks me and then picks up speed as we round Garoxiva... The Astoria comes into sight as St. Isaac's massive dome dominates the sky around the next bend. Its right across from the plaza of St. Isaacs, and is guarded by suited bell hops and guards, just like any other hotel that is filled nightly with business men, high end hookers and has free porn in every room. Wendy later told us it was almost exclusively man on woman anal. Go figure, a place for travelling business where prices are in Euro, like he grand hotel Europa on Nevsky, and they get that to boot. But I digress... the cabby looks at me and asks me where I'm from after I send Wendy into the lobby unharmed, but just slightly humiliated, and sans her 6k wedding ring, which I found out later that night, was given to Stacy, who later returned it to Wendy. I tell him that I'm from "sa-she-ah" or the USA, he laughs and asks me if all American women drink that way. I tell him no, only the memorable ones, he laughs again... and then tells me that there's a large population of Armenians in LA and that they are calling it Los Armenianos... I laughed, a lot, and then told him that my brother's wedding took place at an Armenian joint... so the legend was true.

That was that, went to bed around half past five in the morning, woke up around 10 to meet dad. The old man really wanted to go to Banya with me one more time, to really show me what it was like, just the two of us, without all the participants that came with last time. It was, in a word, something knocked me on my ass so quickly that I didn't see it coming. The purpose of banya is to penetrate the bone and organ substrate of the body with heat using the leafy brooms. If done incorectly you can burn the person receiving the bana, if done right, you feel as if you've been reborn. 3 times, that's all I could take before my head started getting a litle spinny, but not unpleasantly. 3 times, that's enough for a first go. There was another guy, with longish hair, in that Russian Orthodox style, could've been a priest for all i know, who arrived to be worked over from what I can only assume was a professional "parilchik". This guy had 6 brooms, wore clothing inside the 150 degree, celsius folks, "parilka" and had this guy on sweating left and right. He was a bright red before we left, and he wasn't done.

After banya it was back to meet mom at a georgian place where the sleepies hit me in a big way, they both laghed and after an earlyd dinner I went back to the hostel and lay down for a 2 hour nap. After the nap, refreshed, I rose and took a group of people over to the mayakovsky for a reading by Padget Powell & Jonathan Dee. Powell, well hell, he just rocks! His reading voice is too much... just too damn much.

After the reading there was the usual gathering and banter outside the library over where to go and what to do. I was definately not on night duty so I was left to my own devices. Wendy comes up to me with Stacy and Tom and says lets quietly sneak off, I'm going to treat you, for rescueing me... and so the four of us make our way to the grand hotel europa for what turns into a very expensive course of apetizers in the form of black caviar, herring, most of a liter of Russian Standard Platinum vodka, creme brule and the beef tongue "olivye". WOW! We all laughed heartily, I wasn't surprised to learn Wenndy was quite wealthy and lived on the upper east side in manhattan...so I didn't feel bad about letting her pay, quite the contrary, it was great, as I'd never shell out that much money for something that to me, is good, but way over priced, however, the experience of not one but multiple waiters standing hand and foot, at your every blink, is awesome.

After the caviar bar it was off to beer garden, where wendy bid us goodbye, a few pints, and friends later, I was charged with the purchase of beer for the mini hotel party to end all parties. I won't go into details, but here's the rub: tom is leaving today around 6pm on a train to moscow, he'll be back next wednesday while I'm in Brusels, for Cushman's wedding, the bachelor party is on Sunday, lord have mercy on our souls! To make things more complex, he's sprung, in a big way, and it breaks my heart to see a case of bad timing ruin this thing, cause she is too, but she has a thing back home, I really feel for the guy, its really making him miserable, as he's so in to her... so it was one last hoorah with american music and 30 some odd of our closest friends in the mini hotel with more beer than I can cout... yeah, this was the biggest, I have pics, they're all ugly and sorted kind of pale faced shaky cam daugerotypes, but man, was it a blast... that's where the headache is from... it sucks, but after writing this massive post, I can feel it starting to wear off. I'm going to put on the sunglasses and head to Zoom for a spot to eat, then to find Tom to say goodbye, and then my parents to also say goodbye as they leave for Samara (on the Kazakstann border, or near it) tomorrow...

shislivo!