Ring down the days...

Time is flying by, this last week is going to be a blur. I've resigned myself to do two more "cultural" things: one more day at the Hermitage, 3rd floor this time, and then a trip to the siege memorial that sits in the giant round on Moskovsky Prospect. The museum is underground, under the giant memorial, and easily accessable by the metro. At this point I've less than 3 days left in Russia.

Last night's concert was good, but strange. Let me explain, when seeing a show in the bay area I expect to be swimming through a cloud of pot, regardless of the act, this is just a fact of life when going to see shows back home. There wasn't a trace or hint of pot anywhere in the ice palace. The concert was undersold, which I didn't mind, we were like 20 feet from the stage and could see the wrinkles on his face. Steve Stevens, his guitar player, is a legend, and has two solo albums that I'm going to pick up when I get home. Stevens played a solo bit when Idol went off stage that started with flamenco, dropped into classical, moved into heavy metal, back to flamenca back to classical and ended with stairway to heaven, all on acoustic guitar. Yeah, he's god-like. The only drawback of the show was, well my right ear hasn't stopped ringing, I think I did some damage. Some of the solos during the 15 minute rendition and finale of mony mony hurt, they were amazing to watch, but they hurt, or rather my ear is hurting because of them now.

After the show, we tired, and battle hardened few, Tanya had to leave during the show, some emergency, we lost her as she went to smoke and we rushed in when the lights went to black, Katia went home after depositing us off at Nevsky Prospect metro station, Ryan, James and I wandered to the office pub where we met Sam Lipsyte and Peter Gizzi. I spent a long time talking to Peter about various things, observations, the city, my work, his work on the Spicer Collections, as he's "the spicer guy" now. It was a good and easily flowing chatter. He eventually bid us all goodnight and I found myself heading for the beer garden, slightly drunk, only to get slightly more drunk with the beer garden gang. I really didn't have that much to drink, like three or four beers and 2 shots of vodka, that's like breakfast here, I think it was the sheer elation mixed with fatigue that lowered my normally superhuman tolerance, and caused me to feel quite "gawn".

So today I went back to the art bazar to haggle for a painting, but the guy that I was looking for wasn't there, he probably was running late. Tom and I went and had a quick bite, went back to the bazar to see if he had arrived, no dice, so we headed to the Gribojedeva Canal and bought nice eurotrash jeans, comfy I might add.

Now I'm gearing up to go to the Banya, just a select and elite troop of people to getsome heat and hopefully relax the tension of leaving, of packing, of the goodbyes and the forthcoming helos... or something like that. A little more shopping to do, one more party to attend, at someone's Datcha, outside the city, Sveta's mom's friend has offered up her place for a staff get together that may or may not go down, if it does, I'll hate life, cause its thursday night and we'll be getting back just about the time I have to be stepping outside to meet my cab to the airport, so, as always, till the last minute, till the last breath of this foul air, rage, rage against the coming of faux freedom back home.