Mother Russia Has Gone Shopping

- Brad and me outside the Studencheski Cafe in St. Petersburg. Daiken - I hope your ears were burning, because we had a piva for you while there:)

- Fond Memories of the Hotel Anglaterre... - Check out this prime example of the man-purse! - Beer with Danika, myself, Brad and our friends Nicolas, and Mila - Ad for Rolex the size of a football field or 6 - This car is actually parked here. It's not moving. The driver is long gone. The car is parked half on the sidewalk...

Hello faithful readers, Please forgive the ever so long delay since my last update to this Beautific Blog. My excuse is that I got kiddnapped by leprecauns in St. Petersburg and was taken to their leader in Guatemala where I was supposed to make baskets all day. However, I soon realized that if I allowed my captors to carry out this dasterdly plan that I would never be able to keep in touch with you all. So I devised a daring escape plan involving rope, leaves from the Guatamalen Chew-Chew tree and a pet monkey, and I ran away from my leprecaun captors. Now I am back on track and I hope not to get get kidnapped in such a way again, so I don't take so long between this update and the next....

Now, onto the real stuff.

My last blog left you all in Volgograd. After having lots o' fun drinking over breakfast and dancing up a storm at the wedding, we hopped a surprisingly comfortable Aeroflot flight back to Moscow. We spent a couple of day sightseeeing there, and then moved on to the ever so lovely St. Petersburg. In Petersburg we went to the Hermitage (a few photos of some of the most incredible pieces of art are included on the next Blog Update - please look closely at the picuture of Faust because just above his head you can just make out a devil figure - sooooo incredible).

Lindz - just for you I climbed all 280 steps up St Isaac's cathedral to the very top so I could take a photo of the Hotel Anglaterre:) To recover from the long climb, I had a relaxing beer and coffee at my absolute, most totally, favourite bar/pub in the world - Cafe Idiot - they give you a free shot of vodka with your order. A highly endearing habit, I would say! I highly recommend that everyone goes to Cafe Idiot at least once in their lives.

Here is a list of my observations of Modern Russia based on this, most recent, visit.

1) Capitalism comes to Russia

You can shop like in North America now - you can walk around a store and touch the goods and read the price tags. You don't have to look at the items behind glass cases and ask a mean and unfriendly clerk to help you. However, Russians like to do things on a large scale. So when they decided to run with this whole fun concept of capitalism they went full out. Please notice the photo above of the Rolex Adverisement. This ad is located immediately at the Entrance of Red Square, a mere hundred or so metres from Lenin's Mausoleum. It is at LEAST a football field in length! Ads like this are everywhere.

2) Mother Russia Has Gone Shopping.

My previous theory regarding Mother Russia, was that she was a bitch with a bad sense of humour. This was because she kept doing mean things to me while I lived there. Now, however, things have changed. I don't think she has become nicer; however, she is conspicuously absent from her old haunts. She barely thwarted us on this trip at all. I think the reason for this is that she has joined the booming middle class in Russia and has gone to the massive IKEA outlet (seriously, this shop is so big a whole normal sized mall would fit inside) on the outskirts of Moscow.

3) And yet...Russia is still a bit odd.

The women are all beautiful and were short skirts and high heels everywhere and anywhere. The men are still not-so-beautiful and wear man-purses. Not a plastic bag or a briefcase, but acutal man-purses - see photo above. The men for some reason are also really, really fond of the mullet. It is making a huge comeback in Moscow. We even has a Mullet-Faux-Hawk Sighting one day!

That's it for Russia.

Now on to Norway.

TK