Bad Decision Making

Well a lot has certainly happened since the last time
I wrote an email, it’s Wednesday and I just finished
my second to last final, really I feel guilty about
getting credit for this, but whatever. The last thing
I had done when we talked was go to the Baltika
factory right? Well I guess my story starts there,
Thursday we had to return to the Baltika Brewery
because of course the gift shop wasn’t open when we
went (apparently it closes during the weekends, yeah I
know a little absurd) so we returned so we could get
some hats and shirts, well it turns out that there are
2 different gift shops, one that you can go in if
you’ve been on the tour and one for the general
public, the one for the general public is really just
a discount beer store with a couple of hats and
ashtrays, well after about an half hour of arguing
that we’d already been to the tour and wanted to buy
t-shirts etc. (Jarrod kept yelling that he’d spend a
thousand doobers at least in the shop) they inform us
that the shop actually just closed about 3 minutes
ago, well in a case like this there is only one thing
left to do, we walked back to the public gift shop
bought beers and sat in the lobby, asking every 15
minutes a new face whether they wouldn’t just get us
some t-shirts, we’d give them 500 doobers. Finally a
women comes out with 4 t-shirts says “take them
they’re free” and left, well needless o say we
defeated Russian bureaucracy and were thrilled.
However all this was soon to be forgotten, we came
home and decided to enjoy a wonderful day, we sat on
the lawn, made dinner, generally had a nice time. So
around 12 o clock it isn’t really unnatural to find a
group of people sitting on a windowsill enjoying the
sunset, everyone does it, it isn’t odd. Well needless
to say bad decision making was involved Jarrod lost
his balance on the sill and fell 3 stories to the
asphalt, he is okay now, although it has been a trying
process. Jarrod got rushed to the hospital (luckily,
the international clinic, like a 5-star hotel, if Mick
Jagger were to trip and fall, they would bring him
here) He wound up with 2 broken heels a mild
concussion and some scrapes and scratches, the real
bummer is that he isn’t allowed to leave the hospital
until he leaves on Friday, again needless to say it’s
been a real downer for the trip (luckily he is covered
by his home insurance because the insurance wouldn’t
cover him here) I myself had a two hour interview with
the police while they tried to decide whether he
jumped in attempting to commit suicide, whether it was
a stunt or whether someone i.e. me pushed him
(obviously none of those are true, and thankfully they
accepted that).
Besides this ridiculousness (we’ve all been getting
some good laughs from the situation, even Jarrod, in
fact he might be the one who has made the most jokes)
nothing really has been going on here, the digornia’s
now all hate me as they see me as the starter of the
trouble (he was my friend, my window, and he wasn’t
even supposed to be in the building past 10) so I get
Babushka’ed more than ever.
We went to Peterhof another tsar palace but the
fountains for which it is famous were off and the
palace was closed even though we had made reservations
for that day (I mean really people, Russia just
doesn’t get this tourism thing) and now most of us are
just killing time before our plane trip home to
America (Jarrod more than most)

well here is a final little round up of the things I
will miss:
10. Open potholes and the likes, I’ve been walking by
the same open pothole for 4 months, it’s on the main
causeway to the metro stop, all they’ve ever had over
it is one 2 by 4. They still haven’t cleaned up the
piles of trash they collected for spring cleaning, in
fact the piles have really just kind of spread out
again, they collected leaves a few weeks ago and
needless to say those aren’t in piles any longer
9. Trashcan fires: Never had seen one in my life, let
alone on a main thoroughfare, but often Nevsky will be
alight with 2 or 3 trashcans where people are too lazy
to put out their cigarettes and huge fires
erupt(apparently no one feels the need to put out the
blaze, indeed I saw a dumpster on fire the other day
and smoke billowing out, burning your eyes, eventually
it just burnt out, I guess that’s the policy here
because I have never seen a fire truck, but plenty of
fires)
8. Water: well really this is something I can’t wait
for, just to be able to drink from the tap like a
normal human being, and not have to plan ahead “okay
am I gonna be thirsty tomorrow morning?? Probably,
well I’d better go to the store now and get some
because if not, no joy
7. doing things the hard way: boy do you guys have it
easy, you go to the store with a 20 dollar bill and
buy a candy bar no problem, I go and spend 300 out of
a 500 and they say “we can’t change this do you have a
smaller bill?” then they have to go into the safe yell
at me some more and then the rest of the line starts
getting angry, I’ve never been shot down trying to
spend money in America, it’s happened about a dozen
times here, they’d rather reject your business than
give you change.
6.The food, Bliny Borsch Solyanka (a form o Russian
hot dog stew) all of them even the fear of a
contaminated meal or the fairly standard bad meal (I
think the contemporary version of Russian roulette is
just going out to eat at a restaurant and seeing how
sick you get.
5. The dangerous streets of St. Petersburg: Jarrods
got broken legs, Richard had his knee broken by a
security guard, Antoine got the worse black eye I’ve
ever seen, Megan and Matt got robbed of their cell
phones and camera in a Russian dacha 3 hours out of
the city, Becky and Kendra had to run away from fake
police, Matt, Jarrod and Pavel got in a fight for
being American. This city is out of hand, that is just
among my friends, since I’ve been here (I’m sure
you’ve heard) one IMOP student was murdered, and there
has been a real rash of hate crime in St. Pete’s (the
mafia influence in Moscow keeps that city more in line
and keeps the skinheads out)
4. The city itself: Just amazing that’s all I can say
everywhere you turn is history, and everywhere you
look an amazing building, be it Stalinist architecture
or a tsarist palace
3. The Babushkas: oh sure they’re jaded, angry, pushy,
fearless but these crazy, short, old lady’s are
somewhat endearing, they occasionally laugh at you in
a nice way, every once in a while they say excuse me
before sitting on you in the subway, once I even saw
one turn and smile at me when she cut me in the
grocery line. They are characters that’s to be sure,
unlike any you might find in the states
2. The war hero’s: yesterday was victory day, (while
the rest of the world celebrates the end of WWII on
may 8th Russia decided to be different and celebrate
it as the 9th) there was something quite awe inspiring
watching the Blockade survivors walk down Nevsky in
their annual parade (a parade that gets shorter and
shorter each year mind you) and then in a show of
patriotism everyone follows behind so that most of St.
Petersburg is actually marching behind them (after a
wall of militsia)
1. The Alcohol: come on I mean really it’s Russia,
what else could be number one, I’m in the country
where they invented alcoholism. There are babushkas
here who could out drink the most capable frat boys,
we might be buying beer for a party at the
supermarket, but all of a sudden a little old lady
cuts you with 3 liters of vodka in her basket, then
you turn around and there is a 12 year old with a pint
and a beer, you look across at the successful
businessman or woman and they couldn’t actually wait
for the line and are drinking their beer in line. You
walk outside and on a sunny day there is no one
without a drink, you see the cop hanging out smoking a
cigarette and drinking a 9 percent beer, the guy at
the kiosk is drinking a beer you get on the metro and
everyone has a “travel drink” beer, canned gin and
tonic, “alco-energy” drink, this country is way beyond
anything you could imagine, trust me. Oh and did I
mention that all this is before 10 am??? So that’s it,
that’s all I got, I hope everyone enjoyed the emails,
I’ll be home soon From Russia with love ellski