It's awesome, every supermarket is pumping Ace of Base, Haddaway, or The Cardigans and I even saw some guy wearing turquoise jeans (although, to be fair, that might not be a 90's thing, just a Czech thing). Also, apparently I just missed a Wu-Tang concert in Prague. By my calculations, that would be their 'Enter the 36 Chambers' Tour.
Moscow was really big, expensive and cool. It has more billionaires than anywhere else on the planet and everyone seems to drive black mercedes with darkened windows.They actually have this thing at clubs called 'face control'. This means, quite simply, that they control the number of ugly faces getting into the club. So, I didn't go out clubbing much in Moscow, and spent most of my time either lining up for things or walking around Red Square, trying to get into the background of other people's pictures. Moscow is packed with historical stuff so I was pretty entertained. It's also packed with tourists who don't know how to line up for things. What is with people from 3rd world countries (I'm including Italians here) and not knowing how to line up? What stage of economic development does making an orderly line become accepted? Some English guy and I almost got into a fight with some Brazilians trying to samba their way into the front of a 2 hour line to see Lenin. Lenin, by the way, is not looking so hot 80 odd years after his death.
I met some interesting people in Moscow. Alexei, some guy I met on the train, spoke really good English and showed me around one day. Alexei was a good guy but fairly racist (as many Russians are). He asked me 10 minutes into our first conversation what groups of people I don't like. I told him that I fucking despise Bolivians but he didn't seem satisfied so I added the French, which he agreed with. He then told me all about Kazakhs, Jews, and Armenians and what was wrong with them. Apparently there's a lot wrong with them. I also met Sean, a walking, breathing Irish stereotype. Sean was always drunk. Always. Having coffee at 9am one morning I heard Sean come in with 2 large beers. After recognizing who I was, he offered me one of the beers, claiming he got it for me, despite not knowing I was going to be there. He then raved for an hour about some potato place he found that was really good. I was half-expecting him to carbomb something and start a paranoid rant about someone taking his lucky charms.
From Moscow, I went to St.Petersburg. St.Petersburg is lovely and I don't use that word to describe things very often. Aside from frequent attacks on non-whites and the occasional mugging, it is packed with history and bridges and parks and goodness. After exhausting myself on the historical crap, the guy who ran the hostel I was at took me out to the bars in St.Petersburg, which were fun and quite cheap. Now I'm no Fred Astaire, but Russians are the worst dancers I have ever seen. I guess ballet doesn't translate to hip-hop or techno. It's very odd watching a dance floor of hot, young, Russian girls dance like fat, middle-aged, drunken white guys. Very entertaining though.
After a few days drinking cheap beer and vodka and lounging in the loveliness, I flew to Prague. Trying to offset the cost of the flight, I drank as much free beer and ate as much salted peanuts as I could. I arrived in Prague a bit drunk, very salted and thoroughly disliked by all the flight attendants. I stayed with my friend Julie which was great because I no longer had to eat alone in restaurants, pretending to read or wait for my 'friend' to show up, and she showed me around and spoke Czech for me. My birthday was a bit of a blur but I was awake for some of it. Beer in Czech is delicious and the food is horribly bad for you. After eating 2 blocks of fried cheese I didn't think I was going to poop again and if I did, I suspected it would be awfully cheezy. Other notable events in Prague include the reappearance (however brief) of my mustache and the frequent sighting of statues with penises. Anyways, five days flew by and I went to Poland to meet my Mum.
If St.Petersburg was lovely, Poland is pleasant. A little less interesting but the people are much nicer. Krakow was great and I think it was partly due to the fact that we were there in the middle of the week, and thus weren't plagued with gangs of British stag parties shouting things like 'Oi' and 'bollocks' and generally offending everyone with their bad teeth and ugly women. I then took the bus down to Zakopane (which does not, I realized after 3 intensely confusing conversations, sound like windowpane) and did some really good hiking for a couple days. Zakopane is a little like Whistler except that the food and beer is cheap and there are no Australians. In other words, it's all I want in a town. And now I'm in Warsaw which is very blah. I'm going to Ukraine tomorrow. Some Swiss guys in St.Petersburg told me there is a 5-week long techno festival in Ukraine that is amazing. I don't really like techno that much but I am very interested to see how people can survive a 5-week festival centred around techno. I don't believe there are enough drugs in the world to keep that going. I have a feeling it's just those swiss guys I met, a big bag of drugs, and an iPod.
Bouche
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