Up in the Club

Today I was supposed to go to the art lecture, but I completely skipped out. Everyone else went, though, but I stayed in my room and sang my guts out. Then I went down to meet everyone at the "Grand Hotel Europe" at 5:00 PM. I was Nathan waiting for the trolley and he showed me some new way to go on Express Bus.

I got there early on the new easy route, so I sat down at the cafe by Kazan and bought a few drinks. Then I met everyone and we went over to Carrolls by Gostiny Dvor to eat dinner. After that, Blakeslee, Ally and Katherine went home. I waled David and Tricia to meet Nathan and Kelley at Moika to do a canal tour. We were all supposed to meet up again at 9:00 PM.

To kill time, Ally and I went to the cafe in the Grand Europe and had the most delicious coffee. Then we met everyone else on Nevsky and Fontanka. We all started walking down Fontanka and were chivalrously rescued by David from two drunks on the way.

Finally, we got to the club-- "Manhattan." It was pretty cool, but there was live Russian rock music that generally sucks. We all had so much fun though. It was me, Ally, Tricia, Katherine, David and Blakeslee. Blakeslee was hitting on some guy with a cane. We bought Dutch cigars and met two Polish sailors.

The ride home was the best though-- we rushed out of there at 1:45 AM to make the bridges and the first taxi that we piled into wouldn't take us. Everyone was really drunk, so we got into two cabs-- Ally and Blakeslee in one and the rest of us in the other. We kept telling the driver (Andrei-- who gave us his number), saying "I love you" and "I want you." Tricia said her name was Tatiana. David was worried we were too friendly. Then we all started reciting our poems. It was hysterical.

When we got home, making it across the construction site was another story. Anyway-- it was like crossing the Sahara and I had all sand in my shoes, but we finally made it. Everyone came back to my room to hang out. Katerine got sick and David and Blakeslee got in a fight. It was all pretty funny though.

Katherine wanted to go to sleep, so the rest of us went to talk int he lounge. I guess we were being loud because the "grandma" kept coming out to yell at us to be quiet and we were all hyper. Tricia and Blakeslee were hiding behind the couch. Blakeslee went to bed soon after that and it was the three of us up talking again. I still had a lot of energy though, so I called Christine and read People Magazine about Prince William and listened to my walkman. Before I knew it, it was 8:30 AM and all of the Frenchies were waking up for breakfast. I was still sitting in the lounge.

At some point, Katherine came out to look for me, thinking I had fallen asleep out there. It was cute...