Confessions of an American Tourist

Our stay in St. Petersburg was coming to an end and Lauren and I were in no mood to go back to the oppressive reality that is the U.S. Privately, I was feeling anxious about the return trip. Especially since a fucking Moses-like character had specifically warned us about it. If only this elderly gentleman really were Moses, then he could part the Atlantic and we could just drive straight home, avoiding Southern roads for the most part. But I guess life just isn't like that. And maybe Lauren and I will learn something about sticking it out when all we want to do is take a damn flight home. Oh well. We never spoke about this to each other, but I suspect she had similar anxieties... because she wrote them to me on a post-it note which she put on the shower wall in the hotel bathroom.

It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon when Lauren said she wanted to see a silly "rom-com" to brighten her mood. I wasn't sure how much a simple movie would be able to brighten her mood since for years now she's been gambling as a mood enhancer, but I agreed that a movie would be nice. We went by a charming theater down a strange alley. The one movie they were playing was "Confessions of a Shopaholic". "How bad could it be?", Lauren said. "Yeah I mean, I'm sure it's charming and adorable. Lets not be pretentious." I responded. We both decided not to be pretentious right there and then.

So there we were, two unsuspecting American girls, buying tickets to go see a movie about a girl with a weakness for chicness. And we saw that movie. we saw it all the way through.

...but we almost didn't. This movie is particularly atrocious. Yeah, I gotta bring out the fifty-cent words for this one.

First of all, the whole plot of the movie forces the viewer to look through the lens of Capitalism and economy. And once Ryan Tepperman told me that the economy in the U.S. is very bad right now (I did not know this because my family has a pool with a waterfall). So this movie is sending a really backwards message to its audience. Isla Fisher was MUCH more entertaining as a shopaholic than she was as a person finding some kind of absurd version of peace.

But anyway, before I get carried away, I'll just admit that Lauren and I actually did not see the movie all the way through. Sorry guys, I was just too embarrassed to admit my own shortcomings. But in our defense, it had nothing to do with our ability to endure. Lauren and I are enduring creatures, or creatures of great endurance. What went down was a little bit of Russian hospitality a la Cold War Era buuhhhllllllsshhhhittt.

In other words, guess who didn't like the heavy overtones of capitalism in "Confessions of a Shopaholic"? Russia.
And guess who also didn't like the "touchy/feely" confession format of the movie? Russia.
And guess whose red hair caused us problems yet again???.....LAUREN. FUCKING LIABILITY....her red hair is a liability.

The Russian cops came in towards the end of the movie, but just early enough so that we still don't know if she made it to her friend's wedding. (YO HOLLA AT ME IF YOU KNOW IF SHE DID, 978-835-1712). And as we were all grumpily filing out of the theater one of the cops spotted Lauren and thought she was Isla Fisher. He coldly separated us from the group and pushed Lauren and I into a van. He blind-folded us which made me very uncomfortable, however it made Lauren much more comfortable thanks to her lifestyle choices (see: Slob on my Knob). After driving for about 20 minutes he stopped the car and took our blind-folds off. We were in an empty parking garage that had murder written all over it. But just when I was beginning to give up all hope the Russian officer broke down in tears. He explained to us (in broken english) that he was a HUGE Isla Fisher fan and couldn't stand to see her killed, which would surely have been our fate if the other officers had seen Lauren. He told us he would give us until midnight that night to get out of St. Petersburg. We told him we were grateful for his mercy and fled the scene.

The second we knew we were far enough away we both exclaimed, "CHRIST ALMIGHTY! PRAISE HIM!". We made our way to the Versa.


It was time.

How to Find Love Abroad

I was really starting to lose it. I didn't tell Veronica this, but the chief thing I was looking to discover in St. Petey's was LOVE. And, like she told you all blasé and nonplussed, we didn't fall in love with anyone at the hotel that night.

This is worse news than young V-Ron could know.

No Love? I thought, as I wandered in a daze around Vladik and Anya's honeymoon suite.
What?
They were asleep, they didn't even know I was watching.
Oh, shit, but now they do because Vladik is the one person in this world who actually does follow this blog.

Well, Vladik, I'm sorry. I was really lonely and felt an impulse to intrude on your special night with Anya. I know it was your first time having sex with her, because I saw you trying on different-sized condoms for fit.SIDE NOTE: I HAD NO IDEA THAT PEOPLE CAN BE ELITIST ABOUT CONDOMS, TOO. Larry Murphy just couldn't roll on a generic, could he.

And by the way, Vladik, you don't wear condoms when it's your wife that you're fucking. Married women reject pork casing--they don't need a penis to be wrapped all tight because it doesn't matter if her vagina gets loose anymore....it's not like the next guy she has sex with is going to look at that cooter and say, "Cor bloody hell, you've gone and got your nonny all helter-skelter"...because the next guy she has sex with will not be Ringo Starr. It will be you.

God, this is a painful subject.

I guess this is as good of a time as any to talk about the Russian man who broke this American girl's heart.

(big, exaggerated sigh.)

I saw him across the t-shirt table at American Apparel. And for all you hipsters out there who are confused, forgive me if that's not specific enough of a location. I do understand that there is a difference between t-shirt tables at American Apparel but I've only gone to Emerson College for one year and don't fully understand what separates the Tri-Blend short sleeve from the Mélange short sleeve. I do know that Alexei, the dream man, looks downright saucy in a fine-spun V-neck jersey.

Aside from being able to tell from his sense of style, I knew by the twinkle in his eye and devilish grin that he was the man I've been waiting for. I only hope he's heard the rumors about the sex drives of redheads and Lebanese girls...and of course, relayed that info to his attractive brothers and coworkers and arms dealers.

ALEXEI, CALL ME!!!! Let's paint the town red!

And as soon as I texted him that, I remembered how difficult it would be to find a single inch of Russia that isn't already painted red.

American Womans

Cooch to cooch, this trip was starting to get really motherfucking trippy. For one thing, Lauren never explained to me why she was in a Bellhop's uniform. All she told me was that her other clothing had been covered in blood, and that she had been kidnapped by what was left of the Russian Monarchy. She also mumbled some things about Anastasia... maybe I would have believed such a one of a kind story if Lauren didn't blame ALL of her promiscuous adventures on Anastasia, more or less.

I forgave LT for her terrible beer/mescaline-goggle judgment and we decided to go site-seein'. Lauren and I are feminists at heart, so we decided to first visit the Monument to Catherine the Great. We did not know Catherine personally, but from her monument she seemed nice. Great seems like a lot to say about anyone. But again, neither of us knew her so we can't say. Next we went to the Alexander Column. That one is pretty self-explanatory. We decided to cleanse our souls real quick at Smolny Cathedral. Lthomp's made me throw holy water on her and sing some Russian hymns. When I was done she looked up at me, soaking wet, and asked if she looked more pure. Honestly, she looked a lot worse, but I didn't have the heart to tell her.

After this Lauren and I were looking for a nice place to just sit down and eat lunch somewhere. We chose the Moscow Victory Park. There is a bit of a NYC vs. Boston rivalry between Moscow and St. Petersburg. We were once again on the right side of that animosity. While at this park we encountered a couple other tourists. They were from London, and boy did they show it. For one thing they made the largest mistake possible, they thought Stalin's body was somewhere buried in St. Petersburg.

"Ello chaps, have you any idea where we may pay homage to Stalin's grave?"

To which I replied:

"Well you can find his mummified body in Moscow...duh." reppin' 'Merica.

You've never seen two angrier commie's. They turned beat red with anger. Lauren tried to make a witty joke about them being members of the red party, but she accidentally rhymed a couple words in the joke, losing all credibility. Well at least she didn't have the hiccups, because then I would have thought she were drunk.

Finally, we came to Dostoyevsky's monument. We really had to pay our respects to this man, we probably wouldn't have made it across the ocean if it hadn't been for his constant nagging and worrying. While visiting this monument something bizarre happened. A crazy old man with googly eyes and a scraggly beard limped up to me and told me to beware the southern route. "BEWARE THE SOUTHERN ROUTE", he exclaimed. Confused and taken aback, I asked him why but he said nothing.



Shit, Lauren and I thought (after you drive through Canada with someone you end up thinking just like them), we have to begin our trip through the southern roads of Canada in a matter of days. We tried to distract ourselves from such an obvious omen by taking classes to learn how to paint those crazy eggs. But nothing could cheer us up.

We decided to call it a night, we stayed a decent hotel. I can't recall the name of it at the moment. But it was nice. We didn't fall in love with any of the employees or anything, but it was nice.