Super-Duper Wacky n' Tacky Euro Adventure

So I’m sitting here at this very trendy internet café where there are very trendy novi Ruski people and the damned internet just plain doesn’t work. I remember living in Mexico and my dad had a common phrase for situations like this: Ay, Mexico. As if personifying the culture and the attitude in general served any therapeutic purpose. And so I am now coining the phrase: Tak, Rassiya. Meaning So, Russia, what’s your latest problem?

In other news my internal clock, after just barely attuning it to Russian time, is now completely thrown off thanks to the local night life. Friday was a bit of a bust as Iris and I walked literally for hours looking for a club that we thought would be playing some hip hop, but when we finally got there, they were closed and weren’t even playing hip hop in the first place. So we had a pleasant chat at a place called KAФE XAYЗ (pronounced Coffee Haauus! (emphasis required)), a twenty four hour coffee chain that could possibly have more stores per capita than Starbucks. Seriously. We also met up with many a drunk Russian who absolutely love talking to random people, and we absolutely love indulging them, taking their picture, and laughing at AND with them.

Last night Micha and I lost Iris so we decided that we could perhaps take one more night of Euro-Electronica crap music. We found a place called Fabrique that is very Russian. From the VIP tables with hookahs and ugly men, to the super model-type women one the dance floor with way, way too much make-up on. We found two very drunk twenty-something Russian ladies before entering the club who were visiting from far away and in town to have a good time. I was successfully able to teach them the Pa’rriba Pa’bajo toast that anyone who knows me well, is very familiar with. They even took the time to carefully place their fifth of cognac on the ground and write down the full toast so that they would remember it later. Very cool. After they started dancing a little too close in the club, however I had to drop them like a bad habit. Finally got home at around 4:30 after playing one gypsy cab off of another so that I could get my best price.

Today I meet up with Iris at a place called Albian bar and I find her with no other than the only two black men in all of Moscow. Turns out they are training for the upcoming Russian basketball season where they will represent a team in Siberia for the winter months. You can take the Iris out of New York…