Scrubbing the Russia off of us

We're a little behind in the blog and I'm not sure where to start. We really enjoyed Scandenavia, especially Stockholm. We may be canal toured out as that has been our go-to in most cities. We decided to take an overnight boat to Finland, and we expected a small, simple ferry ride. What we got was the Love Boat - it was more like a Carnival cruise line with lounge singers and a Vegas-style dance show. I'm not sure why Anthony sat up front and center- it was clear he was going to be used as a prop and he was. We also befriended 3 Russians who convinced us we had to stay with them in St Petersburg. Our thought: Russians are so nice! (but more on that later). Mind you this conversation was going on with a translator, Vodka, and scibbles on paper. Even Russian scribbles and arrows make no sense.

We made it to Finland and met up with an old Parker friend, Mimmu, who took us north to her home where we learned about lakes in Finland (there are over 100,000) the intense pasttime of mushroom-gathering, and saunas. Saunas rule. This is because the Fins sauna every day and you literally pass out afterwards. Saunas don't rule if you in there with strangers. Also you swat at each other with branches- a technique we didn't get to take part in . Too bad. We ate really well and slept great. We had to really rest up for our next stop.

Which brings me to Russia. Sigh. We could not wait for this part of the trip and we had heard so many great things about St Petersburg. Now that we're in Spain and in the sun and clean, I don't feel as strongly about Russia, but there were some scary moments I would rather forget. FIRST of all, there are no street signs or numbers so finding our "hotel" took 2 hours. The drunk Russians from the boat were so nice- the ones we experienced were icy at best. We realized quickly that you either stay in the nicest place possible or you stay in a trash heap (you can tell from our tone that we were in the latter. The place was literally crumbling.) Your options are the Ritz or Roxbury. Everything in the city is like this. Cars are either Massarittis or floorless buggies with their wheels coming off. The food options are caviar and vodka at the Astoria or mystery street meat and a bottle of homebrew vodka hanging over the canal. The only thing that seems to be consistently present
is that the women dress like it's 1982 and the men wear the same exact black leather jackets. If we stayed there any longer we would both have to invest in matching acid washed jeans and start street-racing.

Don't get me wrong. We saw some amazing things: the Hermitage museum, some of the churches' architecture, and the WW II historical elements were outstanding. But the general mistrust on their part (and ours) permeated the whole visit. It's hard to feel comfortable when you know the police will never help you-only ask for your papers while twiddling their batons. Spies Like Us and Rocky 4 were not helpful movies in preparation for Russia.

After a dicey bus ride to the St. Pete airport, we had to go through three different security checks before our flight. And the intensity increased at each subsequent one. The first one was manned by a guy whose uniform resembled someone working the fry-o-lator at McDonalds. He asked to inspect Michelle's bag and then just got too tired to do it. The next check was by a woman talking to a friend on the
phone as she worked the x-Ray machine. And the last one involved a very thorough full-body pat down. We had to connect in Stockholm on the way to Barcelona, and our flight was loaded with fans of the '80's Swedish pop duo Roxette (they had a concert in St. Pete the previous night). We didn't know that anybody still listened to them. Somebody wake up MC Hammer. He's going to be HUGE in Russia next year.

And now we're in Barcelona, enjoying the warmer weather, doing some laundry, and feeling refreshed. We're very excited to explore the city and get our hands on some tapas. Anthony's sister, Amanda, is going to join us for the next week, so you can all expect the next post to be written by her; it will no doubt be funnier and more dramatic, including topics ranging from paella to male thong swimwear (it seems pretty popular here.)

Hope you're all doing well! Adios!

Love,
Anthony & Michelle

Editor's note: Michelle has much more to say about Russia, but she had to be censored for the blog. But she encourages all of you to ask her about it someday. We also hope that we're not coming off as "ugly Americans", especially if the Russian government is reading our blog. We loved it!