И это ночь и ее электрический голос манит меня к себе

So I guess everything is more or less back to normal around here. I’ve gotten back into the swing of things just fine and now spring break feels like a long time ago. Thursday night there was this big thing for students that was pretty fun. Students from a few different departments at various schools around the city (I’m not sure what they all had in common exactly) were all invited to this little party in some fancy building on the Fantanka (a canal that runs through the city center) for some sort of anniversary of some specific university department or something. I never really learned what it was all for exactly. But there were all kinds of students there, both foreign and Russian. There was free beer, champagne and pizza. Of course, the pizza wasn’t great (I’ve never had really good pizza in Russia). There was some that had Canadian bacon and shrimp on it. There were all these weird games that we were supposed to be playing, but I wasn’t really interested in participating. They gave everyone a sheet of paper with various things on it that everyone had to go around to everybody else and ask them if they have done those things. For example, “somebody who was born in Moscow,” or “someone that has read more than five books by Dostoevsky.” A few people put me down as someone who “has never been to the Hermitage” (I know it’s terrible that I still haven’t been, and that I still haven’t been to the Russian Museum. I’m planning on going to both really soon though). There was also an animal written on the back of everyone’s sheets and they wanted us all to find everybody else with the same animal without showing them the name or saying it. Some people got into the whole thing, but I was too overwhelmed by all the people and how cramped it was in the small room we were all in. So I just walked around mingling, eating pizza and drinking beer. A few of us from school met this group of British girls that also study at Smolniy but that we’ve somehow never met before. They were all really nice and cool, and when the party started to get dull some of us decided to head out with them to a bar. We all went to this place called Dacha, which is the same place that I walked home from a while back, that time I got the big blisters on my feet. It was pretty crowded, so we decided to look for something else. Luckily, there happened to be a nice little pub-type bar right next door that nobody had ever seemed to notice, and there was plenty of space. We took over a couple tables in there and had a great time for a few hours chatting with the Brits. There was also a Russian girl named Alice (I guess her real name was Alisa or something more Russian, but she kept saying Alice and it made it confusing because one of the British girls was named Alice too) who had tagged along from the party and I talked to her for a while too. I think we all had a great time, comparing British and American slang and making fun of the other’s all night. Alice said that she was having a little party at her apartment the next night and invited us all to come, so we traded some fun numbers before everyone left. After last call I went with Bryce and Katie to KFC (because it was one of the only things open and we were hungry) and then shared a chasnik back to the island. My host-brother Alyosha was still up when I got back, hanging out in the kitchen and either getting ready for or having just come back from some sort of hockey game. I took a shower and went to bed. Friday was for the most part a normal day at school, except we had a make-up class in Gazeta for the day we missed way back on February 23 (Defenders of the Fatherland day). Some of the people in the class were trying to get everyone to skip, but in the end most of us went. We really lucked out, because instead of having class our teacher decided instead to just show us a movie. It was called “Ivan Vasilevich Changes his Profession” (Your supposed to know that “Ivan Vasilevish” was Ivan the Terrible). I really like the movie. It was about this scientist who makes a time machine in his apartment and opens a portal Ivan the Terrible’s chambers back in the 15th century or whenever he was around, and everything gets mixed up and Ivan the Terrible gets stuck in the present while the scientist’s Landlord and a thief who happened to be in the apartment get stuck in Ivan’s time. Yes, of course, hilarity ensues. There was a lot of cool music in it too. We didn’t get to see the whole thing, though. After classes were all over, I decided to go with Peter David to 505 to do a little music and movie shopping. We went to the one by Chernishevskaya, and Kenny and Stacey walked with us there on their way to the metro. We browsed for a while, and I ended up finding a copy of the movie we had watched for class, all on one disc along with three other movies by the same director (Leonid Gaidai). I’ve written before about all the crazy bootleg stuff you can buy in Russia, well it’s the same ting with movies. You can buy these DVDs that just have tons of movies on them somehow, sometimes as many as 10. They use both sides of the disc, but still it’s pretty impressive that they can fit them all on there. I need to buy some more collections of Russian movies before I leave. I also ended up buying an MP3 DVD of legendary Russian folk singer Vladimir Vysotsky (I’ve mention at least once or twice before here). This thing is insane: One disc (two sides), 119 albums (There are a lot of live performances and things like that), all for 120 rubles (about $4)! I know I’ll never really be able to listen to it all, but I was going to buy an MP3 CD of his that had just a handful of albums and would have cost about 150 rubles, so I figure why not spend less and just virtually everything he ever put out at my immediate disposal? I was a little worried it would be like the last Vysotsky DVD that I bought that only let you play it on a DVD player and not load any of it onto your computer, but I knew this was the real deal because it distinctly said “MP3 DVD.” Maybe it was a risk, but it definitely paid off. So, it was pretty cool that for about $8 I bought 4 movies and 119 albums. Peter David was headed to the book store, but I figured I should head home for a while so I could relax at home a little bit before going to the British party later. I rode the metro home and had enough time at the apartment to hang out for a bit and eat dinner. We were all supposed to meet some of the British girls at 8:00 on Vostannya Square, so I rode the metro back down there where a small group of us congregated when Jo and Amanda from England (well, Amanda is from Scotland) showed up and took us to Alice’s apartment. She had a really nice place with one other roommate, but he was apparently out of town so we all had the place to ourselves. The girls we had net the night before were all there, plus some more and a couple of guys too. Everyone was totally cool and I think everyone got along really well. A few more of our friends showed up at various points and at the maximum there were probably 8 Americans and about 10 Brits. We talked more about slang and different words in America and England. The tought us a ridiculous drinking game called “Gecko Master,” in which you have to “gecko” to a flat surface (basically just press ourselves against a wall or the ceiling or whatever). It was pretty weird. There was one girl named Precious. There was also a Greek-British girl named Olympia. We drank champagne and vodka and ate French fries (sorry, I mean chips). This one guy Oliver was basically telling us the history of Soccer (sorry, football) and told us about a big match coming up in St. Petersburg that we should really see. I really want to start hanging out with the Brits more often. I really like all of them pretty much. Their plan had been to go to this club called Ostrov later in the night, but me and most of the rest of the Americans didn’t really want to go (you know how I feel about “clubs”). Plus, I had made plans to hang out with Emily later that night, so when everyone left for the club (I think Bryce, Vickie, and Katie were the only Americans who went) I headed for that place called Swiss Bar where Emily was hanging out and waiting for me to come. Kenny decided to tag along with me. It was a decent walk down Nevskiy to get there, and it was pretty hopping when we arrived. I found Emily right away, and she was there with a few friends from her school. They had been there for a while it seemed and were having fun dancing and what not. Swiss Bar is kind of a weird place. A lot of lesbians hang out there and the bartenders are really butch lesbians, but it isn’t really a lesbian bar because there are always all kinds of people there. There isn’t really a dance floor, just kind of an open space in the middle of the room where people can dance around some, but it’s difficult because it’s on the way to the bathroom and the front door and there are always people trying to push their way through the dance floor. There were quite a few people there that I knew somehow, which seems pretty crazy to me. I guess I’ve been here long enough to start seeing the same people around town. Two of the returning students from CIEE were there, this guy who is my friend Christine’s boyfriend’s friend who I had had dinner with that one night at the Mexican restaurant was there, and later on this Australian guy named Tim who rides my bus in the morning showed up. I had fun talking to each of them for a little bit. I danced around to cheesy western music for a while and then cooled off at a table near the window for a while. I sat with Kenny, Emily, and Emily’s friend Jeff for a while, and Emily and Jeff were messing with Kenny for a while and telling him that they were in St. Petersburg to study taxidermy. I think Kenny thought it was really funny. Kenny got tired so he took a chasnik home, but I figured I should stick around and hang out with Emily more cause I hadn’t really seen her in a while. At one point this girl and guy asked me if they could sit down at the table while I was the only one there, and I said of course (this is all in Russian, of course). I asked her if she was too cold and if she wanted me to close the window, and she said yes. I kind of got the impression that they were foreigners, so I asked where they were from, and she said that she was Russian but the guy she was with was from the Netherlands. When I told her I was from America, she got really surprised and said she thought I was Russian all along! She said she couldn’t detect an accent in the brief interactions we had had. It was a pretty good feeling to be able to blend in that well, I don’t think that I had really ever been mistaken for Russian before then. She was really nice and I talked to her for a little while before some of Emily’s friends came back and wanted to sit back at the table, and the girl and the Dutch guy got up. These friends, I found out, were two Russian girls that go to school with Emily but that Emily had just really met for the first time earlier that day. They both spoke really good English, though. I was sitting at the table with just them for a while and it was really awkward because nobody was saying anything, so I tried to make small talk with one of them. Here’s how the conversation went:
Me: So, it’s Misha?
Masha: MASHA!
Me: Oh! Izvinitsia (“excuse me”).
Masha: What?
Me: I just said “Izvinitsia.”
Masha. Whatever. Are you having fun (said very unenthusiastically)?
Me: Yeah, I’m pretty tired though I guess.
Masha: Oh.
So, needless to say it didn’t take me long to realize that she was not worth trying to talk to, so I got up and talked to that guy Tim for a while. Aparently the dorm he lives in won’t let him in between the hours of midnight and 7:00 AM, so he either has to come back early or stay out all night. Guess which one he usually does. I danced around with Emily and Jeff some more when Matt Derrick showed up. I guess Emily had sent him a text message and told him to come. I haven’t seen him in over a month, so I was excited to see him and talk to him. We went down to the end of the bar and sat with some beers and talked for a long time. Whenever I go out to bars with Matt he always buys me beer after beer, sometimes without even asking if I want one. We talked about Russian music (mainly Kino, of course) and caught up and everything. I love talking with Matt. Emily was hanging around in between dancing too. Eventually her friends left and she stuck around with us. At this point it was about 5:00, 5:30, so I figured I’d just wait around a little longer and I’d be able to catch a bus back home instead of having to get a chasnik. We left about ten to 6:00 and walked down to Nevskiy. There were a few militsia members (poice officers, basically) on the street, and Matt said, “keep it down” before we walked by so hopefully they wouldn’t catch on that we were foreigners and try to hassle us. We got by them fine and Matt walked Emily home while I stopped at the bus stop to wait for a bus, obviously. Now, this next part is probably my best / worst story from Russia thus far. So, I’m standing on the street when those police officers I had mentioned (I assume it was the same ones) come up to me and ask to see my documents. I was a little bit drunk from the bar but not too bad. I could definitely maintain myself and keep my composure. We had all been told that police officers wanting to check peoples’ documents is fairly common in Russia, and I was actually surprised that I hadn’t been asked for them before. So, I wasn’t too nervous, because I knew everything should be more or less in order. My passport is currently being re-registered, as I had mentioned before, but I had my spravka (temporary identification) with me, so I gave that to them. While one officer was checking out the spravka, a third started padding me down checking my pockets. He opened my coat and went through all my pockets while the other guy kept me busy with his questions. What are you doing here? Where are you studying? Do you have any drugs or guns? Etc. The third guy just stood back and kind of watched. I could feel the second guy taking things out of my pocket and putting them back, but I was too focused on the guy asking me questions that I couldn’t really pay attention to what they other guy was doing. Plus, I didn’t want to interfere with whatever they’re doing because there are three of them and one of me, and I’m the foreigner who doesn’t really know what’s going on. At that point my biggest concern was that they were going to find my lighter/knife thing that I had bought in Moscow and have been keeping in my pocket. Luckily, they never found it. So, the guy finishes searching and the other one hands back my spravka and they say everything is alright walk away. Once they were gone, I go through all the things in my pocket to make sure everything is still there. I take out my wallet and look inside, and guess what. 1000 rubles were gone. That’s about $30. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Being pick-pocketed by a police officer? We had all heard stories of police officers asking for bribes or what not, but we were never warned of anything like this. Who terrible and horrifying is it to think that the very people who are supposed to protect you from this sort of thing are actually doing it themselves. I’m beginning to think that they might not have been real police officers, but their uniforms looked legit. I should have asked to see their badges or something, but again I was completely powerless in that situation. Seriously, what could I have possibly done I that situation? There is nothing you can do. So, needless to say I was pretty pissed of and immediately called Matt who was only a few blocks away at this point to tell him what had happened. He was sympathetic, but said similar stuff happens all the time and that, again, there’s nothing you can do about it. I like the way he put it though, now I have a great story to tell and it only cost me 30 bucks. So, tired and angry, I caught the number 7 bus, which, thankfully, came by pretty quick, and got home to the safety of my bed by about 6:30. I slept until about 12:30 the next morning. It’s hard for me to sleep much passed noon, so usually no matter what if I come back really late/early I won’t get much sleep. As long as I wake up naturally though I usually feel pretty refreshed. I told my host-mom about what had happened, and she thought it was pretty terrible, but as per her usual attitude didn’t really show much empathy towards me. I ate some blini with this delicious sweet caramel-y sauce, and then didn’t really plan on doing much for the rest of the day until Ruth’s birthday party that night. About 1:45, though, I got a text message from Peter David about going to Soiree, and I figured I could use some internet time so I decided to meet him there at 3:00. I took the metro down, and on my way out of the Ploshchad Vostanniy metro stop there was a police-officer guy standing around , and I got really paranoid. He stopped the person right in front of me and I slipped past really freaked-out. I think I’m going to be really paranoid of the militsia from now on. That, and try to carry less cash. So, I get passed that and get to Soiree before PD. The internet was working really well this time, and I was able to upload the rest of the pictures from spring break onto Flickr that I wasn’t able to get to earlier from the computer at school. PD showed up and we had some food and some drinks while I used the computer. I let him upload his pictures to Facebook too. Stacey showed up for a little while cause she heard we were there and managed to hijack my computer for a while. Stacey left and PD and I hung around for a while longer, then he left and then me about 15 minutes after him. We all had to get ready for the party I guess. On the metro back home there were these two girls standing right next to me making out like crazy while everybody tried hard not to stare, but it was hard because they were purposefully trying to make a big spectacle out of it, laughing and stumbling around and just so obviously trying to get everybody attention. I hung around at home for a little while, at some fish and potatoes for dinner, and then met with Vickie to head to the party. So, Nick and Sasha had this big party planned for Ruth that was limited to a small group of Ruth’s closer friends, and some of us were kind of put off by all the fuss that was made over it. They had all kinds of stuff planned and we all had to meet at a very specific time to be taken to Sasha’s boyfriend’s apartment where the party was, and a lot of was were worried that it was going to be kind of weird. Oh, and they called everyone and told them to bring cups because they couldn’t find any, and so of course everybody did and we ended up with about 200 cups for about 15 people. All the planning turned out to be much more fun and relaxed than I thought it was going to be. Basically, Nick and Sasha just kind of played MCs for the beginning of the party and had all these songs and little sketch things planned out, followed by Ruth-based trivia questions with prizes and a contest to see which group could make the best Ruth out of newspaper and tape. It was all actually really well planned out and fun, and I was very relieved that it wasn’t as confining as I thought it might be. Stacey had also written alternative lyrics to the Rolling Stones’ song “Satisfaction” and sang it to Ruth, and the lyrics and the delivery were brilliantly hilarious. So, after all the planned stuff it was basically like a normal party. I, actually, didn’t really have as great of a time as everybody else seemed to be having. I don’t really want to get into it, but I’ll just say that lately I’ve been feeling a bit alienated by some of the people from that group and so I wasn’t really being all that social. I was pretty drunk, and usually when I’m drunk I’m really jolly and sociable, but this time I got really bitter and anti-social and kind of tried to hide from everybody, which is hard because it was a really open apartment (It was an amazing apartment, though. The bathroom especially. It had a shower / tub that was basically a mini-swimming pool, and also a sauna). I sat in the hallway for a long time looking at the wall-map that Ruth had got for her birthday, and I think everybody thought I was being really weird. I was, but I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, I just didn’t really feel like mingling with them. Plus I was really afraid to leave the apartment on my own after what had happened earlier that morning, so I just kind of hung around being weird. Vickie convinced me to get up and leave with her and Tsveti, and after a while I agreed. I think everybody was pretty concerned about me and I was probably being a bit of a jerk, but I was just in a weird place. I leaned against the wall in the hallway and got covered in white chalky stuff because I forgot that walls in Russia are painted with really lousy paint that comes off on everything that touches it. I got a chasnik with Vickie and Tsveti that only cost 150 rubles, even though it had to go one direction to take Tsveti home and then all the to the other side of the city for us. I’ve paid more for that just to go to my place before. Oh well. So I got home and went to bed. This morning I had much less of a hang over than I thought I would. I didn’t leave the house all day today. I did some homework and watched some Pete and Pete and listened to some music. It was nice just to relax by myself today. I showed my host-mom my chalky jacket and she washed it for me. Hopefully it will be all dry by tomorrow. She had a couple of her girl-friends over this afternoon, and it was kind of funny to see them sitting around the kitchen table smoking and talking. That’s pretty much all that happened today. Tomorrow it’s back to school. I’m pretty anxious to tell Nathan about my run-in with the police and see what he makes of it. I also teach English tomorrow, which I am especially looking forward to because I haven’t been in about three weeks. So, that’s all for now. Catch you later.