Clubbing, Karaoke, and Sushi at Four O'Clock in the Morning

Another weekend has passed which means...story time! Went out with Joe on Thursday for my one-month anniversary(yes, I have officially been in Moscow for a month). It later turned out to be the wrong day, but shush. We talked and ate ice cream with arctic raspberries (complements of the chef). He left for London on Saturday, meaning that I am writing this from his very comfy flat while drinking all his tea. But anyways...

This past Friday one of Susan's friends had a birthday and decided to celebrate with a night of clubbing. Since it is on my check-list of things to do in Moscow, I decided to tag along. We went to a club called Propaganda (thank you, Tiffany). As I have never gone clubbing before, I have nothing to compare it to, but it seemed to be your typical club. Terrible music with lots of people dancing (or trying to dance...frog in a blender, anyone?) and a proliferation of alcohol. Being the worldly, experienced person that I am, I closed my eyes and pointed to a random drink. I don't quite know what was in it (and you really, really don't want to know the name), but it was fruity and actually quite tasty. After that, I let Susan introduce me to the world of a 1,001 beers (of which I had one. Chill out, mum) while I nodded and pretended to understand what she was saying. Dimitri (a fellow SRASer that I met at dinner a couple of weeks ago) came along.

I met another American (the first American girl not from my program) and have taken her under my wing (well, sorta). Her name is Sarah and she just arrived a week ago. Apparently, she's been so scared to go out she's been eating cereal in her room since she got here. Susan and I showed her how to navigate the scary world of Russian cafeterias, so hopefully everything will be good.

Anyways, we stayed at the club until we couldn't stand hearing the same song over and over and over and...well, you get the point. So, off we went to find (of all things) a karaoke club. We found one, but they wanted an outrageous entrance fee, so we ended up wandering the streets. Eventually, we found a sushi bar, had some sushi. Then, it was back to the streets. After another hour of wandering around, looking for something that was open (it's Moscow for Pete's sake, something should be open) and after an hour or so, found a Shocaladnitsa (a coffee house). We were going to stay until the metro opened (around 5.30-6.00), but they closed on us. Finally, after a long night of wandering around – ten minutes before the metro opens – Francesca decides she doesn't want to wait and hails a cab. It was fun. So, there is another thing I can cross off my list. Done and done.

One Saturday (after a well-earned lie in), Susan and I took off to the Mayakovsky museum. We couldn't figure out how to get in, so we ended up at this massive bookstore, trying to read Tolkien and Star Wars in Russian. I picked up a collection of Russian poems to carry around with me and after getting frisked by the guards, twice (once coming in – because, apparently, I was stealing something coming into the store – and once leaving), we took off to the Red Square. It was snowing, so it made a perfect picture day. We walked around the Red Square, went to GUM, got cappuccinos from a Japanese restaurant, and played “count the brides” (there is a Russian tradition that, when you get married, you spend the day walking around Moscow and taking pictures at all the famous sites).

It was Valentine's Day and, in celebration, the Moscow City government held a concert/freestyle skiing competition at MGU (MGU has a massive sky ramp). We met up with some friends and went to the concert/competition thing. It turned out that the skiing competition was the finals for the World Cup. Franchesca decided to desecrate a Russian flag by cutting out a Swiss flag in the Russian flag...and promptly got spit on. It was quite interesting, but we had a native Russian with us who got everyone to chill out. So, we spent the night eating kiosk food, listening to bad (in a good way) Russian pop music and random members of the Duma, and watching people throw themselves off ramps at 50 mph. An American won, at which point I ducked my head and high-tailed it out of there while all my friends pointed at me and yelled, “She's an American.”

Then I randomly threw myself in the snow and made a snow angel. Because I could.
Day 2 (well, really day 3) was a museum hopping day. We hit both Tretyakov Museums, which was AWESOME!!! I am officially in love. Will explain more later. Loves to all!