Days 1 & 2 (3/13 - 3/14) ::: We left Evanston around 1pm on Monday after a weekend full of final exams. Damn it felt good to be free! We wound up having a 5+ hour layover in Stockholm so we decided to bolt from the airport and take the high-speed Arlanda Express train downtown to check out the city. From what I saw, Stockholm seems very cool. We walked past the Nobel Museum, a bunch of cathedrals and the Royal Palace before stopping at Cafe Piccolino (a cute little cafe in the equivalent of a mini-Central Park) for a coffee and a snack. After our quick visit, we raced back to the airport in time to catch a 2-hour flight to Moscow. We arrived late that night, checked into the Holiday Inn Lesnaya (quite nice!) in the northwest part of Moscow, ate dinner and went to bed. Let the games begin!
Day 3 (3/15) ::: We met with a major consulting firm in the morning and a Russian Senator that afternoon. The senator was representing the Upper House of Parliament (equivalent to the US Senate) and spoke to us about his work as the Chairman of Economic Development Committee. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the famous Russian oligarchs, many of whom are on the Forbes list of billionares and how they amassed their fortunes by taking advantage of post-communism loop holes and a weak legal system. You wouldn't believe some of the stories! On our way out of the Russian Federation building, we ran into another famous senator, a woman who was rocking pimp boots and Dame Edna sunglasses, not quite senatorial gear. And, our advisor knows her well and described her daughter as the Paris Hilton of Russia. Not sure that's a compliment but it provided us with some laughter! That night we met up with some Kellogg alums for dinner and drinks at a place called the
Discovery Club. I wasn't very fond of the meat jelly that was served...and to be quite honest, don't like caviar that much either... so I left a bit hungry. Ahhh, Russian food! One of my friends fell asleep at the restaurant, while some others passed around a bottle of vodka and another used Tide-To-Go to cover a major wine catastrophe. And then somehow we wound up at a joint called the Tunnel for Salsa Night. Is this really Russia?
Day 4 (3/16) ::: Day 4 was full of meetings - a morning session with an oil and gas company to discuss the energy industry and then off to two investment banks to get some information for our research paper on the beer industry in Russia. I told you this trip was part business - I gotta do
some work! Trying to get to our second meeting proved to be quite an adventure. First we had a driver who spoke no English and then we had the wrong address. We roamed the streets for a while in search of the right building and only wound up in the right place after a few phone calls and some pacing in front of a seriously decrepit building that we were convinced was our meeting location. Hey it's Russia - you never know where an investment bank might be housed! Once we got in, we raced around the hallways, lost, trying to find the meeting room and laughed HARD each of the three times we passed the receptionist. That night we went to the opera for the Tsar's Bride and despite the beautiful theater and performance, our entire group passed out cold. Literally, 90% of our group was snoring, so we left after Act II.
The nap proved helpful as we rallied for a big night out. Unfortunately our rest and enthusiasm was not enough to get us past FACE CONTROL at the famed underground club, Propaganda. DENIED. I repeat, DENIED. They hardly ever charge a cover at the clubs in Russia but have a very strict door policy. That system doesn't bode well for those of us who don't speak Russian, show up in groups and wear our winter ski jackets out on the town. Given there was no chance I was going to turn into a hot Russian chick with stiletto boots and a fur coat during my time there, I knew I'd have to come up with a plan (more on that to follow).
After being rejected, a small crew hit a bar called the Big Fat Pig, where we were introduced to Russian hospitality by the most angry and unfriendly waitress I've ever encountered. I also learned that they don't make mixed drinks in Russia - you get a shot and a mixer - do it your damn self! After the Pig, we made a stop at B2 which turned out to be terrible. However, we did get to participate in a cross-cultural experiment as the Russians gawked at my friend, who is black. Just to get in the spirit, my buddy picked up a local and tossed him around the dancefloor. And, that night, despite our advisor's warnings to ONLY take official taxis, we quickly learned the best and cheapest way to get around Russia is gypsy cabs. And by gypsy cabs I mean, you wave down a car with no passengers and get in (aka hitchhiking). Call it what you will - we had to get around somehow!
Day 5 (3/17) ::: More work, no play. Our group attended a meeting of Russian brewers for the first part of the day and then cruised around central Moscow for a bit. I got my first look at Red Square, which is quite beautiful and then walked through Gym, the famous luxury shopping mall. On our way home, we tried taking an official taxi and got RIPPED off big time. He tried to charge us 1200 rubles ($40) for a ride that should have cost 100-200. We got really pissed off and wound up jumping out, throwing some cash at him (way less than the fare he demanded) and walking away. He wasn't happy...but either were we. That's what you get for getting into a metered taxi! And you wonder why we hitchhiked. That night we had a traditional Georgian meal at a restaurant called Tiflis. By the time we were done with dinner, I was really grouchy and decided to call it a night while everyone else went out.
Day 6 (3/18) ::: Finally, some real tourism! We hit Red Square, the Puskin Fine Arts Museum, Christ the Savior Cathedral, Sparrow Hills (Moscow University), Arbat Street and the Kremlin. Me and a few girls bolted the tour early and took the metro back to the hotel in order to get in a nap. On the way home, we stopped at a street kiosk to pick up some beverages (roadies!) for the night. 30% of alcoholic beverages are purchased for immediate consumption (aka in the street) so there's quite a nice selection at the kiosks including 2.5 liter bottles of beer and tall cans of both Gin & Tonic and Energy + Alco (9%). These little gems quickly became a fan favorite, especially given their price, which was under $1!!!
I was starting to get pretty frustrated with group travel (constantly traveling in a pack of 40 is a royal pain) so Beth and I decided to ditch the group and have our own little adventure. I called a local friend of an NYC club owner and asked her for the scoop. She hooked us up with a reservation at an incredible restaurant called Sky Lounge on the 22nd floor of a building in southern Moscow.
The restaurant was gorgeous, the view and food spectacular and the music (funky minimal) on point. We ate, we drank and we were merry - smiles from ear to ear the entire time. After dinner set out for Club Fabrique and not only did we avoid the wrath of face control, we got pointed at and asked to step inside. Maybe it was the Mercedes gypsy cab we rolled up in or maybe it was just the NYC attitude
coming through! It was a really nice club with decent music and a fun crowd. We danced for a few hours and then set out in search of our next destination, Red Way, where American DJ Stewart Walker was playing. Unfortunately we never found the "alley and the barrier" where the club was supposed to be located and wound up wandering the streets of Moscow for 45 minutes (not a good idea, I've been told). However, we were saved by the bell as my borrowed cell phone rang around 3am. It was another friend of a friend (its good to know some locals) and he asked where we were because he was coming to pick us up to take us to an afterhours party. A few minutes later we met up with our new friends, Max and Eugene, and were off to their friend's birthday party in an apartment on the outskirts of Moscow. Beth and I looked at each other, knowing we were treading on dangerous territory but nodded in agreement... afterall, we came to make party, so let's do this! We met a ton of cool kids at the party and had a blast drinking shots of vodka and dancing the night away. We watched the sun come up and then left sometime around 8am, making our way back to the hotel having finally felt like we had experienced Moscow.
Day 7 (3/19) ::: I woke up at 2:30pm, just in time to get showered and head out to watch the Moscow Locomotiv soccer match (in the snow!). As soon as we arrived, the armed guards stopped us from entering the section in which we had tickets. Instead, they redirected us to an empty section and told us we had to sit alone for our own safety. Interesting. Locomotiv wound up losing and nothing too exciting happened during the match. It was our last night in Moscow and I was ready to take on face control again at Propaganda but the group lost steam and everyone decided to stay in. Damn it! I felt a bit defeated...maybe next time!
Day 8 (3/20) ::: We had a meeting at the US Embassy in the morning and then another beer industry meeting in the afternoon. We grabbed some lunch at a local chain called My My ("Moo Moo" in English) and then boarded the bus for a 4-hour trip to Sudzal where we'd stay overnight in a monastery. We arrived late that night and found the grounds to be very dark and snowy, but beautiful! We dropped our stuff off at our little wooden cabins and then ate dinner while taking in some traditional Sudzalian dancing and singing. That night some people on our group drank heavily and their was an "incident" that I can't really write about but let's just say the nuns won't forget our group anytime soon. And no, for once, I was NOT involved.
Day 9 (3/21) ::: Troika rides! We started the morning off by sleigh-riding - meaning real, Santa-like sleighs pulled by horses! It was so much fun except that I had an scary horse behind me that I could swear was trying to bite my head off! After the troika rides, we toured the beautiful little town in the -10 degree Celsius weather and ate lunch before visiting another nearby town, Vladimir. The day of touring the countryside ended with
a ride back to Moscow and one last visit to Red Square. We finally landed at Leningrad train station around 11pm, where we boarded an overnight train to St. Petersburg. Apparently the last time our advisor took a group to Russia, they were so drunk and rowdy on the train that the conductor called the police and threatened to throw them off in the middle of the night, somewhere in the middle of Russia. For once, our group was well-behaved and made it to St. Petersburg without incident.
Day 10 (3/22) ::: We made it to St. Petersburg at 8am and immediately drove to visit the Palaces and Parks of Tsarskoe Selo (Pushkin Town, the tsars summer residence). We toured the buildings (stunning!) and then walked the grounds where I engaged my classmates in snow wresting, snow angels and snow ball fights. That afternoon we checked into our hotel, the Petro Palace (where they greeted us with champagne), and then Beth and I grabbed some delicious Indian food at Tandori before walking the streets of the city for a few hours. Whereas Moscow was all bright lights and big city, St. Petersburg had a much more European feel with amazing architecture and canals throughout the city. Our hotel was centrally located and we got a chance to explore right from the start, which helped us feel at home immediately.
That night, our group had dinner at a great spot called Restauran, followed by drinks in our hotel and some dancing at a club called Led Limon. They tried to face control us but I just pushed my way in, shouting the names of a few local contacts we had been given. I will not be denied...ha! After getting down to some hip hop for a few hours, a small group of us walked home in the a big snow storm - it was amazing to see the city empty and full of fluffy white powder!
Day 11 (3/23) ::: Beth and I spent much of the day touring around the city before heading out to a meeting with a telecom company. That night we had a group dinner at a place called Lenin's Mating Call, which we were told would be showing porn. We had a good time but only got to see 30 seconds of porn...what a disappointment! We made the best of it, downing quite a bit of vodka in preparation for the fun night out. Despite an after dinner scene where our advisor and her husband yelled at us, paid off the restaurant and some taxi drivers that were trying to over-charge us, we made our way to a tiny little joint called Purga. Once again, face control was attempted, but not achieved! I walked and talked our way in and we wound up having a great night mixing with some wacky locals, many of whom were decked out in random bunny, Santa and other costumes (the club had a costume rack!!!). I made friends with the bunny, Masha, but never called her the next day as I had promised. We danced our arses off and got nutty to the wee hours before heading back to the hotel for an after party that quickly got out of hand. Let's just say there was wrestling, jumping from window sills and iron board surfing... and I'm not naming any names!
Day 12 (3/24) ::: Despite the late night, we were up early and out the door for a tour of the Baltika brewery (Baltika is the market leader in the Russian beer industry). Research... I swear, it was research! The brewery was well outside the city limits, in the middle of nowhere, but well worth the trip. We had a great time touring the facility and enjoying a morning beer tasting. That afternoon we had a meeting with someone from the Governor's office but by this point, who really cares about the meetings...especially after a drinking beer all morning! After the meeting, a nap was in order. Dinner that night was at Don Corleone, the restaurant inside famed Russian nightclub, JetSet (where Satoshi Tomiie is playing in two weeks!). We partied it up a bit after dinner and then ventured out to Club Decadance. I rolled up to the door with a four friends and found a very stern doorman staring me down and shaking his head. I tried to talk my way in for a few minutes but he just kept staring at me. I had no idea if he was ignoring me or unable to understand English and was on the verge of giving up when one of my friends whispered, "Come on Wendy, you can do better, we're not leaving!" And she
was right, I could do better! I turned around and looked him in the eye (well not really, I had sunglasses on) and told him that I was from NYC, home of the real party people. I went on for a few minutes until he finally gave the nod and let me and my peeps in. Attitude baby, attitude.
We reported directly to the bar for celebratory shots of vodka and then proceeded to the dancefloor where we got our boogie on! I was really excited to find the DJ playing some wicked electro (a bunch of tracks I recognized) that had everyone going bonkers. It was a really dope club with a great crowd. There was a VIP area adjacent to the main room (but still within view) and the chinstrokers stayed up there with the models and bottles and didn't get in the way of the music heads on the dancefloor. It was really the perfect combination of dancing fools and good looking party people. We rocked it out till around 4:30am before calling it quits for the night.
Days 13 & 14 (3/25 - 3/26) ::: I spent the morning at the famous Hermitage Museum, which lived up to it's billing as one of the best in the world. There are six buildings situated along the Neva River, right in the heart of St Petersburg. The main building is the Winter Palace, the residence of the many Russian tsars. The collection had a little bit of everything - western, oriental, pre-historic, antiquities - and was really quite amazing. After a few hours in the museum, I strolled the streets shopping and taking in a last few sights including the Church of the Spilled Blood which looks very similar to the impressive St. Basil's cathedral in Moscow. That night we went to the Kirov Ballet for Swan Lake and everyone stayed awake this time! In all seriousness, the theater was amazing, as was the performance.
After two weeks of Russian fun, I was really tired and decided to get a good night's sleep on the last night. REWIND. You didn't really think that's how it was going to end, did you? The real story goes a little something like this - after the ballet, everyone else was really tired and decided to get a good night's sleep on the last night EXCEPT me and a select few buddies. We started the night at Cadillac, a hip hop club which had a monster line outside when we arrived. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we were greeted with a call of "G-G-G-G Unit!" from someone in the crowd, which was directed at my tall, black friend who got some attention in my earlier story. We laughed our asses off! After waiting for a few minutes and seeing no movement, we chatted up some locals and decided to make our move to the front of the line. This time, my G-Unit friend took over the talking and asked a local who was leaving to hook us up. We threw in some NYC and Chicago references for good measure and were quickly escorted around the velvet ropes...lol! After a few drinks we realized we were the oldest people there, by about 10 years and decided to move on. We contemplated a few different moves but finally decided to head back to Decadance, the scene of our crimes from the night before. This time around, I had my pimp-tastic new shades on and full on Russian clubbing confidence...and apparently it showed. I walked right up to the door and didn't have to say a word. The same doorman was there from the night before and gave us the nod immediately. We walked in, went straight to the dancefloor and found a few of our friends there (two from school and a few Russian party people from the night before!). I danced like a wild woman for hours on end... it wasn't until just before 7am that I finally left and went back to the hotel.
I was tempted to head to the 24-hr afterhours club, CCCP, but thought better of it (not wanting to miss my flight home) and instead went straight to the hotel jacuzzi and sauna for some morning relaxation. After a quick shower and a 2-hour nap, I left for the airport and made my way back to Chicago via Copenhagen. Yet another merry misadventure complete - Next stop... NYC for Dancing Rams, Part III.
After our trip to Ibiza, my friend Sam came back to Barcelona to hang for a few days. After a lengthy slumber, we decided to do a Gaudi walking tour of L'Eixample, which included a number of his more famous works. The first stop was at La Manzana de la Discordia, a famous modernist landmark. It's known as the "block of discord" due to the clash among three designs: Casa Amatiller, Casa Lleo and Casa Batllo (picture one). The next stop on our walking tour was Casa Mila (La Pedrera), an apartment building that some say Gaudi created using the sea as his inspiration (picture two). After Casa Mila, we took the long walk to visit La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's unfinished cathedral 
masterpiece. Apparently the construction started 119 years ago and published reports say that it won't be complete until 2020. Only eight of the planned eighteen towers are complete and the church still doesn't have an interior (picture three). 
