Uni trip to Moscow
Some years ago I returned to Uni to do a second degree, this time in Fine Art and no I didn’t get my hair dyed an odd colour or take up wearing strange clothes…It was just an excuse to look at naked people in life drawing classes…

Anyway, the opportunity arose to go to Moscow to see the art, drink copious amounts of vodka and get very cold…..

We arrive at one of the Olympic Village hotels (built for the 1980 games and not renovated or updated in the last 20 years….) and the first thing we discover is that prostitution is widely accepted in the hotel and working ladies sit around ready to ‘entertain’.

Our first evening is spent in the hotel bar (the ‘village’ is on the outskirts of the city and the underground stops running at about 10.30….as we found out when we missed the last train….). So we get stuck into vodka and cherry juice…very nice….unfortunately my lightweight best friend tries to keep up with me….3 glasses of wine and I’m anyone’s, 13 vodkas and I’m still coherent..ish….She then looses the next day…she said it was the change of water….

We go on the obligatory coach trip around Moscow…start at the Kremlin, get whistled at by the guards – and not for being female, but for daring to step off the pavement… Another friend of mine volunteers to go buy tickets for the Bolshoi ballet (she’s a culture vulture and I wanted to see the men in tights….ahem…..). She hasn’t returned by the time we go to a different exit to pick up our coach, the guide won’t wait, the tutors refuse to go looking for her, we refuse to leave….um…no, actually, we say…we really should wait….but she’ll be fine….

8 hours later she turns up at the hotel…..the police didn’t need to get involved, fortunately….but it’s apparently a common problem with visitors who are unfamiliar with Russians, the language and their culture…..She refused to speak to us for the rest of the trip and needed to go into therapy when we came home…..Yep, feel like a heel about that one…..

However, the bar called…and we’d bought some really good quality wigs….A bit random I know, but you can buy excellent wigs in Russia, and I’d always fancied being a blonde…..So we go down to the bar, my blonde friend wearing a black bob and me wearing a long blonde wig…..My friend is accosted by a Russian who tells her she has good teeth and how much does she charge…she was wearing leather trousers…so who can blame him…..And I find all the men from our group suddenly manoeuvring their chairs to sit around me…..cue very, very interesting evening…..which I could never reveal here as some ….no….I’m not telling…..

But I might….
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 7 Dec 2006, 14:07, Reply)