Is DNA Crab Splash Amore

So questions our youthful Russian Brethren. Graffiti here is insane. they love english and hate the G8. been a long week. I am now in St. Petersburg, the so called Venice of the north, canals a-plenty and fancy buildings. When you're in the down town area. We're actually staying at a place called the student center on the upper north side, the equivalent of the Bronx. For scale, New York city is about 8.1 million, St. Petersburg is about 4.6, and Moscow is 10.4 or so. Moscow is also the most expensive city in the world, according to wikipedia...Novgorod was about 216,000.
Last Thursday night, we all had a big fancy banquet in one of the towers of the kremlin in Novgorod, mead, vodka, fresh fruits and all the works. excellent. there was singing and dancing and toasting, we basically had the whole restaurant all to ourselves. between the tree or four schools and the teachers and the locals there are about 35 or so of us.
then we visited a local dance club called the talisman, euro-techno. and more beer. beer is truly safer than water here, even the locals buy bottled water because the tap wter makes you sick.
Friday night we take a train up to moscow, ariving around 5 in the morning, the metro doesn't start to run until 6 so we ate some real shitty bread/pastry sort of shit over priced in the moscow train station. then we head up to red square. the palce if fucking huge. lenin's tomb, the body looks real waxy, apparently every 3 years or so they take him out and re-preserve whatever. looks fake by now but there is some decay at the fingertips. we then hike up Tverskaya street, the equivalent of 5th avenue, to Pushkin Park. Ate at some fancy sports bar and watched Portugal beat England.
Excellent game, best one i've seen yet.
we roamed the city all day, went through a few museums, etc. the cathedrals here all charge entrance fees, and then additional fees to take pictures inside...
at 12:30 am we finally board the train to go on to St. Petersburg, arrivibng around 7 am sunday morning.
This place is fucking insane.
One block is fancier than paris, turn the corner and you're in a third world country. there is no middle ground, no middle class. only those weho have a lot and those who have none.
every monday is champagne monday, bottles of champagne run around $2-3. popular cuisines aside from traditional russian fare (stroganoff, 'salad', potatoes) includes sushi restaurants and 'schwarma', some sort pita wrap with cucumbers tomatoes, and a mystery meat that looks like pork but is most likely realy dry lamb, smotherd in sour cream. there are pizza huts, sbarro, and kfc, there are no taco bells.
today in the grocery store i found a kids cereal called kosmostars, trastes like corn pops sort of.
yesterday we got a tour of the law school, looks nice, not as fancy as expected, fewer books than expected, but a lot more computers. also, the realy old books from the beginning of the soviet union are on display and available to students to dig through. we saw a special room where the faculty, which includes Putin, go to have little meetings on the curriculum and such, my roommate even sat in putin's chair.
I saw an anal cunt sticker in the metro.
they have a popular drink here called 'funky juz' (juice) that is essentially grape soda with 7,0% alcohol. also, there is a kind of vodka with chili peppers in it.
first finals are friday. should have some pictures as soon as i can get the wifi password for my laptop.

Squat the World Cool Joker
(more graffiti...)