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The last time I saw my friend Dave we were fighting in St. Petersburg.
My girlfriend and I had made our way from Japan to Shanghai, and from there all the way to the “Venice of the North” by train. We had stopped in Beijing, Mongolia, Siberia and Moscow, and St Petersburg was our final stop in Russia.
Dave, who was a friend from Japan, had been undertaking a similar journey, and we had bumped into him a couple of times along the way. We had used the same Russian travel agency to arrange our journeys and accommodation. When we’d arrived in Irkutsk a man was standing at the end of the platform holding a sign with our names on, and when we spoke to him he gave us an envelope packed with tickets and information. This happened several times along the way, and looking back I am amazed at how well it worked considering it had all been arranged via primitive email, and we had sent a cheque for $3,000 to an address in Russia. The only thing that was a let down was the accommodation which was invariably shit.
Our “hotel” in St. Petersburg was a hostel in an appalling state of repair. The metal frame beds would have looked out of date in a third world hospital, and the powder blue paint was peeling from walls which were covered with the splattered remains of thousands of enormous mosquitoes which infested the whole building. Still, it was only a couple of nights, and we were out sightseeing all day long.
It was a pleasant surprise to bump into Dave again, and the three of us repaired to a bar for drinks and dinner. We returned to the hotel where my girlfriend wisely went to bed while Dave and I proceeded to get nastily drunk. In Dave’s room, we chatted volubly, and once properly drunk we turned to practicing our newly gained martial arts skills on each other. Things rapidly out of hand, and other guests let us know this by banging on the walls. However, we were way past caring and continued our loud, drunken conversation interspersed with violent throws, arm locks and high kicks.
Around 2am there was violent knocking on the door. We opened it to see a large Russian man with a towel around his waist, prepared to shout at us, presumably to tell us we were out of line. However, such a state were we in that when face to face with us he had second thoughts and spoke quite politely, making calming gestures with his bear-like paws.
We placated him somewhat and then carried on as before, ignoring more frequent banging on the walls. An hour or so later there was no more fighting to be had, no more drunken ranting to be done, so we staggered to bed.
At 6am my girlfriend angrily shouted me awake and dragged me into a cab to the famed Finland station where we boarded a train for, you guessed it, Finland. Later that day, in Helsinki, now feeling a little better, my girlfriend described the pleasant train journey I had missed, not failing to mention the rude stares she had endured for being sat next to a man snoring loudly and reeking of alcohol.
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