11/14: Russia - Day 5 + 6

After our night out we woke up bright and early to take a long bus ride back to Finland to catch our ferry. For whatever reason I was wide awake for most of it while everyone was past out cold. I thought this would be a good opportunity to start doing some studying for my finite element exam that immediately followed our trip, but right as I opened my book and literally read the first paragraph this bizarre comotose Austrialian chick named Imogen woke up and initiated a very random and entirely way too intense conversation about politics, man's role in the world, religion and the meaning of life.

While the previous trip on the boat was pretty low key, this time back we had got to know most of everyone on the trip. However, in any party, someone has to warm up the dance floor, and Charles and Loic were up to the task ...


Some of the party feeling the light ...


The guys you'll probably recognize as Evan, Loic, and Charles (who in particular seems to be in the middle of a very spiritual moment). The three girls are Megan (North Dakota), Isabelle (Spain) and Stephanie (Seattle, although now at school in Oregon).


Charles, Evan, and Doreen (Germany) being a tiger for the camera:


Some of the frenchies dancing ...


The two guys on the bottom (on the left is Christophe, and on the right is Simon) were both from Quebec, and I don't think there was a night that they didn't go streaking.

I don't claim to understand it ...
This is Evan, Imogen and I ... not sure what the #1's are about ...


More of the party:


I don't really know what's going on here:


Evan, the ladies man:






Ok, so I think I mentioned that Simon and Christophe and the rest of the Quebec/French guys in general couldn't keep their clothes on ... so to back up, it was Simon's birthday (the guy in the following photo). As part of his birthday his friends poured him something like 24 shots that were of the colors/shape of the Quebec flag. Apparantly he drank them all but threw up like 5 times in the process. I know what you're thinking ... throwing up 5 times, an ab workout like that was the perfect birthday gift. But apparantly for the Quebecois, that's not good enough, instead they also needed to buy him a golden penis. I'll pause to allow you to read what I just wrote one more time ....

Yes, at our last stop in Russia they randomly bought a golden penis. This golden penis was at a table surrounded by beautiful vases which leads me to one of 2 conlusions:

a) They made one golden penis and it never sold until finally some drunk French Canadians happened along and bought it, or
b) It's their best seller and they can't keep it in stock no matter how hard they try.

Regardless, they bought it for him, and it will take years of therapy before I can ever discuss some of the things I saw done with it. Here is Charles looking quite alarmed at Simon's advances:



So yeah, it was an eventful night. When we finally arrived it took many hours of driving in Helene's tiny car before we finally arrived home, safe, sound, and somehow a decade older despite being gone for only 6 days...