out on the TOWN...

So we finally made it downtown and saw some of the city by the light of day.... from the cab on our way back from a Russian all-nighter. This is how it went...

Steve's team had a big game on Saturday night, against Russia's (and arguably Europe's) top team, Moscow Dinamo. They'd recently lost a European Cup game in Germany and only had a few days to get back home, train, and make their way to Yaroslavl... poor guys. So the home team won in four sets, with Steve capping them off for game point with a huge block.. yeaaaaaah. It was their first win since October, and Freddy and Steve gave the crowd some awesome entertainment with a game winning monster chest bump. It was weird though, as soon as the game was over, as in maybe 30 seconds after the last point, most of the fans were out of there. There were some pictures taken and autographs signed, congratulations etc., with one fan telling Steve, "you were for sure the second best player on your team, very very good..." - and I suppose it's true - their opposite served eight balls in a row in the fourth set, tallying three aces in that run alone. ANIMAL!

The gym.. it's pretty small, but packed tight...

Game on tv...

Canadian teammate Freddy going back to serve...

So the guys were happy... and I was too. We made our way home, had dinner and began the celebrations.... Russian style. (When in uh, er... Yaroslavl, right?) So after sampling some local vodka, we met up with some teammates around 12:30, and soon after made our way to a disco. I would have NEVER known there was a disco inside this building - no signs, noise, people.... but it was a'happening inside, and it happened until around 7am. It was dark, smoky, and there was techno ALL night long, which is normal over here (save for the rumoured Wednesday R&B night), but what was NOT normal (at least not normal to me, being Canadian and female) were the next to naked dancers that made their way onto a small bridge on the upper level of the bar. They started dancing in poofy, frilly, feathery dresses, with poofy, frilly, feathery fans... and then all of a sudden POOF goes the poof, they were in their very skimpy, barely there underwear, and stayed for around an hour. I guess this is normal.

Anyways, despite the smoke, it was really fun. We stayed until around 7 and waited for the McDonalds to open to have breakfast. Really. Then cabbed home and we were in bed by around 8:30.. spending most of the day recovering from lack of sleep and the several packs of cigarettes we'd second hand smoked. Gross. It was a super fun Saturday night though.... I think they should try to win more often. ")