Free Around the World in 80 Girls: The Epic 3 Year Trip of a Backpacking Casanova by Neil Skywalker Page B

Andrei, his son and I went to a banya, a Russian bathing house. It was the only thing I hadn’t experienced yet in Russia, and since it’s a typical Russian thing to do I wanted to try it. The banya was very expensive by Russian standards and I was quite pissed that we only stayed for 1.5 hours while I paid about thirty dollars for it. Except for finally getting to take a decent shower after four days, I didn’t like it much. It was basically a small spa with a pool table and couches in the other room and wasn’t very interesting, or fun.
    Andrei had to work the afternoon shift and his wife was supposed to bring me back to Vitaly’s office, since Vitaly had offered to drive me to Vladivostok. Obviously, I thought, Nice, a free ride . On the way back from the banya I bought Andrei some beers because he was insisting so much. Beer is cheap but he got damn annoying, asking for a gift. He didn’t know the English word for it and said it in Russian instead, but I pretended that I didn’t understand him. I was thinking that in just a few more minutes I’d be rid of this clown.
    Back in his home he wanted money for the night I stayed there. His wife was kind of pissed that I’d bought him beers. I refused to give him a single cent because I’d just paid a shitload of money for the banya and his beers in the last two days, and he’d never said anything about paying when he invited me to his house.  We started arguing, and in the end I just packed my bags and took the bus to the city center with his wife. I could see that she was very ashamed of him, and told her she could do much better than him.
    When I got to Vitaly’s office it was full of hot girls applying for European visas. I told Vitaly all about my time with Andrei, and he agreed with me that Andrei was a strange character.
    Vitaly told me his car was broken and that we’d have to go to Vladivostok by train. He gave me the keys to an apartment he owned or rented, and his office girls walked me there. I tried to game Tanya but she didn’t bite. She left later and I went to a bar with Natasha, where we met up with her boyfriend, a big guy who looked like a football hooligan. Luckily he had to work at the local carnival and didn’t stay long; Natasha and I drank a few half-liters of beer and then went to a cinema in the afternoon, The movie was super boring and we both fell asleep with our 3D glasses on. We said goodbye later and I went back to the apartment, but instead of going out and bringing a hot girl back to the fancy apartment I just watched some television and went to sleep. If only I had more confidence and game back then.
    The next morning Vitaly and I got on the train to Vladivostok. Andrei called to say he was very sorry for what happened. Some people are really nice until they start drinking, and I guess he’s one of them. Tanya came to see goodbye but though I didn’t realize it then, it wasn’t a real goodbye: I would see Vitaly and Tanya again later in my trip.
    Russia (Far East) – Vladivostok
    Vladivostok, the last stop on my two-month trip in Russia, is a medium-sized city close to the borders of both China and North Korea. The train ride from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok took only one night, and in the morning Vitaly was talking my ears off about Buddhism. I was more interested in some hot-looking girls in the train wagon. One of them made a lot of eye contact with me and we touched a few times while passing in the hall. When the train had nearly arrived in the station, I thought What the hell, I’ll give it a try . I asked her if she spoke any English and she answered that she’d been an English teacher for a while a few years back. When I asked for her name she said … Julia. The one in Moscow had studied English and the one in Kazan was an actual English teacher. Meeting a third Julia, another English teacher, I thought, This can’t go wrong .
    We talked for a short while and I got her phone number. When we got off the train, she