WHERE THE HELL AM I?

I got lost yesterday, big time. I thought I had a clue, studying the map, but I didn't. I had walked circuitously, after having located the main post office, about which I will speak, very briefly later.

So, it may have been about 8:30 PM and I am leaning on this post trying to find where I am. No luck. I see a metro station but it is too much trouble to cross this vast square to go find out the name. And I think I would need to down into the bowels of the earth to discover the name anyway. Instead, I go into this restaurant called Havana Club. Which is the easiest way to get me to enter anyway. Just say anything affiliated with Fidel!

It is a very interesting restaurant with the menu including cuisine from just about all the Latin American countries. I start by ordering a Pina Colada, which lacked enough liquor. (This same thing happened in Old Havana once, and I gold them to bring me more liquor.) It tasted OK, but without enough liquor I am not going to recommend it.

Then I ordered the fried shrimp which is the Cuban dish. I was still hungry, so I ordered fried bananas -- three bananas and two small scoops of ice cream, plus some dashes of whipped cream. Ate that too and still, unlike me, felt hungry. I paid about 454 rubles, which is good for all that, tipped the waitress too much, and left.

I walked out and retraced my steps to discover that I was on Moskovskiy Street. Finally, I reached a point that I thought I shouldn't be. There were a bunch of young men and women who were sitting around, many drinking beer. I recognized the area very well and knew that, at that hour, maybe I shouldn't be walking to Nevsky Prospekt. I knew that if I just walked along the side of the river that it would take me to Nevsky, but I wondered about the safety.

So I went down the subway at Sadovaya and, determined not to ask anyone, figured out, after about 10 minutes that the No. 2 train was somewhere else, at the end of the platform and then down another escalator. Once there, it took me another three minutes to figure out which of two trains I should take. I arrived at the correct station, Gostiny Dvor Nevsky Prospekt, one stop later.

Then went in search of No. 18.

Patrick Barry B.