Russia is a completely ridiculous country.

So I have a lot I need to update on, but I'm just going to go ahead and cover our trip to Olxon and backtrack later.

So we decided to go to Olxon for the weekend, which is this beautiful island on Baikal which was just recently blessed with electricity (well, only half of it, the other half should have electricity sometime soon...) Anyway. So as we're planning this trip we're figuring out all of our possible options and realize that one of them will cost us a ridiculous amount of money (like $100 each). So we decide we're not going to stay in the hotel that gives you bed and food for $30 a night (yes, I realize that in America a room AND all three meals would be like $100 a night, but this is Russia, and spending more than like $10 a night + food is a lot). So we get on the marshrutka at 10 AM (Eddie joined us at the last minute, making it him, me, Sonya, Ivan, Elissa, and Joseph).

This is CRAZY. We're crossing over Baikal into Olxon and we're about to get back on the marshrutka and we see SASHA (one of our tour guides from Ylan-Yde). So we talk for like 4 seconds and hug and whatnot, but how crazy is that (this is actually one of the least craziest parts of the entire weekend.)? He was just, like, there. He has a house on Olxon and is working on building some stuff there too.

So we ask some guy if he knows where we can stay once we get there, and he takes us to this place where this woman talks 18,000 miles a minute, but when she finally says we can stay for 200 rubles per night (per person), we agree. (This is like 8 dollars). Excellent. There's a kitchen, she goes through this whole speech about how to use the kitchen, what to do, etc (only to the girls though, since boys don't cook or do anything at all). We settle in, and meet one of the other lodgers. His name is Boris Andreevich, and he is about 300 lbs and dressed completely in camo. This compeltely doesn't faze me. 2 of the other guys in his group completely ignore us, which is surprising because half of our group is female.

Anyway we put our stuff down and decide to go see this shaman rock or something. The woman at the hotel/hostel/place to sleep talks ridiculously fast and quite a lot. I say that I completely understand, thank her, and leave, because I can't stand to listen to her talk anymore. When the group asks me where we're going I say I don't completely know and we set off in a direction which may or may not be where she pointed us. Then as we're walking around Sasha drives by us AGAIN. We talk a little more and he tells us about some excursion we can go on with them in a couple of weeks. We say we're interested. He also wants to know if we can help teach English, which we also very much want to do. I give him my number and we head off again.

We find this shaman rock which is really quite pretty. We climb all over it, talk a lot. Eddie throws a teacup off the top and makes an excellent reference to Arrested Development ("RETURN FROM WHENCE YOU CAME!"). We see this beach and a little church and decide to wake up early the next morning, swim in Baikal, have breakfast on the beach, and maybe visit this little church before our excursion at 11.

On the way back we debate about whether or not we want to buy dinner and cook it or find a cafe. We go back to our rooms first, get money (I kept an account book because there was no bank-o-mat on Olxon, which meant that we had to borrow from each other and whatnot. Everyone laughed at me but I'm totally right.) We asked Boris Andreevich if he knew where the closest store was and sent out some guy to show us. This guy did not seem thrilled, but I guess it was okay. We bought some pilmeni, bread, cheese, and vodka (we're so Russian, right?). Then when we get back one of the guys helps us with the stove and we make our pilmeni. (There were four of them-Boris Andreevich, this two brothers (one blonde, and one skinny with black hair), and this buryat guy). The Buryat guy started acting sketchy immediately, telling me we had to find Natasha (WHO is Natasha?) so he's dragging me along with him and we're in the dark behind the house. He's telling me to give me his arm and trying to put HIS arm around me, because evidently I need to be careful of where I'm walking (we're on completely flat ground). I tell him I don't think that this Natasha is out here, and return back to the kitchen. I guess he gives up and follows me back inside and goes back to his room.

So Sonya cooks pilmeni, and it's quite good. Then we have a couple of toasts and go to see what's going on in the TV room. We end up talking to these four guys, everything's nice. I guess they were drinking way more than I noticed, but at like 10 we started to gather our things, wash the dishes, and get ready to go to bed (after all, we're planning on waking up at like 7 and going to the beach). The Buryat guy keeps insisting that we drink with him, and actually tried to like grab me as I was walking out of the kitchen. Sonya, Elissa and I return to our room and get ready to go to bed. I guess the boys were still talking to the 2 Russian brothers, and all of a sudden Boris Andreevich (I guess with no prompting at all) gets up and starts beating up the Buryat guy. Joseph, Eddie, and Ivan come into our room and Joseph's like "Okay, we're going to have to break the language pledge for this one...Boris Andreevich just beat the SHIT out of that Buryat guy." So we're all pretty concerned, but just agree to lock ourselves in our room until everything dies down.

Well, sounded like everything died down...until we hear this sort of loud noise, getting louder. I think to myself "what on EARTH is that?...oh wait....oh yea that's a chainsaw." Evidently the boys' door was somewhat open and they saw the Buryat guy completely covered in blood, chasing after Boris Andreevich. So THEY come into our room, we lock the door, and sit there freaking out with each other. We make this elaborate plan that if he happens to come after us, we'll kick out the window and jump out (problem being that we'd probably slice ourselves on the glass, and there were 2 panes). We say that if we happen to need to escape, we can just call Sasha and stay with him (I later realize that I don't actually have Sasha's number, he has mine...but I had Sergei's number and he would have given me Sasha's number. Not important. Anyway). We spent a lot of time forming plans of action. A main problem is that the hotel was basically like this: Enter through the door, see hallway. On the left is the kitchen. Proceed forward, have 4 rooms (2 on each side). At the very end of the hallway is a TV room, and then 2 rooms off of that (one of which the chainsaw enthusiasts were occupying). This meant, that since this fight was going on in the hallway around the door and directly outside of the door, we had no way to get out of the building (aside from the window).

So we hide in our rooms for awhile and then the two brothers knock on the door. Someone (I don't remember who, because I certainly would not have let them into our room at that point) let them in and they were actually quite nicely trying to calm us down, telling us everything was fine (meanwhile we can still hear the other two punching each other). Later they tell us that the Buryat guy is asleep in his bed. Their pants and hands are also COMPLETELY soaked in blood. We talked for awhile, actually, and ended up talking about movies or something. At the end one of them said that they were really there because they "liked our girls". I was actually not concerned about this because although the one was fairly creepy and going after Elissa, he finally stopped after Sonya told him multiple times that she was sleeping and not to bother her, and the other one (who actually said this) sat next to Joseph the entire time and didn't come within 5 feet of any of us (girls).

I didn't see any of the blood (by the time I left the room Boris Andreevich had mopped it all up), but Eddie and Joseph said that there was A LOT. Also we were pretty positive that the Buryat guy was not in bed, but in the street (I think Joseph saw him, also there was a lot of moaning in pain). The next morning NONE of them would even look at us and were acting really, really weird. They told us that everything was fine, that the Buryat guy got up early in the morning to go back home. This seems quite strange, given that one could wake up 6 hours after that kind of drunk fight and just return home. Needless to say, we never saw him again. We're not sure if he died (I'm completely serious, Eddie and Joseph said there was that much blood everywhere). Everyone else had all of their limbs and no other chainsaw wounds, and when Joseph saw him in the street he said he was on his feet...but then Eddie brought up a good point, he could have somehow gotten nailed in the stomach or something. Anyway it was an incredibly scary experience.

I guess at some point Ivan went to get water and was doing it the wrong way (dipping his cup into the water bin instead of using some sort of ladle), and Boris Andreevich stopped fighting with the Buryat in order to correct his waterbottle filling form. That WOULD happen. Also in the middle of this Eddie put his hands on his head after looking at the chainsaw and said "I don't HAVE that merit badge!" ha. Also Ivan, who was sitting there quietly the whole time (in typical Ivan fashion) said "...maybe our room has a chainsaw too..." as if it came with the hotel.

The next day Sonya realized that she was the only one that had registered with the hotel (they said we only needed one person from the group), so her name and passport number are with the hotel right now. Also, since those other two guys were in our room, there's blood on the door. We don't think anything's going to happen...but we're just going to go ahead and hope that nothing happens. Elisabeth is calling the people in Moscow to ask them and said that if the police call Sonya at any point, she has to just say she doesn't speak Russian well, needs a translator, and is to call Elisabeth immediately.

On Sunday we went on this excursion with this girl from Australia and guy from England. It was nice, we got to see a lot of the island and spoke a lot of English (yesssss). We visited a rock where I guess you make wishes...and something about love? I don't know. Eddie translated this (incorrectly) to "the place where mice go to find love." We also saw some sort of (village? can't be, more like collection of shacks) where there lived three families, what appeared to be a goose farm, and some sort of brightly colored building that did something with the weather. Then we came back, went to the banya, made macaroni and cheese, and sat in our rooms. Joseph, Eddie, Ivan and I spoke in English for awhile. Eddie and I briefly discussed some philosophy and whatnot, and reminded me of how crazy I sometimes think Eddie is, and invariably likewise for him.