Moscow Finale!

We discovered that Greig Henderson had been moonlighting as a model for 'Bosco' who are the manufacturers of the Sochi 2014 gear. His face and legendary moustache are plastered on advertising boards all around Moscow.

There is only one moustache like that

So now for the socialising part of the Moscow tour! Straight after our last game, we had to make a sharp exit as we were heading for a traditional Russian spa.

First of all we had a guided tour of the massive spa that was spread across 9 buildings. The woman who gave us the tour was extremely passionate about the spa........ scarily passionate at points actually. She didn't speak any English so the tour was translated from Russian to the teams. It was extremely hard to keep a straight face when her very expressive movements were combined with her very loud and sharp commentary. This made her extended periods of eye contract with individual members of the group terrifying! She would have been a great leader of a prison or an army. Hats off to Marina for being able to translate that, it took some major skills.

We then got to enjoy the luxury of the spa with our team's own private room. For this, you had to wear a bed sheet to maintain your modesty and a really weird hat that made you lose all of the modesty that you had just maintained.

Get your sunglasses on folks, you are about to see 3 pasty white Scottish bodies. Those of a sensitive nature should look away now........

#athletes

So in the wee room we had a meal that was accompanied by a bottle of vodka. Scott's prowess at drinking straight vodka is extremely low. But as I am sure you are all aware, this is not an excuse that will pass on Team Edwards as he was forced to consume his quarter bottle. After taking each shot his face was likened to that of  'a dog licking piss off a nettle'.

It was no Glen's

The boys made their way into the spa, which was pretty toasty. The unusually shaped hats were supposed to protect your face from the heat, but I think the Russians might have just been trying to make us wear the most stupid thing possible. In the spa, there was part of tree in a bucket of water. We assumed we were meant to hit each other with it, so obviously, we tried to do that with as much force as possible. Colin was left with a lot of leaves on his back. We are not sure that we got the intended benefit from it.

The champ

In a spa, with a group of 4 competitive men, there is obviously going to be a challenge. This time it was 'who could last the longest in the searing heat of the spa'. The first man out was John Penny who was closely followed by Colin Campbell. Scott Macleod did not last much longer and David Edwards stayed in for an extra 10 minutes to be a show off.

On exiting the sauna, you were supposed to jump in a freezing plunge pool, and for the 100th time that week, the nuts made hasty retreat as we all developed a great soprano voice.

We went back to the hotel for some more beer and John left Scott to teach our 'translators' some English solo. Cheeeeeeers min. They are all probably worse off than before! After that, we once again played some cards with the Canadians.

The next day was the closing ceremony of the event.

Scott should not be trusted with a flag

This day was pretty cold and we got masses and masses of photos taken of us. Following that, we were keen to go out on the town in Moscow. Being shown around by a group of students was ideal as they had a very good idea of where all the affordable places were! But first of all, Greig Henderson highly recommended a bar that he had discovered a couple of nights earlier. When we walked through the door, we were instantly aware why he was so keen to visit this place again. Every waitress in the building was wearing an extremely short mini skirt and served beer by the litre. Nobody on the team was going to fault him for picking out this gem.

Big beer + short skirts = good pub

We were supposed to be meeting the Swiss, Canadians and Danes at the Red Square to make our way to the bar together. We were pretty far away so we jumped on the Moscow subway. It was deep enough to be a nuclear war bunker and was stacked out with murals of tractors and Lenin for some reason.

From there we went to a bar called Coyote Ugly. It was themed on the film and was just like a slightly less energetic version of THIS video (scantily clad women dancing on the bar). It was unusual and definitely not the type of place that we expected girls to recommend, but we were not complaining! It was a great night and some massive shapes were thrown. Especially by JP.

Repeated photo but it captured the energy pretty well

With Scott feeling confident by all of his new found attention, and being fuelled heavily by vodka, he was curious about just how far he could go and began talking to one of the dancer/stripper girls.

The answer that he discovered quite quickly, was, unsurprisingly, not anywhere near as far as her.

Following that we made our way back to the hotel at 4am and got some rest before leaving for Sheremetyevo at midday.

The girls picked up the team and accompanied them on the bus to the airport. The older members of the team seemed to be quite a bit chirpier than Scott and John after the big night. Scott was really struggling.

The boy can not handle his Vodka

Thanks to all of our translating/guiding entourage ie; Marina, Vera, Julia, Daria, Elina and Elen! It made things easier....... most of the time! Also to Anastasia and Armin for organising everything and inviting us, if you are having another one, we would love to come!

Cheers
Team Edwards
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