The one in which I get drugged in a bar...

No seriously. I wouldnt be writting this if I weren't really friggin' terrified right now, not that anything tremendously damaging happened to me, but that all of you are out there getting drunk of your ass and not paying attention to what happens around you. Its my retroactive shame impulse, but more than that I don't want this to ever happen to anyone out that that I care about. Please, you guys, be safe. Be careful. Just be there in four months in one piece when I get back, ok?!?

It went something like this. I was walking back from choir rehearsal Saturday night when Pavle, a friend from school, called me, and is like "Hey, I'm in your neighborhood, lets meet and go do something." So we met halfway between the university and my house where he was coming from, stopped and bought a beer from a tabac on the street, and sat and drank it out behind the Rostral Columns, basically, on wall overlooking the Neva River and all the most beautiful buildings in the city. Good conversation, which I think more than anything else I've missed this month here. The thing is, I shoulda gone home then. Instead, we decide to walk back over to this bar on the square by the hermitage, some fabulously sketchy dive bar ontop of a grocery store that he knew about. I remember getting a beer, having no free tables, and sitting down with some russians. And thats about it. Asides from what he told me later, I have no idea how I woke up in my bed the next morning. Not a single recollection. And yes, Ok everyone knows I'm a ridiculously easy drunk, but theres drunk, and theres blacked out for long periods of time. This is not me being ashamed of how drunk I got, I really honestly don't remember I thing. I know that Pavle saved my life, on several occasions that evening. I know I must have fallen repeatedly, because I have some scary looking bruises and possibly broke some bones in my hand. I know that I'm going to have to work on restoring what was a great relationship with my host mother for a while, since she was up till 3 worrying about me, and had the pleasure of opening the door to Pavle and a group of random people he stopped on the street to help get me home. Thats not something I would wish for anyone. I know that I was not in my right mind until about 5 pm yesterday. I'm sure that nothing horrible happened to me in the sense that no I wasn't raped and nothing was stollen from me, largely thanks to his presence the entire time, but the feeling of, emotional violation...is really frightening.

So please, you guys...be careful. This shit really does happen, not just to ditzy girls at college parties. I love you all and I miss all of you, and I just want to come home in one piece.