As often as I have traveled through Eastern Europe, this does not surprise me one bit. What . . . are you on some strict time table, which keeps you from getting off at her station? Some of my most wonderful "experiences" were during travels to and from Eastern Europe. Ah . . . Inga in Vienna. We drank vodka all night . . .

What the hell are you supposed to say to a beautiful Slavic woman that says, "I wuv your aksent." Certainly not "What freaking accent?" . . . although I thought it a few times when I was beset with travel delays. Nope, you say, "I love your accent too" in your normal Texas voice and see what lies ahead. Damn you SP, now, I am so pissed I was not able to go in April, but I am certainly going in November and possibly this summer (broken ribs and bruised lung makes it difficult to kayak). In Eastern Europe, beautiful women in the aeroport and vokzal(train station), and definitely on the trains, streets, in the cafes, etc. Of course, it always helps if you speak decent Russian with a slight Texas accent. Seems they always want to speak English though.

Did you ever have the chance to travel via platzcart? That is an experience you would not forget.

Ah . . . ticket counters and passport control in Borispol, Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Minsk, Tolmachevo and Adler is about the same . . . beautiful women. I would have stopped for a few days in Bulgaria. If we were traveling together, then I would have made us stop for a few days in Bulgaria. She probably had a sister or certainly a friend. Slavic women with guns . . . yummy . . .

"Come back to Bulgaria. You vill like" . . . I was told that once in Borispol. Never regretted it for a minute.

ticket counters and passport control in Borispol, Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Minsk, Tolmachevo and Adler is about the same . . . beautiful women

Probably an essential part of their job requirements there.

_{--Sell Texas to China!}

even 'ugly' men demand that women look beautiful. Nature has become topsy turvy.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

very soon. So, as much as I wanted to stop, I couldn't. That's not to say I won't go back. :-)

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

tighter. You are just soooooooo bad Tina!!!!!!!!!!!

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

somehow a more recent pic would just not be the same thing ;), but note I have been very very good..so far :D

at my expense: I know you are all dying too!

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanpaulkelley/sets/72157619097532904/

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

I'm more interested in the ones you'll be taking on your upcoming trip through the countryside.

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

I've alluded to it in some posts, but have never really felt like it was a worthwhile topic to discuss.

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

Often Russian wives are for few years. They marry, get a kid, divorce and return to Russia. I recommend pedantic quality control procedure before marrying one.

If it starts to feel that a nice Russian bride is ready to marry anything, doesn't it imply that she thinks that her spouse will be only a temporary nuisance.

_{--Sell Texas to China!}

is ready to marry anything to escape the extreme domestic violence she is often subjected to in her own country and her spouse will be only a temporary nuisance because she doesn't feel like being some western man's doormat or submissive wife. She just wants to be free.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

to short. But I was bleary-eyed and extremely disheveled. I swear, the strangest things happen sometimes. I once heard a particle physicist talking about coincidences and curious moments in life being not random at all, just times when all the million seconds of our life and all our actions come together and create something very humorous. This was one of those times. Too damned funny.

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

"In this life, we are either spectators or spectacles."

If I cannot laugh at myself, why bother living?

It's supposed to be funny, CV, try and laugh for once, k?

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

I laugh plenty, at myself and others. To be honest, there is just something Jackass-like (the movie) about this particular event. Perhaps not my kind of humor (though I really like Dumb and Dumber, for some reason). Next time, when a female cop pulls you over, try touching her breast and smile. It might work! :)

he made half of this up. Every once in while SP feels the need to share a "Oh my God, I saw a beautiful woman" story. :-D *run*

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

perv, you know? LOL

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

you give the impression that this is a good thing The concept "sexual harassment" doesn't exist at least in Russia. There have been only two cases of it in court. That might apply in Bulgaria too. If that's the case, life must be hell for women in those countries.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

i can imagine they may call it something else.
i'd love their input here.
hm...

'hello from zuma, if i send you this agonist comment url, it's an invitation for your welcomed comments and company here.'

That sounds like the definition of a internet troll :D

with one russian woman replyer to my LJ query and while it's still ongoing, i can say the concept of sexual harassment is certainly wellknown there. my asking may have been surprising and confusing so there was some allowance for 'discrepancies' [between the cultures] made.

also the topic of cross marriages arose, from her further reading here. 'the grass is always greener'...

i left her the url to adrena's 3rd installment of her essay.

and i spoke of our amped up militaristic culture and women enlistees contending with it even as some of them are even moved and inspired by it. -and realized then i didn't know of russia's own policies... and i spoke of women of politics and likewise again wondered. and so on. it has been and continues to be an interesting and productive experiment. but yes, frankly, i was attempting to bring a russian female voice to the table here. a little more directly mayhap but this was well enough.

she rides a honda X1 by the way. great bike. not seen in america while quite common in europe.
http://zuma.vip.warped.com/Honda-2002-X4LowDown.jpg

(and that's how we met.) she's great.

"Thank you, F_F!"

...and i may get replies from others even yet.

you might appreciate this:

I decided to go on a tour of Google to educate myself. I found a revealing article that was published in 2006 in Harper's magazine. The author decided to embed himself in a group of middle aged, mostly pot bellied men, who were on a hunt for Ukranian brides. It was truly eye opening. What is said about American women ain't pretty. The following excerpt from the article shows that these men weren't interested in finding women that were equal in age or anything else for that matter.

Unlike in Kiev, there was a noticeable group of women over forty—some of the most beautiful women of the evening, actually, in fur and mascara that they wore with surprising elegance; real catches, some of them, and embodiments of what so many of the men had said they wanted during the sessions at the hotel bar. With few exceptions, though, the men ignored them as they cycled through tables full of girls twenty, thirty years younger than they. Source

American woman, stay away from me
American woman, mama let me be
Don’t come hangin’ around my door
I don’t wanna see your face no more
I got more important things to do
Than spend my time growin’ old with you - etc., etc.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

My implied message was that American ideas expressed here do not apply there. Just that. You posted yourself later an article about few court cases in Russia concerning sexual harassment, which is my factual based point exactly.

(Here a middle-aged conservative woman was sentenced recently because she harassed her male subordinate day and night).

If that's the case, life must be hell for women in those countries.

Your view is so called Generation 2 feminist (we have here version 3.0 around). Generation 2 speaks for women groups they do not know, often oppressing them more. It is often a class fight between women disguised as feminism. Generation 2 feminists were/ are missionaries converting with force other people (men and women) to their feminist religion. Trade union of prostitutes is having here a constant fight against feminists who want to oppress them.

Generation 3 feminists are under 40 years old and their strategy is based on individualism and effective bitching in court rooms and newspapers. Harpies, I would say. Generation 2 accepts only one kind of feminism and Generation 3 feminists hate Generation 2 feminists who have formed some kind of elitist cookie club. Generation 3 feminists want to individually win men in the game and play with their own female rules. Generation 2 wanted to change the rules, do some religious group thinking and "protect" some fictional groups of women.

This "life must be hell for women", insert something before and after, is the basic religious world view for Generation 2 feminists.

My point is that I've spend most of my life in a more egalitarian society than the USA and I know these things better than you.

_{--Sell Texas to China!}

Generation 2 Feminist = bad, Generation 3 Feminist = bad. Therefore all feminists are bad. You know what, Singular ... oh well, never mind - *bites tongue*

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

Apparently, survival of the human race requires sexual harassment of females.

Sexual harassment okay as it ensures humans breed, Russian judge rules

A Russian advertising executive who sued her boss for sexual harassment lost her case after a judge ruled that employers were obliged to make passes at female staff to ensure the survival of the human race.

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Published: 6:33PM BST 29 Jul 2008

The unnamed executive, a 22-year-old from St Petersburg, had been hoping to become only the third woman in Russia's history to bring a successful sexual harassment action against a male employer.

She alleged she had been locked out of her office after she refused to have intimate relations with her 47-year-old boss.

"He always demanded that female workers signalled to him with their eyes that they desperately wanted to be laid on the boardroom table as soon as he gave the word," she earlier told the court. "I didn't realise at first that he wasn't speaking metaphorically."

The judge said he threw out the case not through lack of evidence but because the employer had acted gallantly rather than criminally.

"If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children," the judge ruled.

Since Soviet times, sexual harassment in Russia has become an accepted part of life in the office, work place and university lecture room.

According to a recent survey, 100 per cent of female professionals said they had been subjected to sexual harassment by their bosses, 32 per cent said they had had intercourse with them at least once and another seven per cent claimed to have been raped.

Eighty per cent of those who participated in the survey said they did not believe it possible to win promotion without engaging in sexual relations with their male superiors.

Women also report that it is common to be browbeaten into sex during job interviews, while female students regularly complain that university professors trade high marks for sexual favours.

Only two women have won sexual harassment cases since the collapse of the Soviet Union, one in 1993 and the other in 1997.

Human rights activists say that Russian women remain second-class citizens and are subjected to some of the highest levels of domestic abuse in the world.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

thanks, adrena.

Please, keep working on making your blog more female-friendly.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

^{"All men's gains are the fruit of venturing."}

-Herodotus

I found a perfect daily prayer for you.

Lord, Give Me The Strength To Put Up With The People Who Are Going To Piss Me Off Today - Amen.

And ... since you said we could make this a flamefest, here's a video of your favorite artist.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

Take care of expressing your own points yourself and do not demand other people to participate if they do not share your interests. They have right to have their own agendas and you have right to disagree, right to your opinion.

So, you can be "female friendly", because you want to, but I already pointed out that few women definitely think that your feminist worldview is "female hostile". Ask any American fundie woman.

Certainly it is too early to declare 2nd generation feminism death in western world. And might be that it never dies.

_{--Sell Texas to China!}

Man, your rants are funny.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

I don't think it is fair to impute motives like "she wants a better life" or "a way out" to all women in Eastern Europe, or in parts of Asia for that matter. I find this to be horribly sexist, as if people see these women as economically determined--with the not so subtle implication that they are in essence prostitutes of a sort

There are always women who think that they deserve it all from men just because they are pretty (hopefully) and smart in a way which nobody else can observe. Certainly you can frequently encounter these types in Texas too. As a European, I know what American women think about European men in the USA. This is not a poverty thing.

In Thailand it is difficult to say where business ends and marriage starts. It is in their culture.

Russian women are often fortune hunters and it is somewhat embarrassing when somebody is married with one and the woman starts to flirt me.

Playing stupid usually helps but not with prostitutes who think that it is my obligation to drop them money. Prostitutes are usually some kind of perverts (this time I really mean it).

So there is always that quality check issue: who is suitable for marriage, who is suitable for something else and who is good for nothing.

I have seen a widow, who murdered her wealthy husband smiling in a newspaper. "Perfect murder".

Another very careless business guy married a pretty serial killer, who had attempted twice a manslaughter before their marriage. A simple background check would have revealed that. They even had kids before the wife was arrested. I wonder what's the genetic quality of the kids. It seems that there is some inherited mental trouble in her family line.

In 40% of home violence cases reported in first aid it is the husband which needs some medical care. A violent woman is not suitable to become a mother, but many are mothers.

_{--Sell Texas to China!}

quoting your line So there is always that quality check issue: who is suitable for marriage, who is suitable for something else and who is good for nothing. Maybe the latter applies to you?

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children}