{"id":7794,"date":"2019-10-01T10:34:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T10:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2019\/10\/column-577-darts-near-the-kremlin\/"},"modified":"2019-10-01T10:34:44","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T10:34:44","slug":"column-577-darts-near-the-kremlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2019\/10\/column-577-darts-near-the-kremlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Column #577 Darts near the Kremlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, October 1, 2019
\nColumn 577
\nDarts near the Kremlin<\/strong><\/p>\n

For thirty-two days my life was a pain in the ass. Literally.<\/p>\n

What was originally to be a week-long Guinness tasting holiday in Dublin with three buddies somehow turned into a month-long, 2,000-mile, bike ride from Dublin to Moscow. Don\u2019t ask me how this happened. I no longer remember.<\/p>\n

What I do remember is that I was assured it would be \u201ca kick-ass month to remember\u201d and that I would have more than ample opportunity to check out the pubs and the local brews \u2014 and throw some darts along the route \u2014 from Dublin, through England, Holland, Germany, the former East Germany, Poland, Belarus, and across Russia to Moscow.<\/p>\n

Well, MY FRIENDS ARE MORONS!<\/p>\n

The truth is I never had enough energy to do much more than shove carbohydrates into my face and crash on the floor at the end of each day\u2019s ride. I can barely lift my throwing arm, let alone sit on a barstool. My hair looks like, well \u2014 like hair looks when it\u2019s been stuffed into a plastic helmet for thirty-two days. AND \u2014 worst of all (this is REALLY BAD) \u2014 I possess absolute proof that sitting on a bike for ten hours a day will turn that most vital of male organs into a soft-tip dart.<\/p>\n

Now that the hell-ride is over, I have managed to locate a darts bar in Moscow, and it\u2019s worth a visit. It\u2019s called the Armadillo and it\u2019s located adjacent to Red Square at Khrustal\u2019nyi per., 1, Building 86. The outside of the joint is a mess due to construction but the inside ain\u2019t half bad.<\/p>\n

While the Armadillo\u2019s owners are striving to create a casual American ambiance, they have a ways to go. The place is safe though (they have their own security) and the service is easily a notch or two above similar establishments where Russia\u2019 s new capitalists are still unaware of the correlation between a the tightness of a waitresses sweater, her smile and the size of a tip. The prices are modest. A beer will run you about $5, which, for Moscow, is quite good \u2014 but the locals drink nothing but vodka. The fare in this American-like pub is, of course, Mexican \u2014 but it still beats the hell out of Russian staples such as Borscht, bread, cabbage and potatoes.<\/p>\n

The Armadillo is far from the nicest pub in Moscow (check out the bar at the Metropole Hotel if you want to see an amazing place \u2014 the working-girls here are like right out of Playboy), but it\u2019s got atmosphere, live music on the weekends (Country Juan and the Comrades, I think) and a relatively young, up market crowd. And, as noted earlier, the place is safe \u2014 which is quite remarkable in today\u2019s Russia, where the local Mafia is prevalent in establishments of this type.<\/p>\n

Most amazing of all, and most important, is that the place has FOUR dart boards. They are surrounded by pools tables (which I suppose, however misdirected, is the one American bar decorating touch that the Russians have fully emulated).<\/p>\n

So, I ordered a bottle of peppered vodka and threw a bit of practice. Poured some more vodka and shot some pool with my biking buddies while Country Juan and the Comrades did their thing in the background. I munched a couple of Russian\/Mexican\/American burritos and washed them down with still more vodka.<\/p>\n

I then headed into Red Square with my friends where we wisely traded all but our underwear to some guy with no teeth for Hard Rock Cafe tee shirts, even though there is no Hard Rock Cafe in Moscow.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m now exactly four hours into the flight home and have ALREADY intersected my original point of departure \u2014 Dublin \u2014 from more than a month\u2019s worth of hell ago. I\u2019m hung over. I can\u2019t feel my ass. My willy no longer functions. And my favorite clothes are tooting around Moscow on some homeless guy\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

Yep, there\u2019s a moral here somewhere.<\/p>\n

And that, I\u2019m afraid, is that among morons, I\u2019m the MAN.<\/p>\n

From the Field,<\/p>\n

Dartoid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For thirty-two days my life was a pain in the ass. Literally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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thirty-two days my life was a pain in the ass. Literally.","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":15,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"dartoid","display_name":"Dartoid","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2024-02-13-12_01_31-Dartoids-World-_-The-most-widely-read-column-about-darts-in-the-world.png","url2x":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2024-02-13-12_01_31-Dartoids-World-_-The-most-widely-read-column-about-darts-in-the-world.png"},"first_name":"Paul","last_name":"Seigel","user_url":"http:\/\/www.dartoidsworld.com","job_title":"","description":"\"Dartoid\" is the pseudonym of Paul Seigel, a prominent chronicler of darts for over 35 years. His columns are celebrated for their wit and insight, often detailing his quest for a game in exotic locales worldwide. His writing offers vibrant commentary on the competitive darts landscape, including players, organizations, tournaments and the sport's unique culture. Dartoid's articles are highly regarded among darts enthusiasts, solidifying his role as a pivotal figure in promoting and documenting darts as both a recreational pastime and professional sport."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7794"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}