FRIDAY! – IT’S THE 4th OF JULY!  We’re in Helsinki!  What a perfect date to have left Communism in our dark and dirty past and burst into the light of freedom and democracy - well, not exactly free market capitalism, but at least the democratic socialism of Finland.  That’s right folks, we crossed the northern border of Russia by train to the Barrents Sea and now we're in Finland, the home of socialized medicine, socialized child care and socialized ludftkafish!  Sorta like what the Clintonites had planned for America, only here we get to use Euros instead of dollars.

Last night (in St. Petersburg) we hung out in a local bar drinking some weird-ass Russian beer with a guy named “Ivorski”  (NOT KIDDING!).  When we told him about Budweiser and their sponsorship of the 2008 Riding4Beer World Tour he nodded knowingly and said he loved East German beers!  When we corrected him and told him that Bud is known as the “Great American Beer,” (how we doing, Budweiser? – good use of marketing slogan, eh?) he said that wasn’t true and that it was just another example of the U.S. “stealing history” at the cost of the working class.  Our stunned reply was a VERY clever, “whatever!”

Folks, we’ve been on the 2008 Riding4Beer World Tour now for over three weeks and after 24 days on the road we’ve finally worn out our welcome in Communist countries (are you at all surprised?).   With our Chinese and Russian visas expired, and being declared “persona-non-grata” in Mongolia, we really had no options left but to flee to the West.  Fortunately we’ve been traveling under assumed names and using forged passports from Equatorial New Guinea, but the U.S. State Department has finally figured out that Barrack Obama and Tilly Tequila haven’t been touring Asia together.  It’s time to break out a new set of papers with new names and new identities, but this time our passports are from Yeman - HELLO FINLAND...

         GREAT NEWS!  6 PICTURES and VIDEOS COMING BACK SOON! - HOORAY FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION!

      
Stacy & a horned "Rodin!"  Notice the resemblence?                           You too could be Tsar for a day - Just $29.95!

                
It's pretty f'ing good to be Tasr!                               Kevin confessed to crimes he didn't commit just to be arrested!

      
It's Russia!  This is just the line to get train tickets.                    It's Finland!  We used the sauna to dry our clothes.