Traveling Spike visits La Doctora
in the Wild West and the Even Wilder East!First, Traveling Spike came to visit me at home in Utah, where I had the chance to introduce him to some associates of mine as well as showing him a few of the local attractions. Because I am a physician in Real Life ™, Traveling Spike even got to accompany me to the hospital.
Traveling Spike pays a visit to the operating theater. “If I stay right here and help the anaesthetist with these buttons and knobs, would you let me drink the leftovers when you’re done with surgery?”
Traveling Spike visits the Blood Bank: “I’d like to make a withdrawal.”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…It seems that Spike has fans of all shapes and sizes and every walk of life!
Déjà vu, Spike? “I’ll pay that sodding loan shark his bloody Siamese just as soon as I can get out of these chains!”
Looks like there is still a bit of the old William in him after all.
Traveling Spike was thrilled to meet another William and a personal hero of his youth, and even had the chance to share one of his latest compositions with the Action Bard:
Spike’s Lament
My sanguine longing for some haem-
-oglobin and a maiden’s scream
By blood of swine shall ne’er be sated
(Tho oft at butcher shoppes I’ve waited)…
So, dolefully, I bide my time
And wait upon some vicious crime.
Then I’ll dash in, expunge the demon,
And drink my fill whilst the blood’s still steamin’!
Utah, being a properly Mormon place, does not have a Hellmouth. We do, however, have
a small Heckmouth here in this old mineshaft.
From the Wild WestTo the Wilder East!Next, we packed up and got our passports in order, and Traveling Spike accompanied me on a two-week trip to Tajikistan, a Central Asian republic, to do some medical and humanitarian work, and then on to a brief stop in Russia before heading home.
Spike weighs in on our music selections for the drive to the airport. Owing to his particular photosensitivity, it would seem that Traveling Spike, too, does not want a Holiday in the Sun.
Traveling Spike seemed to enjoy the airplane ride. Definitely faster than the old horse and buggy, and a mite more comfy than being stuffed in one of those sodding mailing envelopes.
Tajikistan:Traveling Spike checks some classic Tajik architecture. Tucked in between the Russian, Persian and Mongol empires, over the centuries Tajik culture has picked up influences of all three.
Downtown in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, Traveling Spike stops to pose with a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, father of the KGB. Tajikistan was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1992.
At the central produce market. I think Traveling Spike was off searching for just the right onion to introduce the people of Tajikistan to his famous specialty, the Bloomin’ Onion.
Spike learned a thing or two about haggling for a good price when he accompanied me to the bazaar. It’s almost as much fun, he had to concede, as just nicking the stuff in the first place.
Climbing in some castor. Much like Spike himself, this plant is both beautiful and deadly, being the source of the old cold-war-era poison, ricin. Castor grows wild all over Tajikistan and throughout Central Asia.
Traveling Spike just couldn’t resist climbing into the museum display to check out this miniature mosque. The carved stone and ceramic pieces, from the original building, are over a thousand years old. Suddenly, Spike seems like just a mere tyke.
Exterior of the museum, housed in a reconstruction of an ancient Silk Road citadel.
Traveling Spike made some Tajik friends along the way.
I didn’t have the chance to hunt down any Russian Buffy or Spike paraphernalia while I was there, so I took the liberty of pirating these graphics from http://www.buffy.ru and http://www.jamesmarsters.ru (where Buffy transliterates as Baffy – it was that or Boofy, so I guess they made the better choice, and Spike is spelled Spaik, whereas poor James Marsters becomes Dzheyms Marsters)… anyways, for those in our studio audience who read or speak Russian, these are some pretty cool sights, so check them out!
Moscow, Russia:Tourist Spike was disappointed to learn that Red Square was not so named in honor of the color of his favorite refreshment. Acutally, the word “krassniy” in old Russian was used to mean both “red” and “beautiful”.
St. Basil’s Cathedral: No, Spike, you can’t fry those onion domes into more of your blooming onions!
Outside Lenin’s tomb on Red Square: “Beautiful, well-constructed mausoleum with a prime downtown location.” Maybe Traveling Spike has missed his calling as a real estate agent for the undead?
And inside, two dead guys reminiscing about how they changed the world…
Traveling Spike, of all people, ought to know better than to try to come between a poet and his lady love. Nonetheless, here he is moving in on Goncharova – better watch out, Spike, before Pushkin challenges you to a duel!
St. Petersburg, Russia:Outside the Hermitage. Naturally, Spike’s favorite pieces all seemed to be depictions of battle scenes.
Nice pad, but too many windows. The Winter Palace doesn’t seem to suit Spike’s nocturnal nature.
“Any religion that has a Church of the Spilled Blood can’t be all bad,” Spike reasons as he is
greeted by the local Patriarch and some very hospitable villagers. (Actually, the “spilled blood” moniker is a bit of a mistranslation; in Russian it is the Church on Spilled Blood, as it was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881.)
Traveling Spike meets a Russian friend.
Not surprisingly, Traveling Spike’s favorite souvenir was this bottle of Russkiy Standart vodka.
Well, like all good things, Traveling Spike’s visit did have to come to an end. I have sent him along now to his next stop in Georgia (uh, that would be the state of Georgia in the US, not the former Soviet republic of Georgia, another gorgeous spot in the Caucuses to which I did not, unfortunately, have the opportunity to bring our diminutive blonde friend on this trip… ). Anyhow, I have sent him on his way with a few mementos from Utah’s Golden Spike monument (where the first North American transcontinental rail line was finished in 1869, so in fact both Utah’s Golden Spike and our platinum-headed vampire Spike have taken their names in honor of railroad spikes!), as well as his latest lyrical composition and a few little transfusion bags of candy “blood” lest he get peckish en route.
