Description
Desperate to escape South Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest dreamed of turning into a foreign correspondent. So she headed to Russia searching for some excitement—commencing what would change into a four-year, twelve-nation Communist bloc tour that shattered her preconceived notions of the “Evil Empire.”
In Around the Bloc, Griest relates her experiences as a volunteer at a children’s shelter in Moscow, a propaganda polisher on the place of business of the Chinese Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece in Beijing, and a belly dancer a few of the rumba queens of Havana. She falls in love with an ex-soldier who narrowly have shyed away from radiation cleanup duties at Chernobyl, hangs out with Cuban hip-hop artists, and comes to difficult realizations in regards to the meaning of democracy.
is the absorbing story of a young journalist driven by a desire to witness the effects of Communism. Along the way in which, she learns the Russian mathematical equation for buying dinner-party vodka (one bottle per guest, plus an extra), stumbles upon Beijing’s underground gay scene, marches with 100,000 mothers demanding Elián González’s return to Cuba, and gains a new appreciation for the Mexican culture she left in the back of.