In proper terms, student cultural exchange is something academic, involving travelling to a country and living wih a family, while their child (also sutdent) lives with your family in your country. In the Faculty of Journalism in Bucharest, Romania it meant simply hooking up with one of the foreign students came over here with a scholarship. There was a wide varitety of choices: Africans, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Arabian and even Chinese. The competition was for the best-looking specimens of both sexes. I got involved in this silly game from vanity and hurt pride: one of the girls I really couldn't stand (and ugly, too) hooked up with a gorgeous Mulatto from Tchad. As I prefer blondes, I had to choose between the Swedish and the Russians. The Swedish being too arrogant for my tastes, I ended hooking up with a cute Russian named Ghennady. Ghennady was blonde, blue-eyed, spoke broken English and worshipped the ground I tread upon. It was perfect for me. Unfortunately, I discovered only too late that Ghennady and his head had long decided to go their own separate ways. He drank vodka like I drank water and it had quite the same effect on him: a quantity that would have sent the most proffessed drunkard in a coma left Ghennady only slightly cheered. And since he was cheered, he wanted to hang around in the city. Going about in a car. Driven by him. To my horrified protests he would answer: "No worry. In Russia, no one drives sober." Apparently in Russia nobody ever did a thing sober, according to Ghennady. In our intimate moments, we were doing a menage a trois with the bottle of vodka. In society, vodka was used as an instrument for socializing with other students. I percieved they were quite happy to partake from Ghennady's vodka, showing how susceptible young people are to foreign cultural influences. While driving the car, Ghennady was at his best, speaking incessantly about how boringly slow the Romanian traffic was and how many traffic signs we had. In Moscow, apparently, traffic signs are stolen on a daily basis and until they are replaced one can drive around for some time unhindered by them. Also, Ghennady was prone to mix the traffic lights (red and green) with the Pepsi Cola lightboxes (red and blue), ignoring the former and stopping with a screech in front of the latter. In the meantime I had taken up a course in European Cultural Identities. And why not, thought I, since I had a fresh, sincere and authentic image of the modern Russian in Ghennady. I sweetly announced that I would be doing my final on "The New Russia - between Communism and the Hard Rock Revolution". My relationship with Ghennady went from heaven to tantrum and back to blissful happiness, consecrated by the holy vodka. Finally, Ghennady had to go back to Moscow and I had to present my final paper in Cultural Identities. I brought along the paper, some photos and a bottle of vodka. Under the astonished eyes of the professor I took a long draught and said calmly: "The first important thing I learned about the youth in modern Russia is that they never do anything sober."