Baltic Graffiti (and some signs)

It was everywhere! 

Lithuania

                                      

On the dry cleaning van. Penguins--doing the washing!

Next to the old city walls. 

Indeed. 

                                         

My personal favourite. Oh Dubya, you and your empty threats.  

                                       

Across the street from the hotel that double booked us and then proceeded to scream at us and above the bookshop that was next to the Native American shop with the Native American man decked out in leather and feather.  Street name, you ask? No idea. 

 

                                                   

Someone made the effort to superglue the boots to the wall. 

                                       

It's the same in every country.  

 

Latvia

Play ball in the street and get hit by car.  Cautionary Tale? 

Less coverage of Latvia, but only because I begun snapping the day before we left. 

Vilnius

Travelling through a country like Lithuania has the propensity of making you want two things: 1. hot drinks 2. knitwear.  We partook in both. And we saw some stuff.  Cool old stuff.  Quirky artisany stuff.  I liked both.  For example: 

                                                

Mezgimo Zona (Pylimo g. 38), the cool yarn shop owned by the cool yarn lady across from Vilnius's remaining synagogue.  It was cheap! Friendly! And, in fact, I bought yarn resembling a shade of yellow to make a project (probably mittens) that will inevitably take me the next three years to complete.  Apparently they run a drop in knitting club, so if you happen to find yourself in Vilnius, this would be a pretty lovely place to combine both hot drinks and knitwear.    
                                               
I also forgot to mention alcohol.  Okay, so three things the Baltics will make you want: 1. hot drinks 2. knitwear 3. alcohol.  Each country's got its own gut-turning speciality, and in central Vilnius that seemed to be something the sign coined 'living beer'.  The bartender explained it rather enigmatically as 'beer with life' before slouching back on his barstool immensely exhausted from serving us, the only two customers in his darkened side alley establishment.
                                                
Shortly after the half liter of 'living beer', Judith and I stumbled out of the darkened pub to realise we were drunk.  We didn't mean it to happen, and we didn't have much, but apparently when Lithuanians say 'living' they much 'drunken'.  Fair dues.  Which is why we thought we were hallucinating when a series of hot air balloons lazed past.
                                      
Before all the drinking though, we did manage to find a series of delightful bridges and churches and views and shops. And after the fact, I've now come to learn that the above sign marks the entrance zone to 'Uzupis' a region of Vilnius that declared its independence in 1988.  In the fashion of the indie dreamers, artists, literati and drunks who call this section home, the nation fashioned a 41-article constitution outlining the rights of its citizens to include: being happy, unique and understanding.

Uzipises celebrate the 1st of April as Uzupis Day and on this day its 12-person military, honorary citizens, president and 'border patrol' stamp passports before erupting into a huge street party.

I am disappointed that we only got as far as the chain bridge before turning onward to check out the city's gothic cathedral.

Fortunately, we did encounter more quirks: 

 A particular favourite of mine.  Unfortunately, the shop that decorated the tree this way didn't sell yarn, only paper and scrapbooking supplies.  And according to a lovely artist-cum-shopkeeper we met down the road, next to knitting and drinking (both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic variety) scrapbooking is 'like a huge thing here.  We watch videos of americans on youtube and then we do it'.  How's that for an insight into the culture?

More of the cool old stuff, more of the culture, more of the myriad graffiti in the next post.

The Lux Express

At first glimpse, this may seem like a fancy airplane--with in-seat tv screens, leg room and a fold down tray with cup holder. With a closer look, you'd notice the clean toilet, free earphones and complimentary tea, coffee and latte machine. Or the first class divider curtain separating the plebs from the well-to-do types. And if you've ever taken a trans-european budget flight, you're probably wondering where this has been all your life.  

Wait no longer.  The Lux Express (does what it says on the tin) has come to your rescue.  Because if you look closely, you'll notice that the window is far too big to be a plane's, the overhead lockers do not close and the 'airport' outside is actually a bus station.  At at 23 lat (roughly £26) for a 4-hour Riga to Vilnius, Lithuania journey, it's pretty impossible to go wrong.   

Map function, wireless and on-the-seat internet, movie function with 8 options in English, Latvian and Russian. 

                                      

It may be one of the five best travel decisions i've ever made, and I didn't even make it! Bless the ticket agent at the International Bus Counter in Riga's central station.  Four hours, 2.5 films, three lattes and a nap later, Judith and I arrived into Vilnius well-rested and raring to go.  And what a good time we had.  

Though we did worry about our journey back.  Lux Express was sold out.  We'd have to endure four hours on the 'Simple Express'...

Cafe life in Riga

I must admit i'm a bit predictable. Give me a good cafe and a good coffee and I can happily sit for hours.  In this respect (amongst many others), Riga does not disappoint. We'd discovered this last time but were delighted to extend our discovery to the cafes outside of old town.  Crazy fact: there's a whole world outside of old town Riga.  In fact, the streets off of Krisjana Barona Iela reminded me a lot of my old home on 83rd and 1st Avenue in Manhattan.  Hear me out. Where else are you going to find the Hare Krishna centre serving vegan buffet lunch for under £2, super cute and delicious basement restaurants that only make it for a few months, boutiques that sell knitted socks, cafes with multilingual baristas and graffiti that somehow looks etched into the original city plan? 

It was surreal in a good way.  

And I know a lot of people/other blogs/tour books mentioned the apparent 'coldness' of people in Latvia, but everyone we met was extremely accommodating.  Everyone  spoke English or was happy to gesticulate wildly along with us. And most people broke into rather large smiles when we practised our limited Latvian of paldies (thank you).  Maybe I've lived in big cities too long or maybe i'm losing that American desire to befriend random strangers on the street.  Not sure if I ever had that in the first place, really; I had overprotective parents.  

But I digress.  Here's a smattering of my favorite cafes, both old town and new, with a few other Riga delights thrown in.  

on Gertrudes Iela two streets down from the big church on the roundabout

amazing lattes, heart shaped sugar packets and quirky art 

banana on banana 

                                               

highlights: chickpea curry and the hare krishna parade marching down the street led by a Latvian woman wearing a sari playing the accordion 

de gusto cafe on the corner of Teatro Iela; highlights: 1.5 lat cheese and garlic mini pizzas and the lovely girl who was patient when we couldn't' decide on a pastry

cheese and garlic mini pizza 

on the corner of mustache and mustache in the Old Town

more Old Town

outside the yarn shop! 

highlights: watching stick thin women in stilettos attempt walking in a straight line. I'm evil

I could write more, but I'm making myself hungry.  Another day.

Majori

On day two of our great Baltic adventure, Judith, Rosa and I took a cheap (£1.20) and efficiently on time train half an hour away to the Latvian seaside.  Jurmala, the direct translation for seaside, turned out to be quite beautiful, despite the not so warm weather.

The town of Majori is biggest area in Jurmala and besides being the home to Latvia's biggest globe, something to be proud of, surely, it reminded me a lot of summers in northern michigan minus the sun.  The roads were wide and sweeping, the town was quaint and the sea looked more like a very serene lake.  There wasn't a whole lot to do so we shopped, ate, dodged the rain, drank beer and walked on the beach, in that order.

latvia's biggest globe...

kiploku grauzdini: rye bread deep fried with garlic and served with a sour cream and garlic dipping sauce. I love a people who love their garlic.  

Hybrid strawberry/raspberries that tasted like seeds.

Okay so there's a whole lot of food pictures here.  And blogger's got a new edition which is placing boxes within boxes within boxes and is really doing my head in.  Bear with me; i'll figure it out eventually.  Let's go back to the seaside:

beach bar hut

ice cold water

sand bars

Latvian beer.

And back to Riga from our little train station.