Riga, Latvia
Sorry it's been a while since I posted. I think all the trouble I'm having with pictures is discouraging me a bit! I am going to buy a mini laptop that will make it easier (and cheaper) to get online and also let me take care of photos, so once I figure out how to get it, I will have it!
I'm currently in Riga, Latvia, having just traveled through Lithuania and soon I will be off to Estonia. All three baltic countries were formerly in the USSR and it's an interesting place to visit. Things are mostly like western europe but every now and then you see some big communist piece of architecture or an ugly old athletic stadium or something like that and you realize that this place used to be very different.
It's funny, these people have only been independed since 1991 and although there are still problems with crime and poverty and so on, they have come a remarkably long way in a short amount of time. I think the more I travel, the more I am impressed with how resiliant people are. I have only been in Latvia for a couple days so I can't say too much about this country yet, but I spent over a week in Lithuania and visited many of the communist area sites, like the former KGB headquarters and prison (they actually shot people in their own basement), and learned about the gulags and how easy it was to be taken there. For example there's a freedom monument here in Riga. If you put flowers there, or were sympathetic to it in anyway you'd get an all expense paid trip to Siberia. Kind of funny that the government represses something actually called the Freedom Monument. I wonder if the Russians really had any concept of what they were doing, or if they were just following orders and ignoring the rest.
In Lithuania there is a place called the Curonian Spit which is a tiny little strip of land about 1km wide that goes for about 100 km along the baltic cost. It's a bit of a mystery how it formed and on it you can cycle or travel along. There are huge and beautiful sand dunes where from the top you can see the Baltic Sea on one side and the Curonian lagoon on the other. Beyond the dunes it's forested and there is wildlife everywhere. I wish I could get the pictures to work...
As for me, things are going well. I feel like I still have a lot of energy now that I have taken a couple of days off at the beach. However, I got myself a pretty solid sunburn yesterday so I'm going to be sore and itching for a few days. Also, I think that stupid recurring sinus infection that I had in Canada is coming back as my throat has been sore for a while. If it gets worse I will have to go see a Latvian or Estonian doctor and try to score some antibiotics. Damn this thing is frustrating. it just won't go away. I'll probably have to do the same thing again in a few months... Maybe some oldschool chinese medicine dude will know of something that can actually fix it!
After Estonia I am flying to Turkey and I'm really looking forward to it. Still trying to decide when to work teaching english in China but I think I HAVE decided that Shanghai is the place for me. It's the first place in China I have been truly excited about the prospect of living in. Lucky for me it's a big city that should have lots of work.
Anyway, that's it for now. I'm off to do some writing to try and solve my money woes.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Musings
Krakow, Poland
Still having trouble with photos.... Maybe it's Poland's fault?
Coincidence is a funny thing. A few days ago in Prague I ran into a friend from University. We were just walking down the street, I heard her talking, did a double take and went to say hi. We hung out over the evening with some of her friends and she invited me out to Krakow to meet up with her again (that would be later today).
Anyway, it got me thinking about chance. This may not seem like much of a revelation but I've been traveling for a little over a month now and in that time I've met people in film, I've ran into old friends like I described above, I've made probably 20 new friends and had three offers from people to let me crash at their place, all among PLENTY of other things. In my month in Calgary I'm not sure any of those things happened. So what does all this have to do with chance? Well my revelation is that if you put yourself out there enough times, things will eventually work out. The odds say they have to.
Out here, I'm forced to interact with new people and meet others and experience something new every day. Even when I don't want to I still have to go out to eat (or to get food to eat) or whatever. Each time I do that is another opportunity for SOMETHING to happen. And as it turns out, somethings happen quite often when you're out quite often. When you stay in, well... I guess you're missing out. It's kind of renewed my faith in the balance of the universe.
Like I said, not much of a revelation right? I always kind of knew that the more you go out the more things can happen, but I'm not sure I always believed it. If you're like me and you don't wholeheartedly believe it either, try traveling alone. I say alone cause when you're with someone you're not forced to interact nearly as much.
Do it. Even the things that go wrong you won't regret.
And now for the big turn-around.
My other thought today is about Auschwitz. Being in Krakow, I went there the other day and that is really something. Auschwitz itself is a pretty good sized compounds with about 30 barracks style buildings or so, but its sister camp Birkenau where most of the killings took place is humongous. It's about three km away and has hundreds of these buildings, each of which held about 600 people. And those are just the men capable of working, the rest of the people just got gassed.
I went to the camps right off the night train from Prague. I didn't sleep much as the train kind of sucked and i didn't eat anything either since when I arrived in town everything was closed. Well, as it turns out it's quite the experience seeing these camps tired on an empty stomach. I think the emotions are heightened a little more when you're weak and as strange as it sounds, I'd actually recommend not eating or sleeping before going out there. The power of the place is more than enough to keep you walking but after a little while you find your feet are dragging, your head is down and your breathing has slowed.
The style of buildings there is primarily red brick with black roofs and sky-blue wood doors. I have never seen anything more sinister in my life, than red and black buildings with sky-blue doors. It gives an almost ethereal sense, like this sky-blue is an escape from the death all around. I guess in a way (eventually) it almost always was.
I don't know if I have much else to say about it. Obviously it's a hard place to go to but it's also obviously important. Everyone knows what it is and what happened there and at times just standing in some spots are enough to push you to tears. There's a dedication by a giant pit filled with scummy water that says it's the ashes of all the victims burned in the crematorium. There are a half dozen of these pits and each one is just as hard as the one before.
We're not allowed to take pictures inside so I don't have much to show you but I did take two or three that I thought were of pretty powerful monuments and I didn't want to lose the memory of them.
They will be here as soon as possible:
Still having trouble with photos.... Maybe it's Poland's fault?
Coincidence is a funny thing. A few days ago in Prague I ran into a friend from University. We were just walking down the street, I heard her talking, did a double take and went to say hi. We hung out over the evening with some of her friends and she invited me out to Krakow to meet up with her again (that would be later today).
Anyway, it got me thinking about chance. This may not seem like much of a revelation but I've been traveling for a little over a month now and in that time I've met people in film, I've ran into old friends like I described above, I've made probably 20 new friends and had three offers from people to let me crash at their place, all among PLENTY of other things. In my month in Calgary I'm not sure any of those things happened. So what does all this have to do with chance? Well my revelation is that if you put yourself out there enough times, things will eventually work out. The odds say they have to.
Out here, I'm forced to interact with new people and meet others and experience something new every day. Even when I don't want to I still have to go out to eat (or to get food to eat) or whatever. Each time I do that is another opportunity for SOMETHING to happen. And as it turns out, somethings happen quite often when you're out quite often. When you stay in, well... I guess you're missing out. It's kind of renewed my faith in the balance of the universe.
Like I said, not much of a revelation right? I always kind of knew that the more you go out the more things can happen, but I'm not sure I always believed it. If you're like me and you don't wholeheartedly believe it either, try traveling alone. I say alone cause when you're with someone you're not forced to interact nearly as much.
Do it. Even the things that go wrong you won't regret.
And now for the big turn-around.
My other thought today is about Auschwitz. Being in Krakow, I went there the other day and that is really something. Auschwitz itself is a pretty good sized compounds with about 30 barracks style buildings or so, but its sister camp Birkenau where most of the killings took place is humongous. It's about three km away and has hundreds of these buildings, each of which held about 600 people. And those are just the men capable of working, the rest of the people just got gassed.
I went to the camps right off the night train from Prague. I didn't sleep much as the train kind of sucked and i didn't eat anything either since when I arrived in town everything was closed. Well, as it turns out it's quite the experience seeing these camps tired on an empty stomach. I think the emotions are heightened a little more when you're weak and as strange as it sounds, I'd actually recommend not eating or sleeping before going out there. The power of the place is more than enough to keep you walking but after a little while you find your feet are dragging, your head is down and your breathing has slowed.
The style of buildings there is primarily red brick with black roofs and sky-blue wood doors. I have never seen anything more sinister in my life, than red and black buildings with sky-blue doors. It gives an almost ethereal sense, like this sky-blue is an escape from the death all around. I guess in a way (eventually) it almost always was.
I don't know if I have much else to say about it. Obviously it's a hard place to go to but it's also obviously important. Everyone knows what it is and what happened there and at times just standing in some spots are enough to push you to tears. There's a dedication by a giant pit filled with scummy water that says it's the ashes of all the victims burned in the crematorium. There are a half dozen of these pits and each one is just as hard as the one before.
We're not allowed to take pictures inside so I don't have much to show you but I did take two or three that I thought were of pretty powerful monuments and I didn't want to lose the memory of them.
They will be here as soon as possible:
Monday, July 27, 2009
Ode to a Bike
Prague, Czech Republic
An ode to Sasha the bike (Edgar Allan Poe style), may she rest in pieces:
Yes, ladies and Gentlemen, the rumors are true. Sasha has let me down for the last time. I was riding on Sunday night, between Namur and Bastogne in Belgium, taking the short cut through the middle of ass-nowhere. I had climbed about a seven percent incline for five or six km and finally reached the top when I heard an odd clink. I looked down to see my bike chain on the pavement several feet behind me. I stopped, baggied the chain like a piece of toxic dog doo and rode my bike down the other side of the hill and into the tiny town of.... something or other. For some reason there were not many people about, being a sunday at about 8:30 in the evening. I finally found one helpful stranger who spoke a few words of english and said that there was no one around who could fix a bike. I'd have to go to Bastogne for that. Unfortunately for me, Bastogne was 9km away and darkness was beginning to set.
But, driven by a desire to well... not sleep in a ditch, I began walking. My wheel made a strange clink, clink, clink, sound each time it turned and the brake appeared to be locked on ever so slightly which made pushing it up hill for the next 9km not as much fun as you may think. You'll be glad to know however that the animals came from miles around to mock me. An eagle flew with me for about 200 m, a group of deer looked up from their feeding to laugh silently at my inconvenience and cows ran (I didn't even know cows COULD run) to me from across their farms to greet me at the fence and either eye me suspiciously or make taunting groans at me as I passed.
Eventually, I arrived in town at about 11:00 pm. I rented a hotel for far too much money because everything else was closed and the next day I was lucky enough to meet two other cyclists whom I had camped with in Namur. They had a repair kit and with a little effort, they re-linked my chain, discovered my rear wheel wasn't running true because not one, but TWO spokes had snapped, and that one of the teeth on my gear wheel literally had begun to rip off, probably initiating this grand catastrophy. Nonetheless, they helped me get my wheel mostly true, and although I was riding minus two spokes and a middle gear, my bike was once again road-worthy.
I set off to Luxembourg and although I successfully crossed the border, I never quite managed to arrive at Ettelbruck, my destination. About three quarters of the way there (and 12 km out), the gear shifter on my bike litterally ripped itself off and lodged itself in the front gears. At that moment, I think I died a little inside. Still, I didn't particularly want to walk 12 km into town (uphill again) so this time I got a big rock and started randomly hitting the gear shifter with it until it was either fixed (or broken) enough that the chain could rotate once more. I couldn't shift gears mind you and the rear brake had once again permanently locked in place, but my bike was ready to go a final 12 km to its death.
When finally I arrived in Ettelbruck, I considered having a ritual ceremony in which I light the bike on fire, or give it some other form of horrible yet somewhat noble death. Instead, I was too tired from the damn ride in so I felt exile was more appropriate:
Now I take the train.
(Pictures are on their way soon... stupid locked up computers. I'm thinking of getting a tiny tiny little $300 notebook with wifi so I don't have to pay for internet everywhere. Might even break even in the end.)
An ode to Sasha the bike (Edgar Allan Poe style), may she rest in pieces:
I have abandoned Sasha to live out her final days in a vacant world of rust and insult. Fortunately, I feel but little remorse, for she treated me far worse, and with more contempt, than I treated her. Nevertheless, I can't help but feel is this small consolation enough to grant my conscience surcease of suffering should this dark, unholy act come back to haunt me in the depths of a starry bikeless night? I fear by the time I fully comprehend my actions, it may be too late.
Yes, ladies and Gentlemen, the rumors are true. Sasha has let me down for the last time. I was riding on Sunday night, between Namur and Bastogne in Belgium, taking the short cut through the middle of ass-nowhere. I had climbed about a seven percent incline for five or six km and finally reached the top when I heard an odd clink. I looked down to see my bike chain on the pavement several feet behind me. I stopped, baggied the chain like a piece of toxic dog doo and rode my bike down the other side of the hill and into the tiny town of.... something or other. For some reason there were not many people about, being a sunday at about 8:30 in the evening. I finally found one helpful stranger who spoke a few words of english and said that there was no one around who could fix a bike. I'd have to go to Bastogne for that. Unfortunately for me, Bastogne was 9km away and darkness was beginning to set.
But, driven by a desire to well... not sleep in a ditch, I began walking. My wheel made a strange clink, clink, clink, sound each time it turned and the brake appeared to be locked on ever so slightly which made pushing it up hill for the next 9km not as much fun as you may think. You'll be glad to know however that the animals came from miles around to mock me. An eagle flew with me for about 200 m, a group of deer looked up from their feeding to laugh silently at my inconvenience and cows ran (I didn't even know cows COULD run) to me from across their farms to greet me at the fence and either eye me suspiciously or make taunting groans at me as I passed.
Eventually, I arrived in town at about 11:00 pm. I rented a hotel for far too much money because everything else was closed and the next day I was lucky enough to meet two other cyclists whom I had camped with in Namur. They had a repair kit and with a little effort, they re-linked my chain, discovered my rear wheel wasn't running true because not one, but TWO spokes had snapped, and that one of the teeth on my gear wheel literally had begun to rip off, probably initiating this grand catastrophy. Nonetheless, they helped me get my wheel mostly true, and although I was riding minus two spokes and a middle gear, my bike was once again road-worthy.
I set off to Luxembourg and although I successfully crossed the border, I never quite managed to arrive at Ettelbruck, my destination. About three quarters of the way there (and 12 km out), the gear shifter on my bike litterally ripped itself off and lodged itself in the front gears. At that moment, I think I died a little inside. Still, I didn't particularly want to walk 12 km into town (uphill again) so this time I got a big rock and started randomly hitting the gear shifter with it until it was either fixed (or broken) enough that the chain could rotate once more. I couldn't shift gears mind you and the rear brake had once again permanently locked in place, but my bike was ready to go a final 12 km to its death.
When finally I arrived in Ettelbruck, I considered having a ritual ceremony in which I light the bike on fire, or give it some other form of horrible yet somewhat noble death. Instead, I was too tired from the damn ride in so I felt exile was more appropriate:
Now I take the train.
(Pictures are on their way soon... stupid locked up computers. I'm thinking of getting a tiny tiny little $300 notebook with wifi so I don't have to pay for internet everywhere. Might even break even in the end.)
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