I have anxiety. Did you know? Not just the usual worries, the occasional nervousness. No. It has colored my life. It still shadows me, and not infrequently do I step onto darker ground. But. I was riding on a train to Klaipėda. I wanted to be there for a few days—enough to bicycle the Lithuanian length of the Curonian Spit. I had spent hours lingering over articles and photos of this place. But I was arriving soon, and I had no place to stay. Klaipėda isn’t very large; Couchsurfing and BeWelcome hadn’t panned out. I wasn’t totally unprepared: I had looked up how to get from the train station to a nearby hostel. And that was it. Maybe I had some little jitters, but…
Posts tagged “baltics”
I am currently sitting in a hotel in Boise, Idaho. Hotels confuse me; they put me on edge. I feel kind of like an imposter. “We need to see your ID and your incidentals.” —My what? And I feel isolated. I have an enormous room, bigger than my soon-to-be apartment, and I linger in just one corner. I know there are people around but everyone is in their own rooms, their own strange bubbles. And all hotels look kind of the same. Last night I was in Laramie, Wyoming. The night before, Kansas City, Missouri. All entirely different cities, but I wouldn’t know from my lodgings. This is a result of me rapidly moving—as in, actually moving, my car is packed up with my…
Categories: Travel
People with flags kept passing by us. Not just Lithuanian flags, which would be slightly more expected given that I was in Vilnius, but also Estonian and Latvian flags. Then it dawned: it was August 23, 2014, the 25th anniversary of Baltic Chain. Evelina and I walked to Cathedral Square and were surrounded by people mulling about with flags in hand and television crews zipping around. A stage had been set up for events later in the day. On August 23, 1989, approximately two million people across the three Baltic states joined hands, forming a chain from Vilnius, through Riga, to Tallinn, a distance of over 400 miles (about 675 kilometers). This was a peaceful protest against Soviet rule of the Baltics and was strategically…
Tagged: baltic chain, baltic way, baltics, estonia, latvia, lithuania, politics, Russia, soviet history, soviet union, travel, ukraine, vilnius
It all started when the bus didn’t stop. All through the 90 minute ride, I stared out the window at the unfamiliar landscape, prepared to signal my desire to disembark when we turned off the highway. Proud of myself for recognizing the spot based solely on Google Maps research, I stood up. But the bus driver ignored me, even after I asked him to please stop, and drove on. Way on. By the next stop, I was too far from my destination to walk. I was determined to visit Lahemaa National Park, about an hour’s drive from the capital, Tallinn. I particularly wanted to visit Viru Bog, which looked beautiful from the photos I had scoured through online. The problem is Lahemaa National Park…
Categories: Travel
Tagged: baltics, estonia, female travel, hitchhiking, lahemaa national park, solo travel, tallinn, travel, viru bog
I am sitting at home, a novelty indeed after five weeks which brought me from southeastern Siberia to Finland. It is now that I can sort through and edit my photos, regain some sleep reserves that I was lacking, revert to usual communications, and, so importantly, mentally process all that I have done. A fair amount happened in my small corner of the internet while I was largely ignoring it, or, as was the case for two weeks while in Siberia, unable to access it. While I was in the taiga camping, trail building, and having an amazing time with Great Baikal Trail, I was Freshly Pressed. As a result, I have loads of new followers who, if I am to be presumptuous, may want…
Went Looking 