The Baltics

So after the Helsinki experience, it was time to go hit up the Baltic states, so it was off on the ferry to Tallinn, Estonia. I made the quick 2.5 hour ferry ride (while creeping on a super cute girl who was with her family ha ha) and arrived in Tallinn and found my hostel. I made friends quickly with some Aussies from my dorm room, and agreed to head out for a bite to eat and some beers. We didn't get up to a whole lot that night though, other than hit up a cool pub called Hellfire, enjoy some perogies and some cheap beers. (Leffes for 3 euros, compared to 8 euros in Scandinavia!!)

The next day I decided to go on a bike tour of the city which provided some good glimpses of not only the Old Town, but of areas where the Soviet architecture and drab culture was still present. We managed to go stop by a flea market, where we were given 50 euro cents each and had to buy something cool and interesting. Most people bought fruit, food, some bought household goods, and I decided to purchase a lighter with naked men and present it to our tour guide for a good laugh, and of course she loved it ha ha.


We also stopped by a pretty cool old prison, well not really cool since a fair bit of people were imprisoned there under very harsh conditions, not too mention that there were quite a few people executed there. It was also interesting to listen to our tour guide describe life in her early days where everyone had to wear the same clothing and no one could stand out due to the Soviet times, then of course how much things have changed over the last 20 years. It was funny to hear her describe how people would create their own Nike shirts when the Soviet Union fell, even though they couldn't purchase them anywhere yet, people learned how to create the logo and start making their own clothing to help stand out. We also visited a park that was previously a graveyard, but when the Soviets came in, they took a bulldozer and basically destroyed the whole graveyard since they didn't want people mourning their dead loved ones! All in all, a pretty good and quick tour. Here's some pics from the day

View of the Estonian Parliament

NIce park 

The Market

Beautiful Soviet architecture

Graveyard that had all Tombstones removed

Some of the recovered ones

Biking into the Prison

Execution room

Hard to believe this prison only closed in 2002

Aussies being security watchgirls

Keeping busy chopping wood

Figured some of the Devon folks would enjoy laughing at this...it's the medical clinic in the prison ha

Leftover shoes

That's a Russian keyboard...I am the Russian Hank Moody!

Decent view from the prison of the Sea at least

This is the beautifully designed Concert Hall...oh Soviet architecture

After the bike tour concluded, we decided to sign up for that evening's pub crawl, so we did that and then headed to a local pub to grab a beer and a quick bite to eat. We met an interesting doctor from England who was in Tallinn for a 2 day holiday, was 46 years old, and just out to meet people. He was a nice enough fellow and bought us a few rounds anyways. I then decided to go ahead and take my laundry to the sister hostel, which turned out to be a terrible mistake....as my Swagger Tshirt didn't return with my laundry bag (which I didn't realize until I got to Riga) big tear :'(!!!

But anyways, we got ready for the pub crawl and went out and had a pretty cool time, saw some interesting bars, and had some good chats. After having a few beers before the pub crawl, I was already feeling it a bit, and ended up wandering into the wrong pub several times during the pub crawl and meeting other random people instead of actually sticking with the pub crawl group, but it was all good fun. Ended up meeting one super awesome American dude who served in Iraq, some pretty cool Danish brothers, some fun Irish guys, a few locals, and various other random characters, although the night was a bit blurry (although I did see some funny pics of me wearing our tour guide's sunglasses and hair scrunchee...). We were supposed to finish off at the cool nightclub, but I went with the Aussie girls to the Mexican restaurant near the club that's open 24 hours first, and then couldn't convince them to go to the nightclub with me, so I went in solo. It was an alright place, but a bit too posh for my dress standards, but still had some fun dancing, and ended up running into a few people from the pub crawl, but then losing them again. 

After the club finished, I started trekking back to the hostel, when I ran into the American guy and the two Danish brothers again near one of the bars where we first started. We ended up chatting for awhile, then the one German guy from our pub crawl ended up showing up with this gorgeous Estonian girl, so we enjoyed the sight of her while he was making his moves on her ha ha. Then the American and I spotted some hilarious guy on a Scooter with flower decorations and a girl on the back nearby, so we started tearing into him...Kirby started yelling at him how gay his scooter was with the floral paint job, and the guy started to go nuts...then I noticed he was wearing white pants and really started to tear into him as well...he was getting pretty pissed off at us for making so much fun of him, and I actually thought he was going to come try and fight us, but then Kirby decided to run over there and tell him we were just joking around and made amends...so all good. 

Then some girls who were friends with the Estonian girl that the German guy was with showed up, and we started chatting them up...and there was a flower bed near the spot we were talking so I picked out some flowers and gave them to the girls as a gesture of goodwill, and some 50 year old lady who was walking by saw this and came and started yelling at me in Estonian, and I had absolutely no clue what was going on...one of the girls started talking to her and calmed things down, but I guess she didn't appreciate that I was desecrating the flower bed ha ha, oops.....so after a strange hour or so of chatting and making fun of random people, it was getting pretty late, so we wandered back to our hostels and called it a night, although the girls did agree to meet up the next night for a drink at 7 pm.

The next day I just wandered about to get some tasty Estonian food (some delicious pork knuckle) and just enjoy the street life of Tallinn....I met a nice American couple from New Jersey and had a good chat with them over lunch and a beer, and casually noticed some stray dog that seemed to be wandering around the streets of Tallinn without an owner (although it did have a collar so I'm inclined to believe that someone owned it), as luck would have it, I actually noticed the dog several times throughout the day, just doing it's rounds around the city ha ha. I ended up wandering around the city for a good 3 hours, and did some shopping for some souvenirs for some people back home (which I mailed home and found out that the Jewellery made it safe and sound but the nice Beer Mug broke), found some archery spot and gave it a go, and then ripped back to the hostel to try and find the girls but they weren't there so I just hung out at the hostel for awhile, and sorted out my bus for the next day, then went to the agreed upon meeting place for the drink with the locals that I supposed to be meet, but they were a no show! Damn unreliable Estonians ha ha.....so I ended up tracking down the Aussies from the hostel and joining them for drinks and dinner at an Irish pub that was celebrating its birthday that night...so there were some pretty good drink specials on, and a huge Hen party going off that was ordering champagne, which of course gave me the idea to order a bottle for our table, since that's the cool thing to do (at least I learned that in Norway from one of my Norwegian friends) plus it was pretty cheap for a bottle so all good!

Amazing meal for about 12 CAD

Main square

Working on my archery 

Didn't realize I could wear a costume until afterwards!!

Tallinn from by the Parliament

Cool statue in the park

While we were hanging out at the pub having drinks, the Danish guys from the previous night randomly walked by our table and sat down and joined us, so it was a good little reunion from the pub crawl...the one guy ended up staying but his brother wimped out and headed back to the hotel for the night, and the Aussies all had early mornings coming up so they peaced out as well, so it was just me and the Dane to go cause some trouble :) 

So off we went to another pub for a bit, then we were trying to find another pub when two young Estonian girls came up and chatted with us in the streets...my initial thought was that they were maybe prostitutes (in Eastern Europe you've got to be careful about women who approach you), but they were just two cool girls who wanted to meet people that night and go out and party, so we found some nearby dive bar and had a pretty awesome time since it was completely empty and we were able to dance and drink and have a great time without any people really bothering us, plus we could request as many songs as we wanted since there was only one other group of people there :) Of course there was also some drunken making out but nothing else ha ha

Hanging out at St Patricks with a few ppl

The only ones on the D Floor!

The Danish guy was hilarious!!

Shots with the Estonian girls

Group pic, Dane creeping ha ah

Crazy Dane in the fountain

This was about the time I started walking home

We ended up hanging out there for waaaaaaay longer than we thought, and pretty soon it was like 5 am, so we went over to the fountain by the taco place where the crazy Danish guy jumped into the fountain, but then the police came by and gave him shit ha ha, so we just went to the taco place and just hung out there having some early morning tacos and beers, when we ran into the German guy from the previous night ha ha....he joined us and told us about how the girl from the previous night wouldn't even return his phone calls, and that nothing happened, so I was pretty sad for the guy cause she was quite the looker! The girls eventually left for their home and it was super late in the evening/early in the morning, so I retired back to the hostel and got in around 8 am.....and then was up at 10 am to check out and head down to catch my bus to Riga!

The bus ride to Riga was pretty sweet as it was a "luxury bus" so it had a full bar and food service, nice comfy chairs, and WiFi, which was a pretty good win, considering I was running on little sleep and quite exhausted. I arrived in Riga around 4 pm, and it was an amazing day, with not a cloud in the sky and very warm. I stepped off the bus and it reeked of fish, and the bus driver who spoke little to no English turns to me and goes "fish market!" and makes a funny face noticing the bad smell and points over at the local markets, and this made me chuckle :)

I google mapped the directions to the hostel, and of course got lost, as the hostel showed up on the hostel in a location that was right along the river front, although the hostel was 2 blocks north of the river so I ended up extremely lost for about an hour and a bit, as per usual! Of course I was running low and sleep, and the traffic in Riga was pretty intense due to rush hour, and the fact that there weren't really any places to cross the busy street to find my way to the hostel...eventually I made my way to the hostel and found one of the sweetest places I've been to! Upon arrival, they offered me a free beer and I met the friendly local tour guide Baiba, who explained to me some of the finer sights and sounds of Riga to witness...I was soooo tired from not sleeping the previous night, but managed to have my free beer and one more, and meet some of the many stag groups that were over for the weekend from the UK....I think there were about 5 in total, varying in size from a group of 15 to a group of 5, so it was a full on sausage fest, but lots of fun nevertheless :) 

Crazy statue knocked over near the hostel

Unfortunately, after a few beers I was ready to crash, so I went and had a little nap and came down to find that most people had already left, but I was able to run into Kerbie the American dude I met in Estonia...so we went out on the town for dinner with a few Canadian dudes from the hostel, and then hit up a few pubs as well...it was a pretty cool night, as we ended up at one pub that only the locals generally would attend, and quite a few of them were surprised to find foreigners at their "local" bar, but they were all quite friendly and talkative. Eventually it was time to crash and head on back to the hostel for the night. 

The next day was the first of many rough awakenings realizing I was quite dehydrated and hot as hell in our sauna room, so it was time to head on down for some lunch/breakfast and figure out my plans for the day. I noticed there were a bunch of blokes signed up for some shooting, so I figured I should go have some fun. We were picked up by two taxi drivers, one of whom was wearing an absolutely hilarious shirt, which I had the opportunity to grab a sneaky photo of. The taxis were hilarious in that there wasn't enough seats for everyone but the drivers were well prepared as they had little sitting stools. We arrived at the range, and most of the guys had never shot guns and everyone was a bit leery about getting up there and volunteering to shoot first, so I said what the hell and jumped the gun...We were able to shoot an AK, a shotgun and a glock 9 mm, but we couldn't put the AK on automatic unfortunately, so that kind of took away from most of the fun I was expecting, plus it was only 5 bullets....the shooting went by very quickly, and the guns were sooo loud that if you weren't wearing hearing protection it hurt like hell. Hilariously enough, the old guy running the range would stand right beside the shooters and wasn't phased by the sound of the gunfire..he was likely deaf but didn't speak English so we'd never know anyways. Two of the funniest parts of the shooting day was watching the one guy from the UK shaking so much when he was trying to fire and basically missing the target and hitting the ground below them on every shot. The next funny event was when one of the bachelors was up to shoot, and his mates posted a picture of his fiancee on the target so that he had to shoot her in the face....a good laugh for all. 

Some random city scavenger hunt that was going on

The taxi driver's shirt in front of the guy in pink is amazing, it's Mesh!

Decent shot

Yeah I'm Badass

Typical scene at the bar during the arvos

After the shooting finished, I got back to the hostel and hung out with a few people in the bar, then received a random couch surfing message from some cute girl who wanted me to come out and meet her and her friends for a night out, so I said I would meet them and she told me where to meet them. I got to the location, but didn't have any credit on my phone and waited for a good 20 minutes and realized she was a no show, and while I was sitting by this clock tower, one of the guys from the shooting walked up to me and asked me if I was a local and spoke English....I had a laugh and said "dude, I am staying at the same hostel as you, and we went shooting earlier today together" and his whole group realized who I was and had a good laugh over that. Since the girl was a no show, I decided to go out with the boys and find some places to go party; we ended up at some strip club, and the groom to be had never had a lapdance in his life so I bought him one to be a good sport. We ended up hanging out at the club for quite awhile but the drinks were so expensive, and at one point I figured why not buy another bottle of champagne for the table, which was a bad idea considering the prices of it wasn't very good at all! But all in all a good night considering I got stood up by the other chick ha ha. I later emailed her and she explained that she didn't hear a return email from me confirming that I was going to meet them so they didn't bother showing, but no big deal. 

I actually had to leave the boys a bit early and run back to the hostel to do my fantasy football draft...lame I know! After the draft I went out with the only English speaking hostel worker named Daniel, and two other people from the hostel for some late beers to some pub called the Shot Bar....we had an alright time there and learned some bad Latvian phrases from the guy who was the bouncer and running the place. Eventually it was around 5 am so we headed back to the hostel and called it a night. 

The next day I decided to join the same lads from the shooting in some go karting! I have been go karting a few times, but these karts were super fast. We arrived there after having a few beers and read on the waiver forms that we weren't supposed to drive after having alcoholic drinks and that they would breathalyze us, so a few of us were a bit worried, but then we got into the course and no one even asked for any breath samples...so we got in our cars and had a helluva time racing around, I ended up finishing with the second best lap the first race, and then the best lap time the second race (not to mention the best overall lap time for the two races) so we had a little podium celebration and everything...good fun! Unfortunately we were soooo dehydrated from the drinking of beer the last few days and the hot temperature on the race course, that when we got back to the hostel my leg cramped up so badly that I almost couldn't even make it up the stairs! My mate Wes had the same problem as well ha ha. 

Some crazy parade going on while out looking for food before karting

Ready to Kart!

Great course

Making my move on the inside

We initially shared the podium cause we each had the fastest lap in the races

But of course I had the best overall time, so I get the first place spot much to Tony's chagrin ;)

Then we even let the losers come on just for a good photo op

After rehydrating a bit, we all went out for a big dinner party with the English lads and a few others from the hostel to some Indian restaurant and had a great dinner there, then we got back to the hostel and the real fun began...it was time for karaoke night!! I normally never get up and sing Karaoke, but everyone was getting into it, so I laid down a few vocals including such hip songs as Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler, La Bamba by Richie Valens, and several other group arrangements with the English lads....all in all a great great night. 

Me and Viktorija at Karaoke

Wes, Vik and me being a goof

Vik and Laura, the Latvian loves of my life ha ha

The next day was a relaxing day where I met up with one of the girls who worked at the hostel named Viktorija and she showed me around the city a bit, including taking me to an old part of the city to a cheap Latvian restaurant called Lido, where I was able to try several different Latvian foods including potato pancakes with sweet cottage cheese...interesting stuff. After our nice little afternoon date, we went and checked out a movie and that was about it for the night since I needed a night off

After Viktorija had bugged me about joining one of her walking tours I decided to join the next day ,which was really cool as she took us to some neat markets, including several massive ones that are located in huge buildings where they used to build the Zeppelin blimps during the war times, described Latvia's fascination with Xmas trees (the first country in the world to use them) and their Santa Claus who looks nothing like the "Coca Cola Santa" . We also toured around an old ghetto area where we saw many old wooden buildings and churches, and visited a spot where the Nazis forced thousands of Jews into a church and set it on fire, burning them to death. Finally we went to a smaller market where you can buy more of the exotic things such as illegal Russian vodka, guns, and I even found an old Soviet passport that I was quite tempted to purchase. We finished off the tour near St. Peter's church, where Vik showed us a gift from Riga's sister city depicting the Rooster, Pig, and Donkey from a Brothers Grimm tale. You're supposed to make a wish and rub their noses, and being the perv that I am, I made a wish to hook up with Vik that night ha ha ha. That night we had a few drinks in the bar at the hostel and signed up to go on a pub crawl, but there wasn't much interest, so several of us just went ahead and did our own crawl to the Kiwi Bar and had a pretty great time with several people from the walking tour earlier in the day...eventually the night was getting pretty late and I decided to grab a hotel room for a good night's sleep and fortunately had some company leading to another Shave Day ha ha :) Sometimes wishes come true lol 

Latvian Soldier statue

Great architecture

The famous Laima clock where many Latvians agree to meet

Independence Memorial

Beautiful park near Memorial

Quite a few of these bridges in Scandinavia and the Baltics...basically everyone puts their personal lock on them

The old Zeppelin factories

Where the first Xmas tree was ever put up

Another interesting rendition of an Xmas tree

Some famous literature by some Marx guy

Posters from Latvian independence protests from the Soviets

Dude on the bottom right near Snowman is Latvian Santa

Inside the markets

They call this Stalin's Cake or one of the 8 Sisters (modeled after Empire State Building)

In the Ghetto

Location of Church where Jews were cruelly killed

Good luck statue

I ended up booking two nights at the hotel and it was a pretty nice place, especially to just relax in the evenings and catch up on some sleep and what not. This was one of the few days I decided to take off and not do much of anything other than meet up with Viktorija again later in the evening for dinner and then off to bed early. The next day I checked out, had a quick peek at the Oppression museum in Latvia to learn about the horrors that went on during both the German and Soviet occupation, which is really quite unbelievable how the Latvians were treated. I think it was something like 500,000 out of 4 million Latvians were basically forced from the country into death camps, work camps, etc. so they suffered pretty heavy losses to their population.  

The next day my new buddy Wes and I decided to go Go Karting again, as it was a pretty great time the last time around. We had this one other Aussie guy who joined us and ended up being a complete wanker, and getting all upset that I had the fastest lap time the first race, saying that "If I'm not winning, I'm dead!" Unfortunately for us, and fortunately for him I guess, he won the second race, although I had really great lap that would have been the record but there was some random girl driving on the course who was so slow and just getting in everyone's way...eventually I grew tired of her being so cautious that I would just take the opportunity to run her out of the way as much as possible ha ha.....the race ended up being absolute carnage as she caused everyone to crash and get slowed down, so there was quite a few bumps and spinouts ha ha....But anyways, dumb Aussie guy won, and of course stripped off his shirt and asked to be sprayed with champagne...from this point forward Wes and I would take whatever chances we could to take the piss out of this guy and make fun of his dumb ego. 

After we finished carting, I noticed one of the lads we were with had a decent cut on his heel from driving barefoot, and then I looked down at my own heel and saw that mine was ten times worse...it was a pretty gross injury and I wasn't able to wear shoes for quite a few days afterwards. It took some time to "heel" ha ha. 

We decided to have a big party night out again, and found some local party bus that Vik had told us about...we waited for ages to get on it, but it was pretty awesome, as it was a huge bus with loud music, flashing lights, tables, etc. We were able to get a bottle of Bacardi for pretty cheap and party on the bus for about an hour and a half until they dropped us off near some club, but most of us didn't really feel like going to that club, so we ended up going to some other club for awhile, then back to the hostel for the night, although the English lads chose to continue go out clubbing until late. When I arrived, I met a few of the guys who were originally going to come on the bus with us but backed out and they were cursing their one friend who had come on the bus, and apparently drank pretty much a whole 40 to himself, and got back to the hostel and pissed the bed and vomited all over himself....rather hilarious times. 

The party bus!

My new mate Karl who has been hitchiking around Europe for several months

me and Oliver on the party bus!

The next day Wes and I decided to head on down to the bus station to go to Lithuania, as we had been in Latvia for long enough, and it was time to move on! We hung out at the bar for awhile, and of course made a few jokes at the expense of the poor English bloke when he arrived into the common area (for example, we were having a beer and I said to the fellow "hey buddy, are you ready to get pissed?!") much to the delight of all those in attendance...poor fellow, but nice enough guy. Anyways, Wes and I tried to catch the 4 pm bus, but when we arrived, we found we were 5 minutes too late, and had the option of going on the bus at 8 pm, or else taking a 1:45 am bus, so we figured we may as well just hang out in Riga for the day, and head off to Vilnius in the morning so we could sleep on the bus. That allowed us to spend a bit more time with two of the cool English dudes we had met the earlier day, who filled us in on their night of trying to pick up Latvian girls...the one lad mentioned he was dancing with one girl and thought she was all great, then realized how far her eyes were spread apart, and chose to use drawings on his hands to demonstrate, as seen here ha ha ha

Ha ha oh Fredrick

So anyways, we just chilled out with them for a few hours, went on a little pub crawl, then were going to grab one last beer, when Wes, with his small bladder, had to stop and take a piss near a building...well he didn't know it, but it ended up being right in front of a police building and there was a camera so all of a sudden a door opened, and a police officer grabbed him and pulled him inside to try and fine him...meanwhile I'm hanging out with Oliver and Fred, wondering where the hell he went, and it was getting awfully close to the time our bus was meant to leave, so I had to say goodbye to the boys and head back to the hostel, and hope Wes was there since he had my bus ticket as well....so I start walking back and he appears out of this building, and says that he didn't get fined because he told the police he has a medical problem where he urinates wherever and whenever and can't control it ha ha ha....and they believed him, so he got off lucky!

So we grabbed the late bus, and were off to Lithuania. We arrived in Vilnius at like 7 am, stopped for some McDonalds breakfast (and free WiFi, which all the McDees in Europe have!) then sorted out how to get to our hostel. We arrived, and the girl working there was quite a strange one, joking around ( I think) about how she was sleeping and didn't like being woken up so early for check-ins, and how she doesn't like Canadians and that she hoped we would not have any fun in Vilnius ha ha, so I started giving it back to her, telling her how Basketball was the worst sport in the world (Lithuanians are crazy about it, and were hosting the Euro championships at the time). Anyways, we checked in and hung out in the living room, sleeping on the couch and bean bags until the afternoon when we could get our room. 

We woke up and decided to go explore the city a bit, and found some delicious traditional Lithuanian food at one of the big squares, where they were preparing for that night's basketball game on a huge screen. We grabbed lunch there, then wandered around some more, and then went to get Wes's bike that he had acquired earlier in the week when he came to Vilnius for a few days with an American dude. I guess he found it on the street, with the keys in the lock, and figured it was a trap, but grabbed it and no one stopped him, so he had himself a fancy new bike for a few days. 

Nice city walk

Free concert and markets going on 

Parents with children, not allowed!!

Wedding photos

After exploring for a few hours, we got back to the hostel, and got ready for the evening. We went out for dinner and then found a pub to watch the Lithuania vs Spain game, where Spain way outplayed Lithuania, but it was still a fun game to watch, as the Lithuanians are so proud and loud when it comes to their hoops. (We also tried some local beers, and the Lithuanians are right up there with the Czechs, Belgians, and Germans with their beer making skills, yum!) We then went to Gringos bar for awhile, and met some other locals and played some foosball there, then grabbed a late night kebab and called it a night. 

The next day we decided to go down to check out the SS Museum, but when we arrived we found it to be closed! So we just did a big walk around the city again, and hiked up to a point in the hills with a nice view of the city. We also found some cool church, and found an artsy area of the town where there was a statue of Jesus with a backpack, as some artist though that J.C was the original backpacker ha ha. To get in touch with my artistic side, I bought a Kinder Surprise to build a toy, and all I got was a friggen puzzle...damn those Kinders have become disappointing since when I was younger, but oh well! We made our way back to the hostel, just in time to head back out and watch Lithuania play another bball game at a bar called Gringos, where we met a few more locals and had a decent time. 

Putting down a sneaky owl by a dog statue

Inside a large church 

Freedom monument

View of the city from above

Interesting old neighbourhood we stumbled into

J.C the original backpacker!

Arts corner

Some interesting wall that had various knick knacks attached to it

Then it was another early night, as we weren't too keen to go find any clubs or anything, and Vilnius is pretty quiet on Sundays and weeknights. 

The next day we decided to grab a bus ticket and head off to Warsaw in the evening, but decided to go explore some castle in a town outside of Vilnius. We were having a hard time asking the bus driver for the fare prices and telling him where we wanted to go, but fortunately there was a student on the bus who helped us out, and ended up being a pretty cool girl. She ended up showing us around the castle, and being a pretty great tour guide. Eventually it was getting late in the day and we had to get back to Vilnius to catch our bus to Poland, so we said our goodbye and caught the bus back to town. 

Beautiful Soviet architecture again ha ha

One of two nice lakes in the area of the castle

Walking up towards the beauty

Creepy holographic image of the castle's director

After getting back to town, we grabbed our bus tickets, went and grabbed one last Hessburger (a Finnish burger chain that serves absolutely delicious burgers for a decent price) and then ran off to the bus station. Wes had forgotten his passport in our locker at the hostel and didn't realize it so I was keeping it on me to play a joke on him for when he eventually figured out it was missing, and I figured on the bus would be a great time since they asked for ID when we were getting on, which I assumed would be a passport, but he got away with showing his driver's licence, so I ended up just giving him his passport without him knowing it was missing for long....oh and he tried to get his bike on the bus, but they wouldn't let him, so he was almost able to sell it to some Lithuanian guy, but the guy didn't want to pay him for it, so he took one last joy ride around the parking lot and said his sad goodbyes to the old girl, and left it for the Lithuanian for free. 

And such we arrived in Poland, after a not so great sleep, and I will get to work on updating our crazy antics from there, asap!

Cheers, 

Rye