Thoughts on This and That

The price of alcohol, ludicrous.

I could have bought a brewery in half the countries I’ve been through recently with the money I spent on one afternoon/evening out in Manchester yesterday.

It seems alcohol over here makes me do crazy things as well.

The more observant amongst you might have noticed I’ve changed the name of the blog, simply because I don’t feel too restless anymore, in fact I am feeling the need for a little structure to my life now. Weird.

Anyway, don’t expect the content to improve much!

It was only five and a bit weeks ago, but it actually seems like an age since I arrived in Istanbul but, oddly, it barely seems like two minutes since I was last sat in front of this PC the night before taking off.

In may ways it was a funny trip, 2 weeks into it I decided I had had enough and was all set to head home, I got over that feeling quite quickly but still felt happy enough when I booked my flight home, only after that did I start to regret it and, given I had a little more money, I now have the feeling that I came back a bit too soon - but it is done now so there is no point crying over it.

Despite the occassional feelings of travel-weariness I am really glad I made the trip, Eastern Europe is a fascinating place to travel through, especially given it’s context in recent world history and it was great to see some of the places I did and meet some of the people I met. One thing that really struck me was how more like us Brits the people are the further north you go, whether that be in the way they dress, behave or even the things that they sell in their supermarkets.

Without wanting to sound like a pretentious prick this trip has changed my outlook a little when it comes to travelling. Maybe it’s a short term thing but I have lost the (unrealistic) desire I have always had to go everywhere, and future plans are now focused on some specific destinations that I have a real interest in.

All good things do come to an end, but over the next couple of weeks I’ll be writing the trip up so at least I shall be able to relive it a little.

Well, here I am sat on my sofa in front of my computer. I can’t say I’m too glad that I’m here, but it could be worse.

Yesterday’s day trip to Helsinki proved more than worthwhile, it’s a great place and I definitely fancy going back sometime, a day really wasn’t enough to do it justice and the ferry ride back to Tallinn was an experience too. Over the next week or two I am going to fully blog my trip, and maybe even upload a few photos, so you can all get a lovely insight into what I’ve been up to.

Right now I’m off for a curry!

Well, after the drunkeness of Riga I have had two more relaxed days in Tallinn over the weekend, though watching the Estonia v Russia football game was hardly a relaxing experience, but one that was interesting and fun.

Of the three Baltic capitals I would say Tallinn is my favourite, more to come on the place later, it has it’s share of tourists, but is more relaxed than Riga, and there is more here than in Vilnius.

I won’t be blogging again before I get home, but the schedule isn’t getting less hectic. I have an early start tomorrow to catch a ferry over the Gulf of Finland to Helsinki where I will spend the day before getting the last ferry back as I fly out of Tallinn Tuesday morning, thats the plan anyway. As long as I don’t miss the ferry back things should work out fine!

Well I’ve been in Riga for a couple of days now and, like Krakow, I am glad I am getting out before the invasion of knobs from Britain on cheap flights really takes hold over the weekend.

Maybe I am being a little hypocritical, after all I have ended up pretty drunk on both nights here, but I guess the places I went wont see many tourists over the next few days, I certainly doubt few will take part in the Latvian folk music and dancing that we did, we had to be very persuasive even to get them to let a group of six foreigners in, then again I don’t blame them for that attitude.

Riga is certainly a nice place architectually but there isn’t a great deal here and I sort of get the impression I have seen it all before, the museums about the occupation by the Nazis and Soviets were and Latvia in war in general were interesting but three nights is probably one too many. I’ll be taking it easy tonight though, I need a little rest before hitting Tallinn then Helsinki and I don’t fancy being surrounded by pillocks from back home in shiny shoes and identical shirts anyway!!

Well the last couple of days have been a bit mad, and I now find myself in Vilnius in Lithuania. I never made it to the Ukraine due to not being able to sort out a Belarusian transit visa, but I am sure I will live without it.

Spent my birthday in Warsaw getting drunk with a group of French blokes and a couple of Aussie girls, actually had a good night, didn’t pay for anything and didn’t feel too bad once I had hit the shower Sunday morning so I guess I can’t complain. Warsaw itself isn’t the best winter destination in the world, but I did see a few things that made it worthwhile that I will blog about later.

I headed up here last night on an overnight bus, which was an experience, and to be honest I have pretty much seen all there is to offer (lots of hills and a nice old town). I fly home from Tallinn next Tuesday so I am going to head to Riga tomorrow before going there, I’m also looking into doing a day trip to Helsinki if I can get the ferry schedules to work out.

Not because of the abundance of attractive and friendly young women, or even the copious amounts of cheap, good, lager available.

But because you can buy Tetleys tea in the supermarkets, and not just the standard kind, the extra strong stuff that I love even more.

Life is good.

Well the skies are threateningly grey, it’s cold, and there are lots of Polish people about. So it’s just like being back at home.

In all seriousness it’s a nice place but I am glad I came on Wednesday when I did, just walking around this morning shows a big change in the place, as all the weekend pissheads from Britain have started to arrive. I’ve learnt a few things here too, like never assume that people working in a Spanish restaurant will be able to speak even a couple of words of the language.

Warsaw is my next stop tomorrow, then I’m going to work out how best to tackle getting to Tallinn by March 27 when I fly home

Well I didn’t make it to Lviv, I’m now sat in a hostel in Krakow writing this - I got to the bus station on Monday night in good time only to find that I was unable to buy a ticket from the driver and the offices were closed. I guess I only have myself to blame but I did enquire about buying tickets on the day when I went to the bus station on Sunday and they didn’t mention that I couldn’t get them from the driver, which is usually the norm in these parts - it was annoying to watch a half empty bus I wanted to be on set off, though I did try my best to get on it, however the driver proved not to be bribeable (not a word I know), which is in stark contrast to the train conductors here.

So I ended up having another day in Budapest, which wasn’t so bad, and I jumped on a bus to Krakow this morning (after buying my ticket yesterday afternoon) - I could have got to Lviv on an overnight train last night but the fare was double the bus, and the bribe I offered, and I just was not willing to pay it, unfortunately the bus only goes once a week, but thats life.

I might try and head to Lviv after here, but I’m not too sure I can be bothered, I’m over going to places just for the sake of saying I have been there, so I shall just see what happens and how the connections work out.