Tuesday, May 31, 2005

 

Moscow, day two


Kremlin in the morning

In the morning I went on a bus tour of the city. I saw the same things, more or less, as I had seen last night with Nadi and Julia. The difference is that these places look more beautiful at night.


GUM, a huge department store near the Kremlin

I had lunch at the Okhotny Ryad underground shopping mall. There are two major restaurants here: McDonald's and Sbarro. I chose Italian. The food selection at this Sbarro exceeded any other Sbarro I had been to, but for a price. One slice of pizza, a small side salad, potatoes, fruit, and a bottle of water came to $12. There were lots of Muscovites. For the price they were paying, it made me think that this wasn't just fast food, it was a place to be.


Red Square


Lenin's tomb

After lunch I went on a tour of the Kremlin. There were only two hours to walk around it and see the Armory, a state museum, but surprisingly this time was sufficient. (It helped that we zipped through all the sights with barely any time to stop and savor them.) The Armory is worth seeing for its collection of imperial artifacts. It has a special room called the Diamond Fund, but I didn't have time to go inside. At 6 P.M. the tour ended, and I noticed a large crowd outside the Kremlin gates, which were waiting for a concert inside the fortress. In retrospect, it would have been nice to tour the Kremlin without a guide, so that I could have taken my time, but my guide said that independent tourists are not allowed.


The Tsar Bell, largest in the world. The broken piece weighs 11 tons!

Upon leaving the Kremlin I went to Red Square for the sole purpose of having my picture taken in front of St. Basil's Cathedral. I asked three different people to assist me. The first two took mediocre photos; the third was very serious about taking his own pictures, so he looked perfect for the part. It took him five tries, though, before I finally got the picture I wanted.


Tomb of the Unknown Soldier


High society

I met Nadi and her classmates for dinner, again at FAQ Cafe. Nadi had to do some studying tonight, so I stayed lowkey and hung out in her neighborhood. (She lives off of a busy street called Leningradskiy Prospekt.) I saw some interesting things: women wearing the latest fashions getting into rusty Ladas, the ubiquitous Soviet-era brand of taxis; Asians walking on the street holding open beer bottles. Nadi's neighborhood is very safe. I saw quite a few women and children walking alone after dark.


King of the hill


Monday, May 30, 2005

 

Moscow, day one (let the games begin)

I woke up at seven this morning. I had a hard time sleeping on the train. Overall, though, the trip wasn't bad. My compartment got tea service several times, and we even were served breakfast today. The seventeen hours on the train seemed to go by pretty fast.

The train pulled into Moscow at 10 A.M. I had already made plans to register my visa (required for tourists, or else you must pay a fine if stopped by the police), get cash, purchase a phone card and buy a train ticket to St. Petersburg for June 2. If I worked efficiently, I thought, I could accomplish all this by noon.


Bolshoi Theater

As soon as I left the station I felt disoriented. The street, a major one called Prospekt Mira, was very busy and it took me a few minutes to get my bearings. (I tried to use an underground crossing, but got confused because it was full of shops and pedestrians and none of the exits were labeled.) To register my visa, I walked ten minutes to a hostel called Travellers' Guest House. They were great because they did this service without me having to stay there. They even let me call my CouchSurfing host, Nadi! Feeling ambitious, I told Nadi I would finish my errands soon and meet her in an hour.


Fountain outside Okhotny Ryad

The next errand was to get money. I would soon learn that Travellers' Guest House was an anomaly, that doing business in Russia is much, much harder than anywhere else on my trip. Since I did not have a PIN code, I had to get cash in a special way, by presenting my passport to a bank teller. The first bank I tried told me that they did not know how to process such a transaction. At least that's what I gathered, since the teller did not speak English and I barely knew any Russian. I met with more success at the next bank, at least in the beginning. The teller there examined my passport, swiped my credit card and handed me a receipt to sign. I did so quickly, gave it back to her and waited for her to give me my money. But instead, she wagged her finger at me and told me that I would not be getting any cash at all. She explained that the signature on the receipt was different from that on the back of my credit card. I tried to point out (in broken Russian) that the signatures were basically the same (I had written "Will Lee" instead of "William Lee"), and besides that the picture on the passport was clearly mine. All this was to no avail: she tore up the credit card receipt and told me to move away. I was flabbergasted. I felt that this teller was following the procedures to an absurd degree and probably giving me a hard time just because she could. I felt angry, helpless and most of all, frightened that I wouldn't be able to get any more money for this trip.

Still, I had more than $100 in cash. I exchanged $40 at that bank, and since it was well more than an hour since I had called Nadi, I hurried away to meet her. But first I had to buy a phone card to call her when I got to the meeting point. The receptionist back at the hostel told me that I could buy a SIM card, which would allow me to use my cell phone in Russia on an inexpensive prepaid plan, from any kiosk on the street. But at each kiosk I stopped at I was told they did not carry SIM cards. I felt hopeless. Finally I figured out that I had to go to a real wireless store to buy a SIM card. I went to one next to the Kuznetsky Most Metro station, where I was supposed to meet Nadi. I could not get a SIM card there, though, because the salesperson noticed a discrepancy in my passport: the hotel I listed as my temporary address was different from the hotel that had registered my visa. I could have punched somebody. I was extremely disappointed with Russian customer service. Not only did these 'service' representatives follow their regulations zealously, they also refused to offer any alternatives. (Maybe they were looking for a bribe.) Still, the saleswoman graciously allowed me to use her phone to call Nadi. Nadi told me to meet her at the Metro station.


Manege Square, mix of old and new

I waited at the busy station for a few minutes, which seemed like a lifetime. After a horrendous morning, I would not have been surprised if I had been stood up. I was dwelling on this thought when I noticed a wide smile in the crowd. Right away I knew things were going to get better. Nadi greeted me warmly, took my bags and put them in her friend's car. (What planning.) She had to go back to her university, located nearby—she was in the middle of preparing for a week of presentations—but she pointed out some places that I could see for the rest of the day. We said goodbye for now. I had never been more glad to meet someone in my life.

Bolstered by this first successful event in Moscow, things started to go right. I went to a bank a block away. After again failing to get cash from a teller, on a whim I called my credit card company (from my cell phone) and asked the customer service representative if I could reset my PIN. (I was so happy to be talking to this person. Russian customer service completely changed my attitude toward American call centers.) My call was transfered to an automated PIN-changing line, and a few seconds later, I had a new code! The recorded message said it would be active in 2-3 business days, though, but I decided to try it at the ATM anyway. I put in my card, entered my secret code and the amount to withdraw and closed my eyes. A second later, I heard the whir of a motor, and when I opened my eyes, I saw rubles. I skipped out of there, feeling like a load had been lifted.


Manezhskaya Square, a popular gathering place

After the adrenaline that sustained me in the morning subsided, I felt famished. The first thing I bought with my new windfall was lunch. I stopped at a Caucasus food stand and sucked down a shashlik (marinated meat and pickled vegetables wrapped in a lavash) and a cold beer. Refreshed, I carried on and took the metro to the Central Railway office to buy a ticket to St. Petersburg.


Conspicuous consumption

At the Central Railway office, my despairing opinion of the people of Moscow started to change. I tried to order a ticket and managed well for a while. When I started to stumble, a kind woman who was waiting in the lobby and knew some English offered to interpret for me.

I returned to the city center and started sightseeing. The first place I visited was the world-renowned Bolshoi Theater. Then I walked to Red Square. Actually, I lingered just outside of the square, because I noticed a few police officers stopping passersby and asking for their papers. Most of these people looked like they were from Central Asia and the Caucasus, but I didn't want to take any chances. I was happy to hang out at a crowded plaza called Manezhskaya Square, adjacent to Red Square. (Red Square, the Kremlin, Manezhskaya Square and the Moscow River are all next to each other.)


Russian Orthodox art

I left Manezhskaya Square and walked to the Kitai Gorod district. This is a very old neighborhood near the Kremlin that has many churches and historic buildings. I expected this area to be quaint, perhaps like Chinatown in San Francisco. Instead, I discovered that Kitai Gorod is the epicenter of Moscow's new consumer culture. On the first street I passed through, a short alley named Tretyakovsky Proezd, I passed row upon row of parked luxury cars. (The black Benz is more prevalent in Moscow than the 3-Series BMW in Silicon Valley.) All of them were in pristine condition and attended to by a driver. Their owners must have been shopping at the Gucci, Tiffany's or a number of other boutiques on that street. Ironically, my guidebook, printed in 2003, said this was an archaeological site.

I left this opulent street—the rest of the neighborhood teemed with pedestrians. Most of the historic buildings I saw were undergoing renovation. I concentrated instead on the people I passed. Both men and women dress to impress. The gentlemen wear suits with pointy shoes; women choose tight skirts and tops. These clothes look more expensive than what I saw in Riga or Vilnius. In addition to flattering clothes, women feature a can't-be-bothered look and a mean stilettoed walk.


Cathedral of the Monastery of the Sign; in distance, one of Stalin's Seven Sisters

Still in Kitai Gorod, I approached a cell phone store, and feeling good about it, walked in. The salesperson, a girl in her early twenties, was pretty helpful. I was able to communicate with her in Russian, but after seeing my American passport she switched to English. She sold me a SIM card without any trouble, and even more, she activated it for me and told me how to make calls. For my part, I tried to be friendly and appreciative of her help. I think this shows that when you reach out to strangers, they want to receive you you rather than turn you away.

Near the Hotel Rossiya, a hulking Soviet architectural legacy on the Moscow River, I met four English-speaking tourists. They were on a group backpacking tour. They all seemed like experienced travelers, but when I told them I was traveling alone they were impressed. It was only then that I felt comfortable in Moscow. I was able to, with a mix of some knowledge of Russian, luck finding English speakers and a lot of patience, achieve everything I set out to do.


Rollerblading capitalists in Kitai Gorod

I finished my walking tour of Kitai Gorod that evening and then met Nadi at a nice place off Tverskaya Street called FAQ Cafe. She was joined by her classmates, Julia, Nastya and Kola, who all are also CouchSurfers. They all struck me as bohemians, as did the cafe itself. I thought it odd that such a quiet place could exist so close to Moscow's busiest street, but in Moscow there are no distinct neighborhoods such as the Village in New York or SOMA in San Francisco. Here I had a terrific spaghetti carbonara for only $6.

That night Nadi and Julia borrowed Nastya's car and drove me around the city. I was touched by this gesture. We drove past the Kremlin, which looks beautiful at night, around the major streets, and to Moscow State University, which is on a hill that offers a nice view of the city. Traffic in Moscow never stops. There are neon lights everywhere, for multinational companies and casinos, reminiscent of an Asian capital city. Speaking of Asians, I saw a few around the city today. They ranged from central Asian to possibly Chinese or Korean. I saw a few other minorities, too—I definitely didn't feel like an oddity in this city. However most of these ethnic minorities speak Russian, so in the polyglot sense Moscow is not very cosmopolitan.


with Nadi and Julia at FAQ Cafe (those are sleeping bags!)

Nadi and Julia told me that they were planning a trip to Australia for the summer. Remarkably, they had only thought of the idea the night before, and already they were researching how to get a job there. I admired their impulsive, spur-of-the-moment mentality—no one I knew acted that way. We got back to Nadi's place, a modest flat (Julia also came to do some studying) where the warm hospitality continued. I was blessed to have found these hosts.


Kremlin at night


Sunday, May 29, 2005

 

Riga, day three

I woke up at 9, still hyper from last night. I said goodbye to Vija and thanked her for having me over.

I went back to Old Town. Had lunch at a self-serve cafe called Pelmeni XL. Pelmeni, a Russian dish, is basically wontons stuffed with pork, mushrooms or a number of other ingredients. It can be served boiled or fried. Russians eat it slathered with sour cream. It's hearty and cheap.


Old Town's main street

I observed several diners start and finish their meals during the time I was eating. It seems that Latvians eat as quickly as they can so they can get on with their day. I also noticed that their portions were smaller than what I was accustomed to. I wondered if they eat smaller meals for cultural reasons or for a tight budget.

After lunch I walked around Old Town and spent an hour at a park just outside of it. This was a nice place to laze on a sunny afternoon.


Latvian festival in train station

At 3 P.M. I left to catch my train for Moscow. I was kind of apprehensive about train travel in this part of the world. I had heard stories of thieves running loose on trains, with the only defense being to buy an entire compartment and locking it from the inside. Since I didn't have enough money for that, I ended up sharing a compartment with one Russian man. He looked decent, and it turned out that he spoke some English and he translated for me on a couple of occasions. Just as I was getting used to this nice arrangement, the the train stopped near the border and let on more passengers. Two shabbily dressed men who smelled like Riga's worst sewer joined our cabin. I was a little suspicious of them, but for the rest of the journey I minded my own business and everything turned out all right.


Latvian festival. Notice Russian text in background.


Saturday, May 28, 2005

 

Riga, day two

Today I went to Sigulda. This small town, 45 minutes from Riga by train, is located in a forested valley. It is known as the Switzerland of Latvia.

I had a hard time getting there. I was running late for the morning train, so I literally ran to the platform that I thought the train was leaving from. I did see a train waiting there but no signs showing which it was. I asked two girls waiting on the platform if this was the right one. The first thing I could think to say was "Do you speak English?" in Russian, and the girls giggled, "Yes, and Russian too!" They told me that this was indeed the train bound for Sigulda. I jumped on. Most people I saw in Riga put on a cold demeanor, but I hope this experience shows that if you actually make an effort to talk to them they will be friendly.

When I arrived in town, I walked to the bobsled track, an Olympic-quality training facility. It was hyped up in all the travel guides, but on this day it was not worth the praise. It was closed, first of all, and it did not have the picturesque quality I imagined it would have had in the winter.


A unique brand of chess

Afterward I went to the valley, and on the way I happened to go past an elementary school. On this Saturday there were dozens of schoolchildren outside. They were making arts and crafts, playing games and generally having fun. One of them told me that they were celebrating some kind of anniversary. I learned later that there were celebrations like this in other towns in the country, so I thought it was a national founding or independence holiday. At the town square there was a large festival.


Gauja River in Sigulda

For the next few hours I walked around the valley. It's actually a small part of Gauja National Park. (Gauja is the name of the river that runs through the valley.) There are some picturesque castles as well as a cave that is involved in a local legend about star-crossed lovers. Hiking around the valley was a nice change of pace from visiting cities. Still, if you come here in the summer you should be prepared for dense forests, blocking your view from trails, and lots and lots of gnats. Further, the Gauja river was a murky brown, not exactly pristine Alpine water.

In the late afternoon I returned to town for an hour. There were lots of young people hanging out. I would have thought that the fashion here would be more rustic than in Riga, but that wasn't true at all. You would see girls who spent a lot of time making themselves up, wearing mini-skirts and high heels with stockings (even on a warm day like today). The inhabitants of Sigulda seemed more Latvian than Russian. They looked northern European, with their tall frames, blond hair and blue eyes.


Latvian folk dance

On the train back to Riga I met an American named Mark. He was a public speaker working for IBM who traveled extensively for his job, racking up more than 100,000 frequent flyer miles a year. He was in Latvia this week for a conference and managed to get away from the city for a day. When we came back to Riga I went along with him to a section just outside Old Town with some fabulous architecture. On the corner of Alberta and Elizabetes streets you'll find plenty of Art Nouveau buildings, a style that is distinguished by richly ornamented facades. The examples I saw were quite extravagant: they featured exotic masks, lions and screaming faces. I had dinner with Mark back at Lido (he was more impressed with the food than I). Afterwards Mark went back to the Art Nouveau district to take more photos. I was ready for something else, so I said goodbye.


Art nouveau architecture

I met up with the young Aussie couple from Vilnius, Richard and Mel, who happened to to be in Riga today. Their hostel, Friendly Fun Franks, was a bit hard to find, but it was worth the effort. The atmosphere inside was lively. A dozen or so people were gathered in the common area—some English guys were playing cards, others were chatting on couches while European MTV was showing on the TV. I found Richard and Mel there. Not long after I arrived the owner, Frank, an Australian himself, handed me a beer.

Late that evening I joined Richard and Mel and a French student named Christophe for drinks at the Skyline Bar. This place is on the top floor of a hotel just outside of Old Town, and it offers impressive views of the city. Most of the crowd there were foreigners, and as such the prices of drinks and food were astronomical (by Riga's standards, anyway).

I heard that Riga is trying to become the premier destination in Europe for stag parties. Well, this jived with all the barkers I saw in Old Town that night, trying to lure men into their clubs with postcards printed with scantily clad women.

On that note, we left Skyline Bar and went to La Rocca, a club in New Town that Frank knows well [he got everyone in the hostel (even me) on the guestlist]. La Rocca is massive. It has three floors and several rooms of different music. The main dancefloor was incredible. European techno was pumping from the speakers, go-go dancers in day-glo outfits writhed to the music, a spectacular light display illuminated the crowd, a fairly large gathering of well-dressed teens and twenty-somethings.

As I walked around I took account of men in flashy suits smoking cigarettes and sipping cognac glasses, arms on their girls. Everyone (except for foreigners like me) was Russian. The atmosphere was electric. It was a place where, if you had the money and the motive, you could go as far as you wanted. I felt like an interloper. I went to the Russian pop music room, which made me feel even more like an outsider. The music was awful, but the room had a large, excited crowd. Next to me were two especially boisterous girls, dancing and singing along. One of them was a true beauty, looking more Latin than Russian. She caught the eye of one man, probably ten years her senior, who was dressed in an expensive (but gaudy nonetheless) suit. He approached her and offered to buy her a drink. She refused. Then he tried to get closer to her, which made her step back. He continued this, thus literally chasing her around the dance floor! After five minutes he finally left her alone. I wanted to tell her how impressed I was by her sticking to her guns, but before I had the chance she grabbed her friend's hand and left the room.

I talked to the French student, Christophe. Like me, he was going to St. Petersburg and Moscow next week. He whispered to me, "You will get married." Before I could laugh, he confided that the last time he and his friends went to Russia, all of them had fallen in love with local girls and were depressed for weeks afterward. I was skeptical, but also a little scared.

I went back to the mezzanine above the techno dancefloor and made a game of guessing how long a girl could go before getting bought a drink. At 3:30 I left the club and walked back to Vija's flat.


Riga at 4 A.M.


Friday, May 27, 2005

 

Riga, day one

I left Vilnius early this morning for a four-hour bus ride to Riga. My first impression of Riga was that it's much more bustling than Vilnius. There is a swarming indoor/outdoor market right next to the bus station, which I got lost in when I was trying to find the train station (to buy a ticket to Moscow). I also noticed immediately how much more Russian was spoken here than in Vilnius. You hear Russian on the street, in shops, in pop songs over loudspeakers in underground street crossings.

After a while I found the train station, left my backpack and walked to the Old Town. Riga's Old Town is much larger than Vilnius's or Warsaw's. People dress a lot sharper than in Vilnius, like the difference between Florence and Naples. I saw many Benzes, Bimmers and Audis throughout Old Town. The district's architecture and layout is medieval/Baroque.


St. Peter's cathedral, Town Hall square and the House of Blackheads

I had a delicious lunch at a cafeteria called Sietasmates piradzini. Here I tried pirozhki filled with pork, ham and cheese. Three such pastries and a bottle of water cost less than one lat ($2).

I spent the rest of the afternoon in Old Town. Most of the time was in the Occupation Museum. This building chronicles the periods of the 20th century during which Latvia was occupied by Soviet and Nazi forces. The exhibits were informative (although there were far too many photographs and artifacts to focus on with English translations few and far between). From them you could tell that Latvians still harbor a deep resentment toward the Soviets for deporting a great number of their people to Siberia. I wondered if that attitude carried over to the Russians of today. In fact, Russians—not Latvians—are the majority ethnic group in Riga.


Brivibas iela, Old Town's main street

While I was reading a piece about a student uprising against the Soviets in 1940, an elderly man appeared out of nowhere and pointed to a picture of the students. He whispered, "That's me." Then he pulled out his wallet and showed me an ID card. This was, for sure, the same man: Voldemars Treimans. Sadly, all of the participants in the uprising were sent to the gulags and Mr. Treimans was the only survivor. Then, just as quickly as he came, Mr. Treimans disappeared, faster than I could take my camera out to get a picture of him.


Freedom Monument

That evening I met my CouchSurfing host, a young woman named Vija. Her friend Pavel also joined us. We went to Jurmala, a beach resort 30 minutes from Riga. Jurmala used to be a major tourist destination in the Soviet era, but more recently it has fallen on hard times as more glamorous resorts in the Mediterranean and elsewhere became open to the former Soviet Union. On this evening it was eerily quiet. Jurmala's beach has white sand and goes a long, long way. A few hundred feet inland from the water is a dense forest, specked with once luxurious homes now in disrepair. Yet I saw new housing and retail developments popping up, so better times may be in store for Jurmala.

The weather tonight was nice and it made for a pleasant walk on the beach and in the woods. Vija and Pavel were friendly and we had an interesting conversation. It turned out that we were all working for high-tech companies, so we compared our experiences. They were very interested about life in America. For instance, Pavel asked me about what kinds of cars were popular there, the price of gasoline, and if pirated software was widely used. He also asked me my opinion about President Bush (Bush had paid Latvia a visit recently, the popular Latvian opinion about him was sour).


View from St. Peter's. Old Town, the markets and the television tower are visible.

For my part, I wanted to learn about the dynamic between ethnic Latvians and Russians. Vija (part Latvian, part Russian) and Pavel (full Russian) spoke Russian with each other and everyone else they encountered on this night. It seemed that Russian was the lingua franca of Riga. A decade ago that may have rubbed Latvians the wrong way, but now it was tolerated. Interestingly, there is an official policy of discrimination toward Russians. People who cannot prove Latvian ancestry cannot become citizens; they can't vote and they hold "alien" passports. (Pavel is like this.) There does not seem, however, to be a glass ceiling in the economy for Russians.


Another view from St. Peter's

Another interesting moment in our conversation came when I asked them if they had ever been to America. They said that they hadn't because the cost of traveling there was prohibitive. And these weren't students; they were were both professionals. What they said made me reflect on my financial situation -- how for the most part, money is not an issue when I want to do something, and until this point I had taken it for granted -- and how other parts of the world view Americans like me.

We returned to Riga and dined at Lido, a popular restaurant that features a buffet of smorgasbord of Latvian cuisine. Latvian food is meat-and-potatoes and somewhat bland. I tried a chicken skewer, radishes, potatoes, a bean or pea dish bathed in lard, and cured pork. This food was extremely rich. My food fit on a regular size plate, but I couldn't finish it. I guess you are supposed to eat everything on your plate in Latvia, because Vija and Pavel looked at me like I had just blown up the National Opera House.


With Pavel and Vija at Lido


Thursday, May 26, 2005

 

Vilnius

The bus ride from Warsaw to Vilnius was very uncomfortable. In part due to the bumpy road, and part to my jetlag, I got only one hour of sleep. The bus arrived in Vilnius at 5:30 A.M. I walked five minutes to the Old Town Hostel. After checking in and freshening up, I met an Australian couple who had also just arrived. Named Richard and Melanie, they were pretty friendly and very young, just nineteen years old. They had been working in England for a year to save money for an extended trip throughout Europe. (They were going to travel until they ran out of money.) It was nice to meet people like these two who work for travel, not travel for work.


Icon of the Virgin ("Black Madonna"), Gates of Dawn

Later that morning I continued my day in Vilnius by going to the Old Town. There are a few churches located in the southern end. I stepped inside a Catholic church that houses an artifact called the Black Madonna. (Many Poles travel to Lithuania to see this.) While I was walking around Old Town I noticed a lot more stares from the locals and other tourists. I suppose I stood out like a sore thumb in this smallish city of 600,000. The residents of Vilnius were more likely to interact with foreigners like me than were the folks in Warsaw. For instance, outside the bus terminal I was accosted by a Lithuanian girl. She began to speak to me in her native tongue, but after I told her that I only spoke English, she surprised me by switching to perfect English. What she had to say didn't interest me, though; she asked me for money to buy a bus ticket. Two more times that day I was asked for money, and once I was asked to buy someone five liters of vodka!


Old Town

Fashion here is a poor man's Paris. There is a long promenade of trendy boutiques, but the brands are local names that are vaguely evocative of designer labels. Girls tend to wear colorful nylons with short skirts. Men are more unruly than in Warsaw. I saw a girl wearing a sexy outfit walk past a bunch of men in a cafe, and one of them actually grabbed her by the arm and propositioned her! Lithuanians look less Slavic than the Poles, but they are a lot taller.


Gedimino prospektas, main boulevard in New Town

Vilnius is a fairly compact city; you can tour it in one day. I spent the whole day walking around and saw everything I wanted to see. Around 4 P.M. the combination of jetlag and lack of sleep caught up to me. I fell asleep on a park bench.

Despite the city's small physical size, it's very lively -- at night people were out and about, filling the squares and main streets. I noticed a fair number of Russians, mostly in service sector jobs or selling arts and crafts on the sidewalk. I wonder if they have been around since the days of the Soviet Union or if they are more recent arrivals (maybe from Belarus?). You can find Russian cuisine here. At the supermarket I bought a tasty pirozhki, a pork-filled pastry.


Church of the Saint Virgin's Apparition

The hostel I'm staying in, Old Town Hostel, costs 36 lita ($15) per night. The people I've met here are friendly. It's a hodgepodge: the Australians I met in the morning, a couple from Canada in town to sightsee, a group from Brtain looking for a party. As I'm meeting more travelers it seems commonplace for Brits and Aussies to travel in Europe at a young age. I was interested to learn that no one wants to visit the U.S. until they turn 21. Guess why.


Wednesday, May 25, 2005

 

Warsaw: In Europe at last (be careful what you wish for)

I arrived in Warsaw at 9:45 AM, local time. It was going to be a long day. The first thing I did was to try my credit card in an ATM. The PIN was rejected. I didn't panic, though, because I still had the emergency cash fund. I exchanged a little bit of that to buy a bus ticket to the train station. I needed to ride a train to Vilnius for the same night. At the train station, however, I was told that the train had sold out. Fortunately, there were still buses to Vilnius. Whew.

Not wanting to push my luck, I immediately set off for the bus depot. Along the way I passed by a phone so I decided to call my credit card company to find out what was wrong with my PIN. The problem was I didn't know how to make a collect call from the pay phones, and no one could tell me how, either. Now there were two items I brought with me, just in case, that truly saved my trip. The first was $200 in cash. The second was my cell phone. Lucky for me, I didn't skimp when I was shopping for one last year and got the Nokia 3200, which works almost anywhere in the world.

I turned my cell phone on, saw the reception bars light up (phew again), and called Visa. They told me that I had never set up a PIN (because I never needed to make a cash advance, until now). I couldn't create a PIN unless I was in America, they said, but I could still get money by going to a bank and showing my passport. (Also, I would be charged $10 for each cash advance, so I'd better make them sparingly.) After the call, I thought about the situation and decided I could manage best by using my credit card for regular purchases whenever I could and to exchange cash as sparingly as possible.

While waiting to go to the bus terminal, I talked to another traveler. This guy was pretty young, from Gdansk, and was flying to London to meet with a friend. When I told him I was from San Francisco, he said that his favorite band was from there, Primus. He said, "You are so lucky!" I didn't even know Primus was still together.

I got to the bus station and bought a ticket for Vilnius. The bus left at 7:30, so I still had an entire day to explore the city. I bought a student-priced bus ticket from a kiosk at the bus depot and got on the 508 to Old Town. It so happened that the student ID I used to buy that ticket was expired, and sure enough, a transit agent nabbed me on that bus. (At least the crowd around me pleaded on my behalf.) That lapse in judgment cost me $20 and a good hour, all to save a measly 40 cents.


Old Town

Old Town is fairly small and has only two squares, each with outdoor cafes and Baroque architecture. Those and the crooked alleys reminded me of Rome. (What I was looking at was a reconstruction; the original had been bombed to the ground in World War II.) I saw three girls sitting on the steps of a monument in the main plaza. Judging from their Old Navy flipflops, I guessed they were American. Actually they were Canadian. I introduced myself and asked them what they were doing in Warsaw: two of them were Polish and they were visiting one girl's grandparents. (Spain and Greece were on their itinerary, too.) I told them I was visiting the Baltics. One girl shouted, "Cool! Are you going to Croatia?" "I think you mean the Balkans," I replied. These were the first of many young travelers I would meet on my trip who were spending a long time in Europe this summer.

I continued to explore Old Town. Actually, there wasn't much to see: a cathedral, ruins of the city wall. I left and strolled down the main street, past Warsaw University. There were hundreds of young people walking on the streets, much more than would be walking around New York or San Francisco on any given day. I arrived at a large park called Lazienkowski. I thought it was busy for a Wednesday afternoon. I spent a good hour there, then returned to the main streets. In the evening I bought a kebab from a street stand. Middle Eastern food seems to be really popular here as you see kebab stands almost everywhere you look. The pita kebab I had was loaded with lamb meat, pickled vegetables and a spicy sauce. It was quite tasty.


Street life

Warsaw reminds me of major Western European cities. Architecture in the city center is evocative of the 18th and 19th centuries. Fashion is similar to what you would find in Rome. Girls are slim and wear clothes that are flattering, even provocative. I saw one tanorexic woman in her early twenties romping around in a belly shirt, miniskirt and stilettos, holding her grandfather's arm! Men wear knock-off versions of Abercrombie and Ecko. People don't smoke as much as I would have expected for a European capital. Polish women have classic Slavic features: chiseled face, small mouth, cleft chin. The standard of living seems fairly high, and I was impressed by the city's cleanliness and the quality of roads and other infrastructure.

Although Warsaw has two million people, it is by no means cosmopolitan. I heard only a few English speakers and saw no minorities except for a few Asians and one black man. (This man was outside a cathedral in Old Town, wearing a friar's outfit and posing for pictures with tourists.)


In the park

Catholicism is a huge part of the Poles' lives. There were many kiosks scattered throughout Warsaw advertising books written about Pope John Paul II. On the streets there were many statues honoring cardinals and bishops I had never heard of. But at the same time, I found Warsaw to have an ambiguous moral standard. For instance, under parked cars' windshield wipers you are bound to find a half dozen ads for phone sex and sex clubs. I guess America's brand of religion/morality is unique. (Although Warsaw did ban a march by the gay population planned for the weekend of June 10.)

I made it back to the bus station by 7:30 and got on the coach for Vilnius. I had already spent $80 of my reserve funds. Clearly I couldn't go on like this.


Tuesday, May 24, 2005

 

Set it off

About to start a sixteen-day, six-city tour of the Baltic countries. I'm in New York now, waiting for my flight to Warsaw. Here's the itinerary:
5/25Warsaw, Poland
5/26Vilnius, Lithuania
5/27-5/29Riga, Latvia
5/30-6/2Moscow
6/3-6/6St. Petersburg
6/7-6/8Tallinn, Estonia
6/9Warsaw

Why this trip? For starters I traveled to Western Europe last summer and had a blast, so I wanted to return, but to a different region. I felt that Central Europe (Prague, Vienna, the Balkans) has already been discovered by tourists and I wouldn't be missing much if I waited a year or two. On the other hand, I've heard that relatively few tourists have treaded on Baltic and Russian soil. I'd like to experience this part of the world in its unspoiled state, and perhaps even be a travel evangelist (travelangelist?), spreading the good news to my friends. Not least, even as the American currency continues to get pummeled, I can still get a big bang for the buck in this part of Europe.

I am traveling alone. I was going to go with a friend but my friend got a job just before finalizing the plans. I had already bought my plane tickets so there was no turning back. I've never traveled so long by myself before, but I believe that with some planning and a lot of common sense I'll manage. I will stay in hostels and perhaps meet other travelers along the way. Not too long ago, I discovered a website called CouchSurfing. This site was designed by travelers for travelers to find locals to stay with or just meet up with during their travels. I've gotten in touch with CouchSurfers in Riga, Moscow and St. Petersburg. I have no idea if this site is reliable or what these locals will be like, but I'm excited to find out.

I've already had one setback on this trip. I tried to use my ATM card in the airport but couldn't get any cash. After I called my bank I realized that the ATM card expired last month! (Why didn't I bring a backup?) I called Visa and they told me I could use my credit card to get cash advances, just like an ATM card. That was a huge relief. I also brought $200 in cash for emergency use.


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