The ramblings of B

Tuesday 25 March

A perfectly pleasant train ride, all things considered. As pleasant as sitting in one seat for 9 hours can be. After my half hour walking around Warsaw this morning, I was unimpressed, perhaps unfairly, but unimpressed by Poland nonetheless. However, the train journey showed me that the Polish countryside really is quite beautiful. Areas have been getting progressively richer as I've moved south-west across Europe and the villages we passed through/by looked charming. The landscape itself was sufficiently diverse and attractive and I would certainly like to come back another time and perhaps do a driving tour through the country. Unfortunately, I have no photos as the streaks on the train window ruined all photos I tried to take.

Got into Prague at 6 in the evening and joined the mass of tourists and locals surging out of the train station. I didn't catch the train to the hostel as suggested, as I wasn't up to figuring out the ticketing system and had no idea when to get off... I walked. Turned out to be quite a way. But I was in the hostel by 7. Chilli Hostel, in Prague 1. A very nice location. I was greeted by my dorm mates - a group of mostly 18 year old New Zealanders who were in Prague to get drunk for a week. They were starting on the booze and I was heading out in search of food and light entertainment. Around the corner I found 'The Globe', a quality English bookshop, internet café, bar, café, restaurant. Fantastic. But I ended up eating 2 doors down at the Lemon Leaf. I had a salad to start and a salad to finish, as I desperately needed a change after all the meat and potato of the Baltics and it was delicious! Back to my hostel for one of the worst nights sleeps of my life. What with standard noise and interruptions, a legless 16 year old being shown into the room at 1 to start snoring. The only tolerable part was when an Irish girl turned the light on to pack at 3:30 in the morning, waking me from my brief sleep. Chatted to her for a hour before falling asleep again.

Wednesday 26 March

Woke at 6:30, unsure of when the others had got in, but I had the great satisfaction of getting up and not feeling at all bad about making noise collecting my paraphernalia for the day. With much zip opening and shuffling and excessive door work I got ready and was out for the day by 8. Unfortunately, my day was kind of focused on getting a new place to stay, so I didn't stray too far around the city, but I did go for a good morning walk. Long enough to see that Prague really is very beautiful. It seems to have all the beauty lacking from Warsaw and all the dirt lacking from Vilnius. Most of the key buildings are delightfully smut covered but in the moments when the sun broke through, walking along the river was genuinely enjoyable.

My early morning searches of hostel and cheap hotel websites hadn't yielded anything much. I decided I really needed a single room. I thought I felt a cold coming on and I needed a few quiet, early nights. Fortunately at lunchtime I hit on another hotel website and found one available in Prague, still within the inner city, near the castle with single rooms available for €30 a night. I went for it. Schlepped across town, visited the supermarket to stock up on cheap dinner and lunch and spent the rest of the day in my room watching BBC news. Fantastic.

Thursday 27 March

I'd forgotten when I checked in that breakfast was included in my little splurge and I was delighted when I descended into the breakfast cavern this morning to find a proper breakfast spread with 6 different kinds of bread product, cheese, hams, yogurt, spreads and coffee that actually tasted good! Perfect fare to fill up on for the day ahead.

Today, seeing as I was staying in the area, I headed to Prague Castle. The Castle, former home of and now a partial seat of Government and the ceremonial home of the President, is a tourist mecca. To get there I had a delightful walk through % gardens, with views out over the city and a detour past the Prague Metronome. This structure sits on the spot where there used to be the largest statue of Stalin in the Eastern States. Now, the metronome is supposed to be a symbol of freedom and equality. The equal time of the metronome signifying the equality of all people? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it looks better from a distance.

I didn't time myself well, getting to the castle just after 10. I strode confidently down the drive and over the moat, moving easily between the scores of tour groups congregating with their umbrella and flower waving guides. I honestly felt like the only lone tourist in the Castle all day. I'm sure there was someone else, but it honestly felt like I was the only one going it alone. Entry for students to all areas of the castle was surprising inexpensive - 175CzK or $11.50 and I had a very enjoyable few hours touring the place. The main feature of the castle is St Vitus' Cathedral, a huge and imposing structure that dominates the Prague skyline. The earliest church on the site was laid down by Duke Wenceslas (later Saint and Kind according to christmas carols) in 925. The beginnings of the current Cathedral were begun in 1344, when Prague became an archbishopric and were completed in 1929, which accounts for the mixture of architectural styles. From a distance, in is clear that the three sets of towers/turrets are Baroque, Gothic and Romanesque. However, when the final stages of the work were begun in the 19thC, the man responsible - Josef Mocker - attempted to carry out the original Gothic design while keeping interesting Baroque and Romanesque features that had been added during the centuries. Inside, the Church is grandiose but genuinely impressive and surprisingly harmonious and calm. Everywhere you look there are charming but attractive pieces of decoration and detail, accumulated over the years by the devoted or rich citizens. The church is also the home of the bones of St Vitus, who was a huge cult Saint in the Middle Ages for his powers of curing disease, and more importantly, those of St Wenceslas, Prague's much loved patron saint. The floor was full of people but with just enough space to move around pleasantly. I couldn't imagine being crammed in there in the high season.

Aside from the Cathedral the highlight for me was the Old Royal Palace. This was the chief residence for the rulers of Bohemia between the 11th and the 16thC's, with most of the existing structure constructed under King Vladislav in the 15thC. This includes the late Gothic banqueting hall, used as jousting rink, bazaar and more recently, the swearing in room for the presidents of the Republic. The best feature of this impressive space is the vaulted ceiling, with its flowing, simple design. Up a few flights of stairs are rooms with views over the city, portraits of the Hapsburgs rulers, a rather dull Chapel, and a few rooms that are decorated with the shield of what I presume are a few centuries worth of Czech nobility. Photographers were forbidden, but I still tried to snap one in particular that was decorated with Herrings. In fact, photography was forbidden all over the castle complex unless you paid an extra 50CzK for a 'license'. This is impossible to police and completely ignored. One simply has to have the respect to not use flash.

Other parts of the castle are St George's Bascilica, a simple but complete Romanesque church, Golden Lane which was the sweat shop for the finery of the Bohemian Kings and Court, and the various towers used for the imprisonment and torture of prisoners. For me these were interesting for the displays of torture instruments, few of which I had seen in real life before.

I tried to locate a way into the Palace gardens, but went down the wrong run of stairs into the city proper, so gave up. Instead I explored the area around the Palace, which is made up chiefly of old Palaces and residences, now used as seats of Government and embassies and of course a few key streets that are entirely made up of souvenir shops.

I somehow missed the Archbishop's residence and accompanying square, so I headed towards that, only to discover that it was up some genuinely horrible flights of stairs that seemed to go on forever and ever and when I reached the top I found that the square was around the corner from where I'd descended into Prague proper about 45 mins ago. Not at all impressed. But my legs are looking better by the minute.

Looked around and admired before descending again. Through the ultra tourist streets to perform my one and only journey across Charles Bridge for the whole week I was in Prague. A very enjoyable bridge, very charming and it would of course be more charming still if there weren't artists and tourists battling it out in almost equal numbers for the limited space.

A tour through the tourist-central streets of town, ending in the Old Town Square where I was delighted to discover Easter Markets. A half and half mix of food and wine stalls with vaguely okay looking souvenirs, it became my unofficial lunch location. When you can get large, tasty wurst in roll with a half litre of beer for around $6, you don't complain. Back early to my deliciously quiet, people-free hotel room.

Friday 28 March

Friday I moved from my lovely hotel/residence back into a hostel that I had originally thought too expensive, but it turned out that the net prices were inaccurate. Literally down the street from my first place, it was in a part of town I vaguely recognised and the other occupants were NOT in Prague to get boozed, rather to see the sights. Afterwards, I took myself out for a cheap lunch at Easter markets in the Old Town Square.

At night I took myself out for a night on the town. It is very hard to do so alone, especially as a young female, but I'd noticed that the Globe had live music tonight and figured that would be a good place to start. I secretly had a plan to meet some fellow English speakers while I was there and while away the time with them, and I am glad to say my plan worked perfectly. I'd been there for a while - about an hour, enjoying dinner, when I was joined by an American guy and then by the friends he was waiting for. Had a great night out with them and by the end of it, there was a lot of number swapping and promises of entertaining me over the weekend. The first guy who brought himself over to my table was a professional masseuse who'd been living in Prague for 4 years. He was in love with a Czech girl and had realised last year it was his destiny to marry her. In 2010 to be exact. He was therefore one year into a 3 year wooing process. The girl in question was unaware of their entwined destinies, but he was stepping up the assault and was writing a love letter to her when he introduced himself to me. He and his friends proved to be delightful companions for the remaining four days of my stay in Prague. After The Globe, we wandered the streets before ending up at one of their favourite bars where I sampled pickled cheese for the first time (interesting, not to be eaten in large chunks) and plum brandy. I'm not sure why everyone is so insistent that I sample the local spirit where ever I go, but in the scheme of things, plum brandy was not at all bad. But maybe that was only after the pickled cheese...

Saturday 29 March

Today I set off in the general direction of the Mala Strana, a section of town sort of underneath the Castle and its district. There is a large area of interconnected gardens that I thought would be stunning. So I headed off through the gardens, after necessary sustenance of pastry and large coffee. The gardens have many different names and apparently purposes, but there are no walls, fences, signs indicating the different parts. So one just wanders aimlessly through the hill side and watched the style change subtly. I headed up the hill, unconsciously moving in the direction of the Strahov Monastery. As I neared the top, not only did I get to appreciate the amazing views over the city, which looked particularly appealing on a bright spring morning, but I also happened upon a pair of squirrels who obliged me first with a show and secondly with sitting still long enough for me take some photos of them. I went into the Monastery proper, a fairly small complex (at least the part open to the public) and paid a small sum to see the Strahov Library. A Theological Hall and a Philosophical Hall, both stunning libraries with fresco ceilings, the Theological Hall being painted by a resident monk, the Philosophical Hall by a Viennese master and both depicting man’s struggle for wisdom. After a bit of a deviation through the local streets (not that I was lost of anything, you understand) I walked along the Hunger Wall and the long way back through the gardens. According to legend, the Hunger Wall was an initiative of Charles IV to provide work for the poor and hungry of Prague. In reality, it was an immense and effective medieval defensive building project. But it did provide employment, so I suppose we can give Charles some credit for that. Wandered slowly through the Mala Strana district, which is touristy in parts but also charming and local in others. A very attractive part of the city.

At night I met up with my new American friends at ‘The Globe’ to hear some live music. We left at midnight when it was the clear the wait staff would like to go home NOW please. Deviated past a bar that was in a converted toilet block in the corner of a park near a tram stop (actually rather fun) then back to the hostel.

Sunday 30 March

Today I went to the Jewish Museum. Oddly enough, the idea for a Jewish Museum in Prague was Hitler’s, but it was more along the lines of ‘look at this freaky race of people who we, the glorious Aryan Race abolished from this earth!’. The current one is separated into 6 different sections. The old Jewish, 3 synagogues and 2 halls. I didn't go through the buildings as they were numbered, but oddly enough I don't think you're supposed to. The museum has some wonderful artifacts and contains a huge amount of information about the Jewish Faith, its history in Europe and Prague, traditions and place in the community. All told in easy to digest clumps scattered throughout the 6 locations. I have no photos as they are strictly banned and I felt wrong to violate it, though oddly I didn't feel that in any of the other no-photo locations in Prague. My favourite section was the Pinkas Synagogue, built in 1535 but now inscribed with the names of the 77,297 Jews from Moravia and Bohemia who died in the Holocaust. The synagogue is clean and stark but the walls are a mosaic of black and red words listing all the names and personal data including date of birth and death, according to the region and community to which they belonged. Every square inch of wall space is covered and it is in its own way quite beautiful and very moving but overwhelming at the same time. This monumental tribute was pretty much the only mention of the Holocaust in the whole museum. The Spanish Synagogue, possibly one of the most decorated yet harmonious buildings I have seen, dealt with the history of Czech Jews in the 20thC, but the Holocaust got 2 lines and a few mementos in half a cabinet. I have to say, I liked that they didn't dwell on what is the best known part of Jewish history, but took it as read that the visitor knew about it and was more generally interested. Overall, I thought it one of the best constructed and presented museums I have ever been to.

It turned out that today the clocks went forward. Having lost an hour of my life without knowing it, I headed back to the hostel for an early, lazy night. But my American friends had different ideas and I ended up going to see 'There will be Blood'. It was a brilliant movie, deserving of all the accolades it received and it was fantastic to see a movie. Oh the little things you miss.

Monday 31 March

Today I tried to see all the parts of Prague I'd missed until now while doing a few last minute jobs that needed to be done. I tried to send postcards and failed, I bought shorts to wear to bed (success!) and tried to see the area around my hostel, which has a few churches and some sehenwurdigkeiten, Unfortunately, the churches all seemed to be closed when I arrived at their gates and the few sehenwurdigkeiten I passed I admired but forgot to take photos of.

A last night of dinner at the apartment of my new friends, most convivial and a bit revealing of the typical American childhood (subtext - worrying). A great ending to my wonderful week in Prague.

Estonia - Sunday 16 March - Monday 17 March

Note: Estonia Eek to Aussie $, take off a 0.

We docked at 9 but didn't leave the boat til 11. It's awful how being in a foreign environment without reference to the outside world can completely obliterate your sense of time and place. As a way to travel, it was ok. I'd do it again. Not for a cruise, but as an overnight method of travel it's pretty good. The ferry terminal was on the door step of the Tallinn old town. We found our hostel and set off to explore. My first experience of this particular style of architecture, certainly on the scale of Tallinn. The pastel colour plaster work with white detailing, all very Russian and Baroque. Tallinn old town really is picture post card perfect. It's had money spent on it since joining the EU but not the vast sums spent on Vilnius. But I think it musn't have suffered as badly under the Russians as other areas, as the old town still hangs together quite well in terms of architecture and feel. There isn't the crazy mix of 18C meets 1960's Soviet. Lunch at a fairly cheesy 'Estonian' restaurant were we were the only guests. I got the impression that in summer, they cater for bus loads of tourists being shown 'traditional' Estonian cuisine. The décor and waiter outfits were all a bit kitsch, down to the pig shaped window boxes. I had a pork meatball casserole, which was a layer of mashed potato covered in tomato sauce with meatballs throughout, the whole thing covered in cheese. Perfectly tasty and very hearty. We wandered up into the real old town, with its spectacular Russian Orthodox church and the Latvian government complex, which was laid down by Catherine the Great. There was almost no one around, the snow was falling and the town couldn't have been more charming and atmospheric. The whole old town is very clean, even pristine with souvenir shops, bars and restaurants all over the place. Definitely a place geared to make the most of new tourist dollars. But lacking much of the cheesiness of many other tourist focused places I've seen.

Back in the town proper was the Church of St Nichola. This glorious gothic church was constructed in the 13thC and lasted until 1944 when it was bombed and almost obliterated by the Russians. It was lovingly reconstructed and it now acts as a church-come-museum for artifacts from medieval Estonian churches. Though I couldn't help noticing how few of the treasures actually came from Estonia...The highlight of the collection is a 15thC mural by Berndt Notke entitled 'The Dance Macabre'. A stunning and delightfully grim masterpiece in which death heralds all before him, addressing empresses, popes and kings, calling them all to accept their fate.

At one point we passed the Old Town pharmacy, one of the oldest continuously running pharmacies in the world. It has been an apothecary shop or similar since at least 1422, and it looks it, with it's wizened wooden furniture and raven and skull in the window. Tasteful.

A bit more wandering around the back streets and alleys before we found a local bar that served local beers and the most enormous yet delicious pancakes I have ever seen. Between the 3 of us we couldn't finish 2 sets of pancakes, one with mushroom and garlic and the other with apple and sugar which came to the grand price of 85Eek. I recommend all those intending to visit Tallinn to go there. After a nap, we stumbled upon another ridiculously kitsch restaurant for dinner. It was a beer hall that included a fake streetscape. We did a tour of Sunday night Tallinn night life, which didn't take long, and were about to pike when, approaching our hostel, I heard music and moved to investigate. We'd found the official Estonian Depeche Mode Fan Club Bar. Seriously. Depeche Mode memorabilia, music 24/7 and video clips. A novel experience to say the least.

Monday 17 March, Estonia - Riga

Michael was leaving for Cambridge this morning, so had limited time. Wandered through the old town, searching for a respectable looking coffee joint. Ended up in a French tribute like Café Josephine. Never mind that it was entirely decorated in gold and mauve velvet, it had delicious coffee and the best pane chocolat I have ever tasted! Just superb. Walked down into new Tallinn, Michael caught a cab and Jules and I explored the sights of the new town by ourselves. Tallinn new town is exactly as one might expect it to be. Mostly falling down, full of vile looking Soviet style buildings and architecture. Completely devoid of aesthetics and with dodgy chain casinos open 24 hours on all main streets. But then with new shopping malls, up market hotels and other glaring examples that in the Capitalist race, some people had jumped on the band wagon at the right moment and were really benefiting while most of the rest of the population were still trying to get their heads around the sudden demise of the social service system. This is how it was all over the Baltics and it seems to me that for these countries, as I presume it is for most of Eastern Europe, instead of the country/society sort of developing slowly and at the rate of the slowest member - a relay team is only as fast as the slowest runner - here the capitalism race had started with a bang and it was really every man for himself. We didn't stay in the new town for long, but headed back to the old part, checked out of he hostel and treated ourselves to lunch at a swanky restaurant that did great vegetarian food. This was the part of Tallinn Jules had most been looking forward to.

A 5 and a quarter hour bus ride from Tallinn to Riga. There are no trains joining Estonia to Latvia or Lithuania. Indeed the only train link between the Baltic countries is the thrice weekly Riga - Vilnius trains. For an area trying to encourage the tourist bucks and having huge amounts poured into it, I think this will soon become a glaring gap in their system. The ride wasn't too bad but I'm not sure I'd want to do it on a full bus, sitting next time someone I didn't know. Plus, I'm not sure how long it would take me to get over my fear that the driver would leave without me if I evr got off the bus. Riga at 7 at night, ahead of schedule. Dark and gloomy run into town, snow starting to fall as we arrived. Our hostel was fortunately very near the bus station, perfectly clean and run by an Aussie from Perth. On the recommendation of one of the Americans working in the hostel, we headed across town to a restaurant that served good cheap Latvian food. Old town Riga is quite beautiful at night and it has one or two quite spectacular churches. But of the 2, I think I find Tallinn more charming. The restaurant was called 'Vecmeita Ar Kaki' or 'The old lady with Cats'. Simply referred to as the old cat lady restaurant. It was very tasty, and certainly ok for the price, with an entrée of beer snacks, beer, 300mL of nice french wine, Jules' fish with rice and vegetables and my 'Hunter Sausage' i.e. pork with 'fried potatoes' i.e. chips and salad, both of which were large and tasty, coming in at $26. One of the guys at the hostel who we'd been chatting to had said that he and some friends were meeting back there around 10 then going for a drink. So we vaguely headed back, got back closer to 10:30, found nothing was happening, so we watched the end of what is apparently a classic Clint Eastwood film before going to sleep.

Tuesday 18 March - Riga

Our full day in Riga. Got up and left the hostel around 9. It was cold, grey and overcast with the definite possibility of an impending storm. To start the day off and get some form of breakfast, we went to the Riga Central markets. Historically speaking, the Riga markets are Europe's most ancient, dating back to 1201 and the founding of Riga. They are also one the largest and the curent hangers that house the majority of them - there are 5 hangers in all, for meat, vegetables, fish, dried and baked goods and dairy - were constructed between 1925 and 1930. They are good markets, though unlike almost all other markets I've ever known, when we arrived about 9:50, the outside veggie stalls at least were only just setting up. We wandered through, observing, though we moved through the meat and fish sections very fast. Only inexplicable thing I witnessed was a queue, a very long queue, or elderly people lining up at one particular store to purchase what I think might be yogurt. Or some un-altered dairy product. They all had their own vessels and were calmly waiting in queues some 40 people long for their turn at the ladles. Forgot to take a photo. On the whole, the markets were surprisingly empty of the off-the-back-of-a-truck stalls that usually invades such gatherings. There were a few, but they were only outside in the spillage.

We bought some pastries of some sort and coffee and went to eat outside. Why I don't know, it was -1. Jules had a veggie pizza, we shared a sweet thing that seemed to be the specialty of the shop we went to and was very tasty, and I almost made Jules throw up by eating with great gusto a pastry filled with smoked pork fat. Yummy!

Walked through town. Saw the Orthodox Cathedral, the Freedom Monument. The freedom monument guards aren't allowed to move and therefore have an assistant from the army to neaten their jackets after they do their little ceremony every hour. Went into the Dome cathedral, which would have been stunning had not the entire inside been covered in scaffolding. Including the organ, which was the no. 1 and is currently the 4th largest in Europe.

Lunch at a great local join with good vegetarian food called John Lemon's. Yes, there is a sign outside with a lemon wearing John Lennon glasses. We tried to go for a walk by the river and see a few more sights, but as we got there, the snow started. Not pleasant snow, just the sort that comes in at 90 degrees. Back to the hostel for r'n'r.

Dinner once again at the old cat lady restaurant, once again very tasty except this time we tried a traditional Latvian dessert - bread soup. Served cold with obscene quantities of whipped cream on top, but quite delicious. A guy Jules was studying with in Sweden was in town. So we met up with him and a whole bag of his Greek friends who were in the Baltic for the uni holidays and proceeded to paint the town red. Speaking German while drinking margaritas in a Cuban bar in Latvia with Greeks is a gloriously cultural smash.

Wednesday 19 March - Hill of Crosses

Plan for the morning was to cross into Lithuania to the Hill of Crosses and then onto Klaipeda on the coast so we could go to the Coronian Spit tomorrow. Turned into quite a journey. There are no trains into Lithuania except the thrice weekly Riga - Vilnius train. So it was a 2,40min bus ride to Siauliai, which is the town nearest the site. Once there, I put my luggage into baggage storage, we gave up trying to find the buses that ran out there and got a cab the whole 10 kms. The site was smaller than I expected. I had thought it was a small cemetery sized pace, when in fact it really is a small hill. But the lack of size is made up for by the intensity. This has been a site for crosses since the 14thC. The Soviets bulldozed the site firstly because that's the way they roll, but after that as it became not a site or symbol of faith, but of open rebellion and independence. It was estimated that in 1990, when Pope John Paul II visited, there were 40,000 crosses. There are at least half a million now, probably more. There is a main path through the hill but many tiny side paths which are more affecting. Many of the crosses are recent and bare names. There are also piles of old ones and it's clear that as most are made of untreated wood, many from previous decades have broken down. But they are being replaced and the 3 souvenir stores were a little miffed we didn't want to buy one of our won. I'm sure there are 3 times more cross sellers in the summer. I think we managed to get it on the perfect day. We were the only two people there, it was cold and clear and sunny and just magnificent.

Bus out of Siauliai to Klaipeda around 3 in the afternoon. Of Siauliai, one need only be there while waiting for a bus. The second bus trip was worse then the first, but fortunately our hostel in Klaipeda was AT the bus station, so we didn't need to go searching. I didn't want to. Klaipeda I'm sure is a perfectly safe place but I wouldn't have felt comfortable being out at night alone. The streets showed a perfectly normal ex-soviet town with a smaller and less interesting than usual old town.

Thursday 20 March

Our plan was to spend the day on the Coronian Spit. A world-heritage listed and protected area of great natural beauty. Unfortunately, we were thwarted. In every possible way. Of the 2 ferry terminals running from Klaipeda to Smiltyne - the town at the tip of the spit, we chose the new one as the ferries ran more than once an hour. Couldn't find a bus to go there, caught a cab and got on the ferry ok. The ferry was mildly awful because it was rain-snowing and below 0 and one of the those days when the weather is just gods-damned awful. Turned out that the new ferry stopped no where near the town and the bus down the spit, which only goes every 2 hours, might not have got to where we were for another 30 mins. Or it might not have come at all. So we set off through the woods (which actually were stunning and if I hadn't been developing frostbite I would have loved it) Got to Smiltyne in time for the 10:15 bus. Which never came. Stood in the cold because there was nowhere under cover until the 11 o'clock ferry came and I bullied Jules into getting on it and going back. A write off of a trip. We missed out of smoked herring and a huge nesting cormorant colony, but it seemed to me that we weren't guaranteed that the next bus would come, there was no where to have lunch and we would just slowly freeze to death. I'd love to go back, but I would be prepared to brave the tourists and go in summer just for the bonus of things being open! Curious point though - the island's main industry are the 50,000 tourists who visit it each year. Yet there wasn't a single sign in any language other than Lithuanian. No Russian, no German, nothing.

Back in Klaipeda, we ducked into a cellar restaurant that I'd spotted the night before and proceeded to have one of the best meals I've had in ages. There was no English menu, so we told the waitress roughly what we felt like and she produced it. A shared vegetable soup, thin and chucky and incredibly tasty. Then local fish with fresh vegetables and rice for Jules, a great piece of herbed grilled pork with potatoes and salad for me and for dessert the best apple strudel I've ever had outside the Buckels house. Washed down with local beer, 2 espressos and a glass of hot wine flavoured with blood orange. All for 64Lit, 70 with the tip. Yes, we splurged, but it was worth it for what we got and for warming our cold, tired bones!

Walked around Klaipeda, of which there is neither much to see or tell except a clock museum which would have been interesting if any of it had been in English or German.

At night, seeing as it was our last night traveling together, we rocked out on the town, visiting a, apparently famous beer hall where one could pull ones own pints at the table before hitting a genuinely fantastic jazz club. It was full of people, the dance floor was jiving, the band jamming and raging and we grooved the night away.

Friday 21 March, Good Friday

I was worried that buses and services in general would be interrupted today, but not as it would turn out. Jules got his 9am back to Riga to get the Ferry to Stockholm and I caught my 10am to Vilnius. The guides said the trip from Klaipeda was 5-7 hours. I must have lucked on the express because it took a total of 4 hours. Perfect time. I have actually enjoyed these bus trips. They have been perfectly pleasant, though I've probably been very lucky, and at least they give me a chance to see the countryside and what it's like. And the architecture may change a little, but the countryside of all three Baltic States is much the same - poor. It has progressively got richer looking as we've headed south, but it's clear that any money the country is making is in the city and that's where it's all being spent. Might be a long time before the money goes to improving the outer parts of the cities, and then longer still til people in the countryside feel the benefit. But I am also sure that's it's very pretty in the summer and it would be great to return here in a warmer season to take advantage of the coast and the supposedly very beautiful national parks and forests. I'm sure there are great inexpensive hiking holidays all over the place...

In Vilnius at 2 and found my hostel with little issue. First impressions of Vilnius not exactly favourble. Driving through town streets in worse condition than those in Riga or Tallinn seemed to be, and at 2pm on Good Friday afternoon, the city somehow managed to be one huge traffic jam. The hostel was small-ish but perfectly clean and with a very up to date bathroom for my dorm (heated floors and towel racks). 105Lith for three nights. (Lith to $, divide by 2).The hostel was just off one of the two squares that are at right angles to the town hall, almost in the centre of town. I walked the other way, looking for lunch. Cheap but tasty mushroom filled dumplings for lunch (12 Lith w beer) then an aimless walk along the streets heading to nowhere very special. I somehow hit on the only hostel with not a lot going on in it. At least this first night. I wasn't at all hungry for dinner, but at 8:30 I couldn't stand the quiet anymore and took myself out to dinner at a traditional Lithuanian restaurant round the corner. Proof that I wasn't hungry was that I only ate 1.5 of the two enormous zeppelins I was served. At least I had the experience, and eating them took me longer than many full meals.

Saturday 22 March - Vilnius

My proper day to see Vilnius. The city does in fact have the largest old town of all the Baltic States - approximately 1.5 km2. But it still doesn't take long to walk around. It is quite stunning and has clearly had immense amounts of money poured into it over the last 5/10 years, since joining the EU. The whole area is a UNESCO world heritage listed area and it's easy to see why. The inner city had remained largely untouched by first the Soviet and now corporate architecture that has invaded Riga and has the most amazing and stunning collection of churches I think I've ever seen. Almost all Baroque, some medieval and glorious. I must apologise in advance - you won't see any photos of them because photography was either banned or the common problem was that every time I walked into a church over the weekend, an Easter Service was on, and it just didn't seem appropriate....
You'll all have to go and see them yourselves.

The area I stayed in is the ex-ghetto section of town and there were various plaques and statues commemorating the people and the leaders in the Jewish community who fought hard to survive but were ultimately rounded up and deported. There are almost no Jews left in the Baltics, certainly in Lithuania and the Synagogue was long ago converted into a kindergarten. Near the 'Gates of Dawn' - the only remaining of 5 city gates, are a cluster of glorious churches all resplendent in the Baroque styles of their Religions and all of which have received a lot of loving care and attention since their post-soviet re-sanctification. Catholic St Teresas, in dull pink yet very ornate, the Russian Orthodox Holy Spirit Church which resides in the decaying remains of a Holy Spirit Bastilian Monastery, and the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity. Through town hall square where the 24-hour chain casinos one sees all over the Baltic are being replaced by high-end designer boutiques.

As a student, I paid my 2Lit to get into Vilnius University, to see their 13 courtyards and the 14thC St John's Church. I thought I would be able to get a tour of the university itself and the library, but the woman on the desk was the only person working that day and couldn't leave...awww.

Walked up to the Cathedral, which is apparently magical and fairytale like and I found thoroughly unimpressive. A large white structure that replaced the many older, wooden ones in the late 18thC, it was to me stark and the decoration of paintings, most of them either suspiciously new or horrifyingly amateur in gold frames was blah. The side chapels were relief into interesting, or perhaps I was being overly critical after my Baroque-fest of the day. I don't know. But I decided I only liked it as a warm place to read my map. A lot of rambling through the city took up the rest of the day.

Sunday 23 March, Easter Sunday

I chose the wrong day to see one of Vilnius' most glorious churches. Built in the 16thC, St Anne's remains quite intact as a magnificent gothic church. It is apparently so fine that Napoleon wanted to take it back to Paris with him. I say apparently. The church was stuffed and a whole lot of devotion going on. But from were I stood at the back, it was glorious. Today I also went into a foreign country. What used to be the Jewish quarter of town, formed by a loop in the river, has declared itself an independent republic. A declaration ignored by everyone except the few hippies one suspects came up with the idea in the first place. The only indication of a separate state is the constitution plaques stuck resolutely to a wall for all to enjoy in 3 languages. One can't help but like a constitution with such marvelous declarations as 'Everyone has the right to be idle' and 'Everyone has the right to celebrate or not celebrate their birthday' and or course 'No cat has an obligation to love or care for its master except in times of nee (sic)'. One can respect a place like that.

I inspected the old and new castles of Vilnius, neither of which there is much left of except the view and took the long, painful route through the woods to the three crosses. A site where 3 monks were crucified and crosses erected in their honour. These were of course bulldozed by the soviets and the Lithuanians put in bigger, better ones when they left. But left the stumps of the original wooden crosses as a reminder of the fight against oppression.

This was supposed to be a quiet day for me to catch up on things, like washing, so I was back at the hostel around 2. I packed, I washed, I lazed, then I went out for a beer with a fellow Aussie, Liz, who's been teaching English in various corners of the world for 4 years now. When we got back to the hostel at 7, a crowd had formed in the kitchen and instead of going out, I sat around with the 12 or so other young people and participated in an animated discussion about life, the universe and everything in 4 languages. Assisted by the quite good quality local beer.

Monday 24 March, Easter Monday

My train out of Vilnius left at 11:40. One a side note, if you are ever planning on coming to Vilnius plan how you're going to get out first, it's ghastly. I headed out early for a last look around and to purchase my ticket. I could buy the connection to Prague as well, so I did that. At 313Lit, more expensive then I expected but it is 19 hours of travel and I am getting a sleeper. Exchanged some email address at the hostel but only made it to the train station with 10 mins to spare thanks to an overly long good-bye process. Man, I hate them!

The rest of the day is dull to read about. I caught a 3 hour train to somewhere, got a connecting train to take me to Warsaw. Discovered my 9 hour train journey was 10 hours thanks to time differences. And ate too many biscuits.

On the train from Vilnius to Warsaw I noted that the Lithuanians don't worry too much about signs. On railways stations, that sort of thing. If you're supposed to be getting off, you'll know it. Another thing I noted is that the Polish train system sucks and if one is ever traveling on it, one should avoid the need for connections at all costs. The journey that started out on time lost more and more time until by the time we reached Warsaw we were 50 mins late and I had only 35 mins to make my connection and no idea where it was. We gained some time, a kind guy pointed out my train to me and I ran up the stairs, along and down the escalator onto the next platform, to watch my connecting overnight train I had booked and paid for pull away as I reached the bottom of the escalator. I almost cried.

Fortunately, the information desk was open. Unfortunately no one spoke English or German. Fortunately, as one woman was arranging things for me in sign language, a couple of girls started to talk to me. They were is the same boat - had been on my train and missed their connection for Vienna. In fact, it seemed there were a lot of us milling around. But we were almost the only ones doing anything about it. Given the choice of a 12:30am 13hr train or a 9 am 9hr train, I decided to go with what I considered to be the lesser evil - trying to find a hotel. Warsaw train station clearly has people coming and going at strange times, but it didn't seem savoury to me to sit around there for 3 hours before going on a trip from hell. So we all stuck together and the other girls opted for their 6am connection. Miffed as to what to do about the hotel, though I was happy to go to the Marriott over the road and take whatever, the woman at the information desk, who was extremely kind and helpful, told us to wait a minute. When she came out again she told us that a woman was coming at 10:30 who ran a hotel nearby and could offer us accommodation. O-K. So we waited, appropriately apprehensively. At 10:30 there appeared one of the most bizarrely dressed women I have ever seen. Our hotelier. She led us out, and through one of the girls, who was Russian, explained that her place was 10 mins away by bus and she was taking us there. Yes, my suspicions that this was a friend of the Information desk woman who has keen to make a few extra euro on the side was confirmed. We went because she didn't look scary, there were three of us all in the same boat and we were all desperately tired. She was of course absolutely lovely, her apartment miniscule and utterly filled with nic-naks and traditional Polish bric a brac and having made up a bed and a sofa for us and flustering around, left us to the best sleep I'd had in days with promises of walking us to the bus station in the morning.

Tuesday 25 March

An unexciting day. I got up at 4:30 to go in with the other girls and search for coffee and internet. My train was 15 minutes late even though it hadn't come from anywhere, but it was newish and clean and I got a seat by myself. On to Prague....

After getting to Frankfurt airport in plenty of time, I foolishly forgot Kai's warnings about inter-Europe security and blithely waited until 40 mins before I was due at my gate before moving off through customs. Needless to say, after the first line and x-ray, the inspection of my bags to locate the deadly camera I had forgotten to take out (?), passport control and a second x-ray check in which I had to take off my boots because the buckles beeped and a proper frisking, I was panicking! But fortunately, I was not the only idiot and by the time the double bus load of us made it to the plane, we were ready to take off.

In London I stayed with Amy Smith, a girl I knew at school but then I took her job at icemedia when she left for London 2 years ago. She lives in a tiny apartment in Hammersmith that houses 3 people and at the time I was there, had a further 3 couch and floor residents. Friends who were looking for a place to live in the very tough London housing market.

I spent my time in London doing the very touristy things. I could have gone further a field but given my short time in the city, it wasn't really necessary. I did enjoy it very much though. What I found odd was that nothing was at all new or surprising. I had seen all the 'sights' so many times in photos and the scores of movies and television shows that it was just, 'ok, seen that in real life now, move on'.

Monday 10 March

My first day was very touristy. I took the easy route and took the tube to Westminster to see the houses of Parliament, though not the Abbey as it was closed for a special occasion. Buckingham House, where I also got a glimpse of the horse guards. A wander through St James and similar swish districts. I was in that area around 11 and I hadn't had any breakfast yet so ducked into the first place I saw with the sign Patisserie. My offers to pay for my food before eating it were greeted with looks of disgust, which I felt were typical Brit but weren't justified in people who serve an almond croissant with a knife and fork. I mean! Talk about pretensions of civilisation. One might need a knife and fork for a savory croissant, but even then I'd debate it. Pfft. That's Colonists for you.

My afternoon walking schedule was interrupted when the drizzle turned to horizontal downpour and I took shelter firstly in the V and A, where I really enjoyed the fashion and Islamic Art collections, then in the Natural History Museum and finally in Harrods. I only skimmed them all I admit, but I saw the bits I was most interested and I can always come back. Though if I'm honest, the near highlight of the day was one of the entrances of Harrods, where there was a pond and fish projection on the floor, and this projection reacted to the people walking across it, causing ripples and the fish to swim away from the disturbance. Nifty. In the evening I went to see a house with Amy, which wasn't an exciting excursion in itself but did lead us past the Tower at night and that was delightful.

Tuesday 11 March

I went back to see Westminster Abbey and was once again stalked by vast numbers of French school student groups. Are they a permanent fixture or did I just time my visit badly? The Abbey, while impressive, seemed to me to be not so much a high church as a tomb. A very famous tomb. I wandered around the area again, heading more towards Nelson's Column with a vague thought of going to Covent Garden and Piccadilly. But I wandered into a pub for a cheap lunch and there met some aussies I spent the rest of the afternoon with. We did see Piccadilly Circus so I got some sightseeing in, but it was just great to meet some fresh people.

Tuesday night I met up with Shay, a guy I met on the flight from Frankfurt. Went to a more swish end of town and had a nice night out in the interesting and nifty bars of London town.

Wednesday 12 March

Today I visited Covent Garden, did more wandering and the British Museum. Now, I must say that the British Museum just pissed me off, as I'm sure it has many people. Of course it's great to have all these glorious treasures together and in large collections so one can get a real sense of the eras/ages/places they are from. And I am sure that many of them would have been destroyed or not cared for it left in their original country. But at the same time, who do the gods-damn British think they are, going in and stealing the national treasures of so many nations? And thinking it's ok and not even their privilege but their right to do so. Pretentious ********.

Thursday 13 March

Leaving today out of Stansted airport, I left 4 hours to get there. Glad I did. What with tube delays and someone throwing themselves under a train on the Stansted line, I only arrived in perfect time.

My flight to Stockholm was with Ryanair. They were perfectly ok, though I heard some scary stories from other passengers about scary landings. My only reason for disliking them is that they have a one-bag cabin luggage rule. Now, all airlines have this rule but make the exception of women handbags. It's an unwritten universal exception to that rule that handbags don't count. They do on Ryanair. As a result, I had to sit on the floor at Stansted airport - there were no chairs - and shove my two bags into one, including putting my handbag inside my back pack. At least I wasn't alone. Almost every woman flying had to do the same. So be warned, potential Ryanair flyers, they are nasty!

By some total freak of chance, perhaps aided by beer and extreme tiredness, I slept soundly through 10 of the 13 hours of my flight to Frankfurt and dozed for another 1. Brilliant. My plan worked.

Caught the bahns to Neiderursel, and as I emerged out of the S-bahn tunnels into the light, it started snowing. And it continued for the next 2 hurs. Until now it had only snowed 4 times all winter in Frnakfurt. This actually set th tone for at least the first month of my travels (yes, I admit that I am writing this late) in that it snowed EVERYWHERE I went. Not fun snow, just annoying snow. Kai met me at the station and took me back to their warm, Germanic apartment for some delicious, Germanic breakfast. So great to see them again and and so great to be back in Germany again. *sigh*

My time in Frankfurt was taken up by seeing the sights with Julie, shopping for boots, and having lazy afternoons. I was treated to dinner at the famous Die Lahen Esel and it was everything I expected, including the Apfulwein. Also had a fun night out at a Tapas restaurant with Kai and Julie's friend Gavin.

Of course a highlight was going to Marburg for lunch with the Buckels. I took the train up Saturday morning and was met by Wolfi at the train station. After a quick trip into the Marburg Altstadt to pick up some cheese and Burgi's bicycle, it was lunch at the Buckels with Celine. Burgi had prepared a salad (it was a swanky salad but I can't remember the name) of a cabbage-related bulb followed by aged venison stew with nudlen and blaukraut. Fantastic, of course.

After lunch I made a trip into the Altstadt with Burgi and Wolfi, where we continued my as-yet unsucessful boot search. Fortunately, it seems that the superior shopping is in Marburg because the second shop we went into I found the ideal pair. But of course, the real highlight was to see the Buckels again and to be in Marburg, which has of course changed but is still oh-so familiar and heart warming to visit. As it was a Saturday, the Altstadt was full of people and the weather had the decency to be good for me and it was sunny all day long.

My few days in Frankfurt were a great, quiet start to the holiday.

A three pm flight has none of the early morning panic and fumbling I remember so fondly from all my childhood holidays. It just doesn't feel as exciting or adventurous leaving in the mid afternoon. There was time for coffee, Chevre and the realisation that I had way too much luggage and I as I feared, I would look like an idiot struggling around the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof with my 4 bags. I wish I had someone to blame...

In typical Willadsen style, despite planning to get to the airport no earlier than 12:30, we arrived at 12 o'clock sharp. Check in took less then 3 minutes, the kind woman at the desk said nothing about my luggage and we sat down to await the arrival of the Gallaghers a short while later. Terrible coffee and last chats with Mum and Dad and Grandma.

Arriving in Singapore, the immigration lines were almost non existent, as was customs if one had nothing to declare. One literally picked up one's bags and walked out the door. So much for the message on the back of my entry declaration that informed me 'The penalty for drug trafficking is DEATH'.

I was supposed to be met by a representative from the luxury coach travel company to take me to my hotel. 45 minutes and much searching and calling later, I got a cab. The driver showed an impressive disregard for such things as lanes and speed limits, slowing down only when talking on his mobile. Didn't mind that so much as the R'n'B special weekend playing on the radio.

First impressions of Singapore were that it was much smaller than I was expecting. I had a mental picture of something similar to Hong Kong, but certainly at night it had none of the battalions of massive office blocks and skyscrapers that Hong Kong has, and an infinitely infierior display of night lights. The Inn at Temple Street was fairly un-prepossessing, the room being large enough for my single bed, a large wardrobe or no use to man of beast and nothing else. Oh, and a shower tied together with string. Original plans to wander through the markets of Chinatown at night were scuppered by the realisation that they are almost non-existent on a Sunday night, as are the people. Went to bed.

A gods-awful nights sleep, thanks to the fact that there was a light behind the wardrobe that I could not turn off and this light was strong enough for me to read my watch by. *sigh*. Downstairs at 7, breakfast doesn't start til 8:30. Back upstairs to watch Korean news. At 8:30 the desk clerk gave me a voucher and directed me across the road, where the scary lady owner asked if I wanted tea or coffee, gave me a Look when I said I didn't want the coffee with sugar and directed me to sit. The excitement - what would I get? Would I recognise it? Would I be looking for a bakery in 10mins? I got 2 slices of buttered white toast. A poor outlook for what they think of westerners, but perhaps not unfair. The coffee was surprisingly drinkable and the BBQ pork buns I got at the bakery around the corner 10 mins later were excellent.

I pretty much walked around Singapore for the next 8 hours and came to the conclusion that while there must be some very pretty parts to the rest of the island and I bet Chinatown is a very fun place to be on Friday nights, it was a pretty ordinary sort of a place on a Monday. It took very little time to get anywhere, there were surprisingly few people around for a city of 4.5 million people - I seriously barely ever saw more then 12 people at a time - and not that much for the el-cheapo traveler to do. This included places to sit. After 11, when I started to get tired, I was constantly on the look out for places to sit that didn't involve monetary outlay. There aren't many. Perhaps part of the city's no-litter policy. If you can't afford to sit somewhere, we don't want you messing up our streets. And every time I did sit on a park bench, someone would start talking to me. Perfectly nice people, except for the 1.5 men who propositioned me, but I just wanted to be left alone! Fortunately, sitting in the famous and gloriously colonial Raffles hotel is free, as is sitting in a church. Orchard Rd really is just full of shops and while that may float some people's boat, it isn't mine. The only thing I was vaguely tempted to buy was a Pith helmet. But if I'd done that I would have had to go back into Raffles and sit in the courtyard bar and start guffing on "What ho, fancy seeing you here old chap, snifter before the off, eh?" Figured I needed to save something for the next time.

Got to the airport early and whiled away the time with free foot and calf massages on the supplied machines and a pint of Tiger beer (I felt there was an obligation).