it seems to be a recurring theme, "infrastructure" does. first things first...
so: Uzopis is the Montmarte of Vilnius. Uzopis is the artistic area of the city. that and the river IS flooding. but that's old news. that's yesterday's news that i forgot to post.
again, today, i was affected by infrastructure - despite both Latvia and Lithuania's lack of toilets (as in toilets - there are holes, just nothing to sit on), these two countries are running at warp speed to catch up with the past they should have had and the future they will have.
they're redoing a lot of the bigger roads in between cities now. that means that time gets added to bus trips. like the one today, from Vilnius to Riga. we had two hours added onto a four hour trip today, do to weaving and waiting in construction.
and, along the way, we stopped at a rest area for about 20 minutes. it was not the average rest area. i mean, it was a restaurant. but... it was also a zoo. and there were ducks... and there were chickens... and... and there were miniature horses... and there were antelopes of some kind... and there were two bears. and one of them looked at me.
seriously though, it was one of the stranger and more unexpected things i've seen this trip.
i'm establishing a rhythm in my travels, too. the day i arrive, which so far has been in the middle to late afternoon, i usually walk around the parts of the city with substantial history. the next day, i focus on something specific. (for example, tomorrow i'm thinking i'll continue my occupation tour with a visit to the Latvian Occupation Museum, which is just next door to my hostel.)
today was no exception. i walked. and walked. and then i walked some more. i did a self-guided tour (with the assistance of "Riga in Your Pocket"). i then went and visited the most extravagant Soviet-era memorial i've yet seen. it's a giant monument in honor of the "liberation" of Latvia - but it was built in order to celebrate the establishment of a communist (hence soviet) government... hmmm... according to the "In Your Pocket" guide, some locals tried to "liberate" the city of it by blowing it up with dynamite. they were arrested before they could pull it off.
then i came back and explored my options for hosteling in scandanavia on the internet. i'm thinking now that if it's possible, i might just catch a night train from Stockholm to Oslo and not spend any time in Sweden, relatively speaking. maybe the day time hours.
Posted by iain at August 17, 2005 09:52 PM