November 2, 2006 by zankbennett.

Bus-bus-ferry-bus-hike. Finally arrived easily at my private residence. Here’s the excerpted email. I love this!

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Dear Zank,
Thank You for the message and I hereby confirm your reservation in a fisherman’s house in  NIDA:
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My picnic table…
 
The place is sweet. It’s a 5 (house with shared kitchen and I’m the only one. Just steps to the gulf of the Coronian Spit.
Was still so weak that I crashed in bed. Woke this morning to? SNOW!! It covered everything…I thought! I was like Calvin, racing to get my coat and gloves and get into it. The thing to do is to hike out onto the famous dunes that dorm the spit and separate the gulf from the Baltic Sea. I thought there might be some icy surf today.

Hiked all around. The views were nice, not exceptional…but the snow was magical! From the top, of the famous dune, I could see the Baltic surf blowing in and roaring to the shore. About 30 mins later, I was on the sand watching the big wind-generated rollers come in. The water was surprisingly warm; I’d say about 50 F.

Town of Nida in background and down, below the dune I´m standing on.

Patches of sun traded with a few cloudy moments and no snow until the walk home when it turned dark…then predictably WHITE! It’s nearly 11 pm and it’s been snowing since 3 pm. It’s the perfect weight snow and not too windy, so absolutely surface has at least 3 in of fresh powder. It looks as magical as I’ve ever seen. It’s always rare to have all the trees covered and fence tops and any other, however thin, surface covered.

Throwing snow…

Having a drink at the only open pub/restaurant open in the winter. Speaking German, bec it’s better than English for most people here. Lol!

I leave by bus in the morning for Vilnius, the capital. Monday to Poland.

…woke up this morning (Friday) to the same snow-covered landscape I wandered home through last night. It’s as beautiful a non-mountainous winter setting as I’ve ever seen, even after 18 winters in northeast America.

The house was another thing…the heater decided to RESET itself…woke to the strange feeling of ice forming on the top of my head. I kept dreaming about finding and putting on my hat. It was 57.2 F inside. Ha! I was frozen there before the heater shut off.
Bus driver is giving me an ulcer, pulling fishtails in the face of massive oncoming snow plows, blasting glam-rock through this oversized death-toaster. He’s not a day under 65.
Traveling

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November 2, 2006 by zankbennett.

Flew from Copenhagen to Riga, Latvia. Nothing to it, except losing the hour in flight. The new-looking airport was quite nice. Took a bus to the city center and walked quite a ways to the hostel. So far, so good.
Hostel is the best I’ve stayed in. Young, interactive staff. It’s like they’re there to lounge and hang with the guests as much as check is in and take care of the day-to-days.
Watched a movie in the lounge and went to sleep. Room with 3 others. No problem.
Next day, woke up and went to John Lemon -ha!- for an omelet breakfast and for the foot-your of the town. A magazine printed a great guide, so I ripped it out and…
Stopped along the way for a pastry and a look at some of the local vendors. Thee are four old zeppelin hangars that now house GIANT swap-meet style shopping. Exch has a particular category: one houses arts and crafts, one vegetables, one meat and one fish. I’m not sure which smelled worse!
No one spoke English. Ok, my universal sign-language has gotten quite good.
Towards the end of the tour, stopped for some bread soup. Yep, not a misprint. It was cold, and delicious. Was served with some elixer made of got currant juice and some herbal extract thing. This is the standard Latvian warm-you-up drink and did just that. Man, it was like instant stomach warmth. …on with the your before dark.
Started to feel a little weird. Nothing big.

That night went out with all the other hostelers to the Jack Daniels bar…had orato spaghetti and a Jack/coke.

Feeling weird now.
By midnight, I was really getting it and, long story short, wound up getting vicious food-poisoning. No idea from what. No sleep before 6:30 am. Then only a couple hours. Pain was so complete that I couldn’t walk the entire next day. Canceled plans to do outer-city exploring. The people at the hostel could not have been nicer. Watched movies and the like for the whole next day. Perfect.
Note on this place: it’s really close to a bobsled track. Open to the public! Pulls five G’s apparently. No way, esp after being so sick. Also, there are caves and castles worth exploring. And, you can go shoot Soviet AK-47’s if that’s your thing. Classic. Welcome to E Euro!

Strong enough to barely tote the pack, finally left a day later. Still no food yet.
Made the bus to Nida, Lithuania.

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