Nida, Lithuania

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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