Sliding into Greece tomorrow

Thursday, 30 July

I know we were travelling through Europe in summer but this is silly. The last week has had the days in the high 30's and low 40's. I can't recall the last time I've worn flannel.

The new fridge works well on gas when you don't try to place it on the coldest setting. The heat created by the gas, heats the back of the fridge and counteracts any cooling benefit. I'm on the lookout for heat resistant tape to stop the fridge's 'exhaust pipe' from emitting heat through the length of pipe.

In the morning we visited Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. It was a nice place with a mixture of ancient, Communist and modern. We visited The Church of St George built in the 4th Century (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._George,_Sofia). It's not large but it was a fantastic experience. A Greek Orthodox service was finishing when we arrived. It was interesting to see the service and the differences.

We also looked at a hand made craft shop but the buggers were closed. We did have a fantastic morning tea in a estrogen filled tea room.

As a surprise gift to Gene, we found a Captain America Minion. It took us a while but we finally found out that he sings a song in Romanian about a laughing frog.
:)

We are now at the Bulgarian/Greece border and enjoying the air conditioning and BBC news in English.

Hopefully, we'll be camping within sight of Mount Olympus tomorrow.

Fridges, heat and dodgy addresses.

27 July, Monday

As I sit here on the outside steps of the Class Hotel in Bucharest watching a Romanian father and son put a new fridge into Springy, I can think about what we’ve done over the last 2 days.

After leaving the Camping Fagety we headed toward the city of Sighosoara which has a nice hilltop medieval town which, luckily enough, was holding a medieval weekend. It was lunch time when we arrived, so we headed for a local restaurant, not knowing it was the town’s upper class hangout. We gazed over the hotel’s pool and watched the visitors sunbake and occasionally use the actual pool. We still can’t get use to people just lying in the sun (us being pale blue skinned).

We were hoping to visit 'the most haunted forest in the world' but it wasn't on the roads were travelling and nothing gave an actual location.

:(

It was still a warm day and I put it to the girls that we rest in Springy for a bit and then go to the hilltop town or I just go when they rest. Since it involves walking up a hill and looking at old stuff, both of the girls opted for the staying in Springy option.

I ambled up to see what I could see. The town itself is very nice but was infiltrated by people selling anything related to Dracula, fairies, Medevalish items and just stuff. I did spy a parade of people dressed up funny and decided to assess what Romanian re-enactors were like. Lots of modern boots, polyester, heavy swords and such. Hopefully without sounding too much a snob, it wasn’t high-end re-enacting but I didn’t mind as I’ve seen it before and understand. They were dragging around a ginormous steel sword on their shoulders and I couldn’t figure out why. I tried to see what they were doing but the crowds were too big, so I continued my wander along the cobble stone streets. That was hindered by a great metal fence put up by the council that blocked the main street of the town. I finally realised it was put there to channel the visitors around the back ways to see all the things. It’s a pity that I couldn’t speak Romanian or find someone who could speak Australian.

After visiting the towns museum and gazing from the top of the town’s tower, I bumped into people I recognised as re-enactors due to period footwear, tablet woven belts, etc. I had a great conversation with them, saw their encampment and they informed me that the other re-enactors were trying for the Guiness book of Records, largest sword put into a stone (like Excalibur) or something like that. When I was leaving, they were still puffing and panting and trying to do what they had set out to do.

The girls hadn’t died from heat exhaustion so we headed for our night time destination which was about 50km down the road. When we arrived, Dee let me know that they had discussed the matter while I was gone and would like to go to Hotel Dracula, a hotel somewhere down the road. I was feeling OK , so we continued down the road

Tuesday, 28 July

As we’ve spent over an hour in Springy at the border crossing from Romania to Bulgaria in 40 degree heat, I thought I’d take some time and update from where I left off at 2am in the morning.

We drove to Hotel Dracula and arrived just after 7pm. We were able to make an internet booking at a restaurant along the way but even though I booked for 2 adults and a child, I accidentally booked for one double room. We quickly sorted it and had to pay the difference for Gene but in cash. I figured the desk guy was pocking the extra cash.  The room was very nice but the air con didn’t go below 20 degrees, so we had to lump it and not use a doona.

I thought the hotel was done very well, with very few tacky decorations and lots of cool spiked clubs, helmets, spears, bows, glaives and flails screwed to the walls.

In the morning, I checked FB and saw that one of our close friend’s daughters had died tragically. It was a terrible shock for Dee and me and left Dee in tears several times during the day.

It’s now Wednesday, and I’m trying to finish the blog for the last few days.

We left Hotel Dracula and looked at Bran Castle. And that’s all we did. After visiting the local museum, we trooped to the castle to find it opens at 12 o’clock (what sort of tourist destination does that?!??!?!). As it was only 11.30, we decided to have an early lunch and then go in. An excellent plan that didn’t take in the fact that a 300m line of other tourists had the same idea and that was 20 minutes after it opened. After a quick evaluation of the situation, we decided, ‘Bugger this’ and went to Rasnov Fortress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A2%C8%99nov_Citadel) which was very impressive.

We drove to Busharest and found the camping site (shock horror). Unfortunately, the owner was the Romanian equivalent to Basil Faulty. After listening him rant on the phone for a few minutes before serving me, then asking me for 2 forms of ID which was strange but then realizing his error, requested ID for 2 people. After we fulfilled that requirement and completing the normal paperwork, he lets me know that he only accepts cash (bugger and a bit unusual for such a large park). I’m short by 16 Romanian Lei as he draws me a very detailed map on how to get to the main road to find an ATM but not where on the road to find it (I foolishly thought it would be easy to see). I also asked if he knew, being the owner of a caravan park where I can take the van to have the fridge seen to. He demands that I show him what is wrong, even after I say the word, ‘fridge’ 3 -4 times. When he finally sees the fridge, he says he doesn’t know anything about those things. Not a problem, you can’t expect a caravan park owner to know about campervans.

As we drove down the road where the ATMs are, we realised that this was a highway and you had off-ramps and he didn’t mention which ones. We also realised he was an arse. Since we were now deep into the city and as we had some cash, we looked in the GPS for a hotel. Locked on, we adjusted our course and we were going well, even negotiating the Romanian city traffic well.

We hit the backroads that the GPS enjoys taking us but we paused at a 4 way intersection. To the left was the direction we were supposed to take, and the right and forwards was one way roads. A local confirmed the hotel was good but we shouldn’t go that way. Going forward was better but illegal. After the amount of disregard the local drivers have of the road rules, I wasn’t much perturbed at that point.

100m down the road, things went a bit pear-shaped. 3 parked cars (that were all facing the same way as we were going, so we weren’t the first doing this) narrowed the road but that wasn’t too bad. It was the collapsing wooden fence on the left that gave us trouble. We could push the fence back a bit and Gene used one of my self defence sticks to keep it away as I drove springy through.

We made it past the first 2 cars but the 3^rd was a bugger as its nose was right on the bottleneck. As we were carefully sorting this out, a car came down the correct way. Bugger. The passenger got out and helped us negotiate our way out without ripping anything off Springy or the 3^rd car.

We found the hotel and checked in just after 7pm. A long day, so we quickly dropped our gear off in the room and went to dinner. I mentioned to the Bianca, the desk attendant for the night, about our fridge problems and if she could perhaps look up the Romanian version of the Yellow Pages. She was amazing and organized the only campervan fixer upper in the city. I was hoping to visit him the following day but as it was a side job, he said he would come over that night. At 2am in the morning, we finally had the old fridge removed and the new one connected. The gas works well but we are still having problems with the electrical which makes me think it’s more to do with Springy than the fridge.

We fluffed around in the morning and didn’t leave the hotel until 11am, enjoying the last minute luxuries of flushing toilets, wifi and air con. We hit the road, heading for the Romanian/Bulgarian border, trying to divest ourselves of all remaining Romanian currency before crossing.

After paying the Romanian Vingette at the border that we had no knowledge of, we then waited for 1 hour 40 minutes to get past border control. Prior to the actual official bit of showing passports and registration papers (that happened easily), we had to wait in 40 degree heat for road works across the only bridge on the border in the area. The bonus for sitting around for ages was to ask the workers with an angle grinder to do us a favour. 

A few weeks prior, I had fixed a loose bit but I had to screw long screws up into one of storage bins that holds our hose and fold up chairs. They have been sticking out for ages as I didn’t have That Tool to finish the job. With 6 easy cuts, the job was done (and they didn’t even cut the wiring nearby!).

Once into Bulagaria. It felt like a ‘Claytons’ Russia (the Russia you have when you can’t visit Russia). With the Cyrillic written language being used and the different roads, it felt unlike any other country so far. So we drove and drove and drove. The 200km/day drags out when it’s mainly 70km/hour.

We finally hit Pleven at about 7pm, drew some local cash and headed for the address for the night’s camping spot. The address was used 3 times in the local area and after the second time, we knew we would find it or stay at a hotel. At 9.15pm, a hotel it was.  I don’t know if the address was wrong on the website or I used the wrong address……….

We are now just resting at a real camping spot outside of Sofia watching our newly cleaned clothes dry and are deciding where to visit tomorrow as a tourist.

Roamin’ in Romania

25 July, Saturday

Who knew you had a new time zone in Romania? Well, my phone did but Gene’s didn’t. Either which way, the site owner’s Roosters started crowing at 6am.

After a late start, we headed to Cluj-Napoca to hopefully see ‘the most haunted forest in the world’. Unfortunately, there was no sign of it yet, so maybe tomorrow.

So far Romania has taken out ‘The Most Habitual Posted Speed Sign Ignorers’ AND ‘The Most Habitual Overtakers’ regardless of pedestrian crossings, oncoming vehicles, lack of space between vehicles or actual speed of the vehicle being over taken, the challenge was accepted.

With lightning fast reflexes, I was able to turn into a spare parking space when Dee noticed Authentic Romanian Handicrafts. We were able to buy 2 Authentic Romanian Handmade Chinese fans, a wooden Authentic Romanian Handmade Lyre harp napkin holder and an Authentic Romanian Handmade peasant top. We did look at buying an Authentic Romanian Handmade Pamela Anderson towel but we have better taste than that (and Dee and Gene said no).

We stopped at the town of Huedin for lunch. As we entered the town, many of the large buildings were constructed in a fantastic style not seen yet in our travels. It was a mix of Russian and Chinese. At the time of me writing this, I wasn’t able to Google it up to find the back story but I’m sure it’s interesting.

https://www.google.ro/search?q=Huedin&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMI7byY8sD6xgIVSG8UCh3XvwG8&biw=800&bih=511

As we lost a towel during our travels (probably blown off the back ladder when 'we' *cough* Gene *cough* forgot to bring it in), we bought a nifty new one with a medusa head pattern. Now we’ll be fighting over who will use it.

So far in Romania we have seen:
 3 people using scythes,

4 horse drawn carts (one we had to circle around to get a decent picture but less we talk about that requirement the better), and

2 people who are potential werewolves. No vampires have yet been seen during the daylight hours.

The hunt for ‘The most likely camping site to film a horror movie’ continues. As Romania seems to have dearth of camping sites, I suggested that we stay at a motel/hotel if we can’t find a camping ground. We found a hotel that didn’t look condemned or used in a siege shooting but a wedding was occurring there and no rooms were available. We we’re directed to travel 4km down the road and there would be other hotels and B&Bs, so we did. On the way I found a camping ground! Another wedding was happening at the site’s restaurant and, by the general look, it looked OK.

After paying our money, the manager led us down the path to the camping grounds. My thoughts as we were led down this garden path were:

The bride looks great! The restaurant looks well set up.

Lots of trees. Lots of shade.

Where the undead like to shamble.

A Communist style bunker with ‘Showers and Toilets’ stenciled on the walls.

The showers are ‘Open air’.

The Playground of Lost Souls.

I can’t tell if the abandoned concrete framework is of a demolished building or one that was stopped mid construction.

He wants us to park in the sun when it’s 30+ degrees.

The shady spot is near the communal area where a vagrant may have made residence.

The other shady bit looks better and has a better escape route.

Dee is going to f*#king hate this.

The silence was deafening when I turn off the engine. I suggested we could not stay here and keep on looking but was told it was a stupid idea. I set up the beds for Dee to have her afternoon kip and I went to look at the shower block and see if the restaurant could feed us tonight.

The block wasn’t too bad (It even had pinky-purple toilet paper) and most of the showers even had shower heads. It’s hot day, so we probably don’t need hot water anyway. The restaurant wasn’t able to cater for us tonight and the manager really didn’t care where we could eat but he did point vaguely to the left. The camping site manager indicated that there were places to eat to the right on 3 ‘somethings’ away. I think he’s talking about streets but he could be about km, minutes, houses, hours or alternate universes as far as I know. So dinner tonight will be fun if I can get past the cars parked for the wedding.

We figured the ‘vagarant is an old gentlemen with a gammy knee who has some motor bike issues and is a bit down on his luck. We did invite him in for dinner we decided to cook but he declined. Although we did give him a hot meal of what we were going to eat for dinner.

The Case of the Hungarian Highwayman.

24 July

The day started like any other day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and I was contemplating having a shower, shave and even brushing my teeth. I ambled to the shower block and had only just figured out the water pressure and temperature and hadn’t even lathered up when Dee called out that I should come out as we were bogged. I actually heard that incorrectly as we seemed to have been robbed during the night.

The security guards found my day pack and vest of a thousand pockets at the front of the locked camping site. I quickly checked and accounted for all of my gear, including my coin purse full of euro coins. I guess it goes to show that having many pockets in a vest foils a thief. I was relieved and a bit miffed that they didn’t think any of my stuff was cool enough to steal.

The guard also said they found a red bag and we realised it was Dee’s handbag. Dee’s purse and mobile were gone but everything else was there. The mobile isn’t of a huge concern as there wasn’t much credit on it and it’s a bugger to use for those people who can actually read English.

The purse is another concern but not critical. The 2 credit cards have to be cancelled and we’ve lost $70 Australian, 100 Euro and 50 Pounds and Dee’s driver’s licence. It’s a bugger but it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. The police officer has been here for the last 7 years and has never seen this happen before. Lucky us!

Dee and I had a look around the nearby streets to see if the purse had been ditched to avail.

Because of the heat last night, we had the driver and passenger side windows wound down about 7-10cm and I still had my little triangular window open. They seemed to have reached in through those narrow openings to grab the 3 items. We had the large side windows opened but they had the mossie screens down which stopped entry.

We found out another car at the site the previous day had been attempted to be opened and another visitor had his salary stolen last night. When the police arrived, we had the fun of translating what had happen. Luckily, the other family spoke a bit of English and we were able to communicate through them.

Dee has been doing wonderfully for the whole event. She is currently giving her statement at the Polgar police station as the school teacher arrived to be the official translator.

Anyway, it’s time to pack up and get ready for Dee to come back and onwards to Romania where you really have to take care of your stuff….

With Dee back with a Hungarian Police document, we tried to find some sort of internet connection in the town. After giving up on asking local as they didn’t speak English or any language we knew the word ‘library’ in, we gave up and asked the GPS who sent us to the local school.

I was able to find a teacher who could speak English and he gave me the password for the school’s internet. I was finally able to report one of Dee’s credit cards as stolen, let another bank know her linked card to my account was stolen, and leave a vague FB message.

As we left the town of Polgar, one of the ladies we were attempting to communicate with to find a library came out to us and gave us a book about the town of Polgar. In Hungarian. Obviously, our miming of ‘We are looking for the library to use the internet’ needs some working on.

Having enough of Hungarian hospitality, we made our way to Romania. The crossing was a bit longer than normal as we weren’t locals. The police officer had a great sense of humour and made the official bit fun.

We found the only camping site in Oradea and enjoyed their pool as today was about 35 degrees. Now with a traditional meal of salty food, it’s time to relax.

Summer is Coming

22 July

After Auschwitz, we headed for the Slovak Republic. Summer has taken a grip of us with a 31 degree day forecast. The fridge has been having a hard go at it trying to keep things cold, so any frozen food and perishables are being eaten ASAP. We have our fingers crossed that it’s just the heat and not another visit to a fridge specialist.

The next few days will require an extra 20km travel per day to keep on track to be in Transylvania. That wouldn’t be a problem if it was clear highways but so much of it is through towns and roadworks you’re generally travelling 50-90km/hour. It’s great to see the countryside and the towns but the male part of me just wants to get to our end place for the day. The first 70km of the day took over 2 hours………..

We finally entered the mountain range that separates Poland from the Slovak Republic in the afternoon and enjoyed the view of the massive mountains.

Once we crossed the border we noticed the change in home immediately. In Poland, most of the country homes were basic  and sturdy but not what you would call attractive. The Slovak houses were similar but were brightly painted and the place felt much happier. Who knew how much colour could effect a house so ( unless you watch those home makeover shows).

With the heat, all we can do for the passenger at the back is wind down the windows, turn the air vents fully on and drive fast where possible to get airflow to the back.

We finally stayed at a Thermal Springs park in Bvrol (SP?). As we drove up, we had great expectations it would be as good as the one we passed 16km before. Unfortunately, the actually camping site was run down with one other family camping there with us. The shower and toilet block looked like something out of a B grade horror movie and up the rise were accommodation blocks that seemed to be recycled shipping containers.

We sent Gene off to have a shower and I sorted out the accommodation paperwork. Once a freaked out Gene returned, Dee went for her shower only to return shortly after in her towel as there was no water in the showers. As Gene is a teenager, she was closely questioned on whether she actually had a shower in the first place as we all know how much they hate having showers and then loathing to  leave them.

I checked the men’s showers and they didn’t have any water, so I harangued the staff there and they finally fixed the problem. They didn’t tell us of course when it was fixed and I only found out when I went to the reception with a Google translation of the questions, ‘Has the water been fixed?’ and ‘when?’ as a follow up question.

With the water flowing again, I had my shower and hand washed my dirty clothes. The night was then spent trying to keep an internet connection long enough to finish my Auschwitz blog and plan out the next few days of travel.

Thursday, 23 July

To try and keep our travelling in the cooler part of the day, we left at 8am instead of the normal 9-9.30am. We stopped at a local shop a little later to by some basic food stuffs and realised that whilst I brought my clothes in from the line I strung up, Dee didn’t take in her towel, bra and knickers that were hanging of the back ladder of Springy. Luckily, they were still there when we parked to get the groceries.

The drive was hotter than Wednesday but we all survived somehow. Springy did wonderfully in the heat but the fridge hasn’t shown any signs of improvement.

We crossed into Hungary and enjoyed watching the wheat being taken in. We have been noticing the wheat changing from the green at Waterloo and getting paler and dryer. As a city lad, I don’t normally get to see that occur.

We found the campsite, set up and had a siesta. The heat was hard on all of us, with very little options to get away from it all. Of course, it finally started to rain just after Dee put out her laundry.

Gene has now started reading the first book of the ‘Game of Thrones’

Tomorrow we hope to visit a few towns on our way to Romania, if the heat doesn’t put us off. It should be cooler though, only in the mid-20s.

Auschwitz

I can only assume my knowledge on the concentration camps during WWII is average. I knew the tally was in the millions and the Jewish population was targeted. I knew that IBM devised machines to help track the work and I've seen 'Schindler's List'.

To start we had a 3 hour drive to the site. We stopped halfway for morning tea in a converted aircraft that served awful food but luckily in minuscule portions. I'm sure the garden surrounding the plane was done by someone under the influence of a narcotic.

After lining up for tickets and sorting ourselves out, we started and English speaking tour. The guide had a microphone and we had headphones which stopped any disruption from the other guides' talks. It was a hot day so we brought bottles of water but the clouds were rolling in, so I packed my umbrella as well.

What I didn't know was there were several concentration camps in Auschwitz. The first one used an abandoned Polish Army barracks but they soon realised it didn't have the capacity to hold all the prisoners or to kill enough of them with the gas chambers. Auschwitz II -Birkenau was then made nearby, 20 times larger than the original and could hold at least 60,000 people and kill 7,000 a day. The accommodation blocks were first made by the rubble of the village they cleared to make the camp. They then changed to wooden buildings as it was much quicker to build. The third camp was near the factories to improve efficiency as the prisoners who worked there had a 4 hour return journey back to the original camp.

It seems so clinically efficient. The prisoners leave their belongings at the station that will be collected later and are sent to the showers to be cleaned. After they undress, they are moved into the shower where they are killed by gas. The ovens are right next door and are burnt after the ladies' hair is cut off and the gold teeth are removed.

There are massive warehouses full of belongings. Part of the tour showed us the items they found when the allies finally arrived. Piles of glasses, brushes, pots and pans. One display was the 1,950 kg of the 7 ton found of human hair that was taken from women to make textiles, padding and stiffening for clothes. Out of respect, it was requested that no photos be taken

Babies clothes were on display. Babies. They killed babies. That was probably the hardest part for Dee as a child care worker.

As a person who makes footwear, the 40,000 pairs of shoes that filled 2 display cases probably hit me the hardest. From kids shoes, to work boots to fancy ladies' footwear.

How the chosen 20% lived for the expected 3 months they were there until they died of starvation, their punishments and their daily routine was almost numbing.

Visiting the gas chamber and ovens was almost surreal.

After a 15 minute break, we completed the 2nd part of the tour to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. The temperature was rising, we had hats, drinking water and even using the umbrella but it was hot. So much of the camp was destroyed by the Nazis but the chimney stacks of the wooden huts still stand.

We saw reconstructed wooden huts for living and sanitation. We stood on the ground between the two train tracks where the sorting occurred. We walked down the path to the gas chambers where so many people walked down once.

Before that day, I've seen the results of when people stop thinking of others are people. After the tour, my personal thoughts on humanity and the lack of it were reinforced. When people say, 'They aren't like us' I can see what those words may eventually lead to.

They estimate that 1.3 million men women and children died over the 4 years of Auschwitz. That's like killing the population of Canberra every year for 4 years. I can't imagine it but it happened. I'll do my hardest to not let it happen again and stopping it where it does today.

Poland

I think the Polish have something against people from other countries camping in their country. So far, it has been the hardest country to find a spot to stay (Especially the Germans and Russians).

One conversation I had showed the hatred felt. As was pointed out, after the Germans left Poland and the Russians moved in, hardly anything is recorded about the issues the Russians created while they were there for 50 years.

After visiting the construction works of all roads entering or leaving Warsaw, we headed to Auschwitz but we didn't expect to reach there until the following day. We had a campsite in the GPS but when we arrived it was an unused carpark with potentially some sort of resort that was locked behind stout gates. Luckily, there was a Dutch father with his 2 sons in exactly the same predicament. He found another site a few km away and we followed him until he lost his way and our GPS took us to one 400m down the road. The site was very basic but absolutely beautiful on the edge of a lake.

We had a great talk into the night about many things. I think he had a very valid point when we discussed the very stand-off nature of the Polish (and many other Russian controlled countries). If you showed emotion when discussing basically anything, you could be informed upon and not seen again. Having such a nature ingrained into a society will take decades to be removed. Something to ponder about.

The latest legs of our journey have been fairly long in time but not really in distance. This partly due to the slower, less developed roads but also because they are trying to improve them which slows everyone due to construction. A planned 2 hour drive in another country make take 4-6 hours here.

I don't mind the driving but I can understand the boredom of the passengers.

The next blog will be about Auschwitz.

We came, Warsaw , We bought shoes

 Hey guys, Genevieve here.

So recently I came up with the amazing up with the idea of, hey, what if our trip around Europe was a videogame? (This surprised me because I never play videogames, I’m blaming Markiplayer) Maybe like an ‘.exe’ kind of game? I honestly don’t know yet. But I’m getting into the habit of saying things like “Fly uses Annoying Buzzing attack! Alex takes 10 damaged!” or “Genevieve successfully draws hand! New skill obtained!” Nope. Not annoying at all. Not me. I might draw some concept art if I feel up to it (I’m also working on some art for a post-apocalyptic Alice In Wonderland story I’m working on. I might make a post about it later.) Now, if only I knew somebody who knew how to make videogames…hmmm……

Today we stopped at a roadside cafe for morning tea, which quickly turned into an early lunch. Mum and I ordered a sausage with soup, and dad some dumplings. Dad’s dumpling went down without consequence, but our lunch was a bit more surprising. We quickly realized that our soup was at least 80% salt (to keep the Demons away) and that our sausage contained more oil than sausage! But all that paled in comparison to the bread. You know when you order soup at a restuarant, you get three, maybe four slices of bread on the side of your plate? Well, we got a whole loaf. A WHOLE LOAF OF BREAD!! HOW AMAZING IS THAT?!   It seemed Mum and dad had ordered the ‘mud’ option for their coffee, for there was a great gunky mass of coffee grinds in the bottom of their cup at the end.

<Bread loaf obtained>

< Salty soup eaten.  15 life experience earned>

As we drove, the two hours we had planned to drive, slowly drew out to six hours instead. But we did finally end up at the place we had intended to shop and do some shopping. Shoe shopping, at that. Something that most girls wanted to do and that I dread with every fiber of my being. While my parents sat around trying on sneakers, I hopped, dodged and swirled around the flow of people, grasping at shoes. Sneakers to flats to high heels so high that a giraffe would be jealous (A giraffe has a tongue so long it can clean out its ears, but no vocal cords. Go figure.) I did end up get a cool pair of boots though, so it wasn’t all bad. I wonder when boot companies will realise that people might want to wear boots without heels? It’s impractical for running and jumping and kicking stupid people in the face. Winchesters don’t wear heels, so I don’t need to either.

We stopped for afternoon tea, and had to explain to our waiter what Pavlova is, and yes, it was created in Australia and we’re proud of it. Dad had to write it on a napkin so he could spell/ pronounce it correctly. It was quite amusing.

We left the waiter puzzling over the serviette to go our separate way and look at what we could. Mum went shopping without us weighing her down. So instead we went and looked inside the building that we nicknamed “The Ghost Buster Building” as it resembled the building that appears at the end of the film with the Bubble-Lady-Dog-Goddess. (Are You A God?)  We ignored the museum of science and society (or something like that) and bought two tickets to take the elevator up to the top floor. We had to go up 30 floors, and our ears popped. It was quite a view, we could even see Springy in the car park. There was quiet a lot of graffiti, which we couldn’t read. The only thing I could read was “#TheHerd” The MLP fandom has struck again.

When we saw mum walk into Springy, we decided it was time to get down and keep on driving. I suggested the quickest route to get down, but that involved gravity and a gigantic marshmallow pillow on the sidewalk below. So we took the elevator. We later found a nice campsite tucked away in the middle of nowhere, that seemed to be mostly occupied by fishermen.

< Congratulations, player! Level 19 completed>

Until later, Gene.

The Goovy Roads of Lithuania

Saturday, 18 July

After a good night’s rest in the hotel just over the border of Lithuania, we feasted like Kings for breakfast. The problem was the menu, while translated in English, didn’t always mean what we were expecting. Whenever the option arises, Gene will have pancakes. This morning, both the girls took the pancake option which ended up being a meat dish pancaked by potato. I had prudently ordered the sausage omelet that Dee had for dinner the previous night. One out of 3 people were happy with breakfast.

As we started down the highway, Springy just wasn’t responding as he normally does. It felt like I had 4 flat tyres. I realised that Springy was fine; it was the road that needed help. A deep rut for both tyres had been created after many years of use on a road that probably didn’t have a strong foundation under it. The sensation was like going down a waterslide with its twists and turns up and down the pipe. The only difference was I was driving straight ahead. As much as you tried to keep in the ruts, you moved that few centimeters left and right normally or had the side wind push you out of the rut. The option of keeping out of the rut was tried but it put you too close to the oncoming traffic or the very narrow edge.

We stopped at the town of Kaunas for a look about and lunch. We picked a fairly funky bar that was decorated with photos of people taken over the period 1915-28. Lots of similar souvenir shops were found, one with excellent Viking jewelry and knives. The main score of the day is a bronze headed walking stick. It unscrews into 3 parts and has an interesting design which I believe is linked to miners/geologists, especially since the head of the stick looks like a hammer/pick.

We headed for the Polish border, planning to stop somewhere near the town of Kalvanja. That plan was discarded when there didn’t seem to be a safe place to stay and the local information board indicated a camping site nearby. After looking for the site for half an hour along the edge of the local lake, we decided to just go towards the border and see what we could see.  We found a large truck park that we thought would be a likely spot but Dee was worried that we would be moved on during the night, so we looked up a camping ground in the GPS and crossed the border to enter Poland.

We found a different camping site in Suwalki before the planned one and we thought that was good enough for the likes of us. Especially at 8.30 at night.

Something about the camping signs we have noticed in the 2 days of being in Poland. The sign, for example, will point right and indicate 400m. Now this could mean turn right now and you’ll find the site 400m down the road OR you can turn right in 400m. For us, these have been used interchangeably, involving us to do U-turns 400m down the road when we don’t see the site or 3 point turns 400m down side roads.

Sunday, 18 July

Dee came for a morning walk with me which was great. Those good feelings were used up when Dee suggested that we stay another night which I objected to (we have a few days spare but we are holding them in reserve for a really cool place or because something unexpected occurs) which made me grumpy. I then started to pack up the beds, have coffee and quickly check my emails instead of having coffee with Dee outside in the morning sun. That upset Dee and we had to have a bit of a talk and hug to sort it out.

Since most things are closed on a Sunday, we drove to Lomza for the night and not have to worry about those annoying antique shops and museums. The camping spot was amazing hard to find but an information board indicated a camping site not too far away, so we took a roll of the dice to check that one out. We found it but the owners had recently changed their minds and made it a private residence………..

And Dee was looking to take a photo of a home with a bomb shelter in the backyard. We did found one but it wasn’t in a good enough condition for her…..

We finally found the original site and made home. I was finally able to draw some Polish currency as too many places don’t use credit cards. I must have been spoiled from our time in the Nordic countries where you could card everything.

The site is near the local river/creek with a massive flood plain. I was amazed at the large number of people who came to look at the slow moving creek. They mustn’t get out much. Dinner was had a nearby bar that did pizza and lemon beer. It’s the first time we ever had a Nutella pizza.

The day is ending with a thunder and lightning storm in orange sky with rainbows.

Riga

Friday, 17 July

My morning walk was along the Baltic Sea, only a few minutes from where we stayed for the night. The sea was empty of ships or land masses. It was quite wonderful and desolate. The beach was littered with feathers though. I first thought a bird had died and the feathers cast about but since I couldn’t see or smell a carcass and there were hundreds (maybe even thousands) of feathers along the coast line I was walking, I assumed it was just feathers from sea birds. Some were like down and most were of an average size but there were feathers over 40cm long. I thought they may have been stork but the largest feathers they have are black and all the large feathers I saw were white. They would make gigantic writing quills.

The roads we travelled upon were old requiring to go 70km/h or they were brand new (funded by the EU) requiring us to go 70km/h as no lines were painted. For most of the highways, there is a half car width of bitumen on either side of the road. It was a bit strange as you can’t safely pull over on it but I quickly realised what it was for. The common practice seems to be if you are happy to do the speed limit, you put your right wheels over the line into this extra area, this lets the over-taking car to do so. The on-coming cars use their extra area to get out of the way of the car barreling down the middle of the road.

We came to the large city of Riga before lunch with our GPS taking us to the streets where the buildings are all Art nouveau. It was an amazing walk around with Dee getting very excited and taking many photos. We had a break at Costas Coffee as we saw dark clouds rolling in and 15 minutes later we were hit with a massive rain and hail storm. We decided to stay and have lunch and wait for it to pass as we didn’t bring any cold and wet weather gear. We also had some good directions and a hand drawn map (on the back of a Tinkerbell colouring in sheet of paper) from the ladies who served us so we could get back to Springy.

Cobblestones are de rigueur in Riga *boom boom*. It’s very quaint and perhaps keeps the speed down but I think it plays havoc with Springy’s fuel tank. After leaving the town and trying to get up to 70km/h, she started lurching again. We originally thought it was bad fuel but since we had already used ¾ a tank without issue, we are now thinking we have a rusty fuel tank and the bad banging about on the cobblestones has vibrated things about. Luckily we now a have a re-usable fuel filter that can be easily cleaned when this happens.

We crossed into Lithuania without Dee finding a Latvia badge, so I suggested that we order one on-line but that, apparently is cheating. After checking our finances, we’re spending the night at a hotel, the first hard accommodation since leaving London over 2 months ago.

The Baltic States, the home of the 'resting bitch face'

Wednesday, 15 July

Today, Gene had no interest in following her parents around lots of old stuff, so we happy left her at the camping ground with clear direction to stay in in the van or at the reception office where the wifi was and to text us when she had lunch and if she was being murdered. To ensure you’re not left wondering, she did have lunch.

After an easy bus ride into the old part of the city, we headed for the pre-planned tourist spots we had marked on the map. That went instantly awry when we found a market selling lots of hand-made stuff.

It felt like every second shop sold knitted woolen garments, linen and wooden items and or the normal souveniry things that every town has. The other shops sold food and/or coffee. The common denominator of all of them was they were all staffed by miserable, unsmiling buggers. I blame a Russian influence. The closest to friendliness was from the lady who sold me my awesome 1.5 long woolen hat. It doubles as a hat and scarf and I try not to think of it as a ‘face hugger’ from the ‘Alien’ series of movies….

As a side bar story, When I was the President of the Ancient Arts Fellowship (AAF), it was joked that I needed a great long hat. It may be late in coming but I think I have finally fulfilled that requirement.
J

After coming back to the van and finding the vehicle and daughter in once piece (well, 2 working pieces), we had a small kip and woke up 2 hours later….

As we have copious amounts of bacon in the freezer, I decided to weave the bacon strips together, place cooked cous cous in the center, give a layer of cheese and wrap up it up in the bacon goodness. 15 minutes later, it was ready and devoured soon after. I must admit I thought I would never do what I had only seen on the internet. It was like a penthouse story, ‘I never thought these things were true until it happened to me….’

Thursday, 16 July

The morning was spent contacting Australia Post to find out what was going wrong with Dee’s ‘Load and Go’ debit card. I misread the directions originally and have been using the other BSB number when trying to transfer funds and they have all been bouncing back to the account (phew!) Once I had that sorted, I can now have a bit of peace of mind knowing that we have another way of spending our money. Unfortunately, it took so long I could go for my morning walk.

We moved on and headed south down the Estonian highways. Probably due to the quality of the roads and the lack of off ramps, very rarely is the posted speed above 90km/hour, frequently dropping down to 70 for intersections. It makes a more restful drive but it does drag the driving day a bit longer than normal. The fuel seems to be 40 cents/ litre cheaper than the Nordic states, so I’ve loving that.

We stopped at Parnu, one of the major towns in Estonia, and had a bit of a wander around and lunch. Gene found herself a leather jacket with wool edging like one worn by WWII pilots and I found a lightweight tweed jacket with leather elbows. AND SEVEN REAL BOWTIES FOR 75 CENTS EACH!!!!!!

We finally succumbed and bought 8.5m of linen, Dee getting printed fabric to make a pretty dress. It was a bit cheaper than normal but nothing to rave about. We can say it was bought in Estonia though. Dee also found some woolen gloves, wooden Giftmas decorations and a little wooden moose that is placed on the lip of your saucepan so your lid can’t get a tight seal, so things don’t over boil. A cute, good idea we thought!

We’re appreciating the cheap prices of second world countries.

We’re now in Salacgriva, Latvia where the customer service and friendliness is just as good as Estonia.
J

Looking out of our windows while Gene is drawing and a planning an Alice in Wonderland story, Dee is sewing and I’m cooking, we can see another family running playing ball sports and things. It looks like a totally foreign activity for us.