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.