A long post but a good story (I think).............
I didn't wake up as early yesterday as I had planned.
By the time I'd got myself showered, packed, eaten a banana for breakfast and was ready to leave the flat in Vilnius to attempt to get to Riga, it was 12.30 in the afternoon.
Over the breakfast cup of tea, Cori and I had both commented on how nice the weather was and what a pleasant day it would be for my hitch-hiking attempts. The sun was shining and the snow on the roof-tops was starting to melt.
Cori left the flat with me, on her way to the American Embassy to print some stuff, and as we walked down the street huge flakes of snow were falling from the sky, obviously being blown from the roof-tops by the wind that was picking up.
Wrong!
The snow flakes turned out to be fresh from the heavens. It was a classic case of "commentator's curse". By talking about how nice the weather was, it was inevitable that it would all of a sudden turn bad.
I'd received an email earlier in the morning from Darnius, letting me know where the best spot for hitching out of the city was, and that's where I was heading.
The snow was falling like nobody's business, massive massive flakes, and was settling on the ground quickly.
People looked at the idiot without a coat.
The idiot kept his eyes to the ground, embarrassed by his own stupidity.
I took the trolley-bus to the final stop, then walked for another 15-20 minutes trying to find the spot I'd been told about.
It was the entrance to the motorway, and I knew I was in the right place when I spotted a middle-aged scruffy-looking bloke standing with his thumb out.
I stood near to him, but not too close, and took out my home-made sign on which I'd written 'LV' meaning that I wanted to go to Latvia.
It was 2.05pm when I started.
After about 20 minutes of standing in the freezing cold, getting buried by the snow, and being splashed with brown water by every lorry that sped past, the middle-aged guy gave up and left the scene.
I wasn't alone for long. 5 minutes later and I see walking up the road towards me this little peroxide blonde slut.
The first thing she does to piss me off is take up her spot about 5 metres in front of me, basically jumping the queue of 1 that I had formed for lift.
The 2nd thing she does, which I knew was going to happen but that still pisses me off, is get picked up by a lorry driver after standing with her thumb out for less than a minute.
That part I could understand. Lorry drivers like peroxide-blonde girls that look like sluts. What I found rather distasteful was that both she and the driver felt the need to laugh at me as they drove off. A laugh that said "Do you really expect to get picked up looking like a drowned rat? A male drowned rat!"
I smiled back, not wanting to let them get to me in case it affected the image I was trying to project to other drivers of a cold, wet, but still smiling foreign guy just trying to get to Latvia.
At 2.40 another lorry sped past me, splashing my white jacket in mud and even getting some in my eyes. As I rubbed them to try and regain sight, a little car pulled over.
I looked inside to the driver who was speaking on his mobile and he indicated for me to chuck my bags in the back.
I did, then got in the front seat, and waited for him to finish his conversation.
He was a big, tough looking bloke, about 50 years old, and very Soviet looking. I didn't even bother imagining that he could speak English.
He said something to me in Lithuanian, then in Russian, then in Polish, and all three times I said "Ne razumen" which means "I don''t understand" in Slovene but is also practically the same in most other Slavic languages.
"English?" He asked.
"Yes."
"Ah, no problem. I speak English."
I was surprised, but very pleasantly. He asked what I was doing in Lithuania and I explained the story.
He told me that he was only going 60 kilometres up the motorway, but that at least it'd get me out of the snow for a bit and maybe I'd find it easier to get picked up from there.
We spoke througout the drive. His name was Tomas and he lived in a small town and worked in Vilnius in the building trade as some kind of boss.
He'd worked in Norway for a few years and that's where he'd learned English, and he was married with 1 son. He'd also spent many years in the Soviet navy, but was 100% Lithuanian and proud of it.
Along the way, we stopped into a motorway food and drink place where he bought me a cup of tea (he laughed when I asked him to ask the waitress for milk to go in it) and he also got me some pate and cucumber on bread, saying that I needed to have food inside of me if I was gonna be standing in this cold for a while.
I was grateful to have been picked up by such a nice bloke. Over the tea he spoke about how he was looking forward to getting home in about 20 minutes because he was going to make lunch with his wife. He told me how even though he works a lot of hours in the city, and she's also a busy estate agent, they still always try to find the time to make lunch together and go to the supermarket and stuff. Nice.
As we drove the last 20 minutes before he'd have to let me out, the snow got ridiculous. We couldn't even see through the windscreen at points.
When he dropped me off, he got out of the car and went to the boot where he pulled out a pair of gloves for me to wear - not the especially warm kind, they were the builders' kind for gripping stuff, but still something - as well as putting in my hands a packet of cigarettes, a lighter, and a bottle of Latvian brandy! I didn't know what to say, other than 'thanks!'
He wished me luck and drove off to his house. What a nice bloke!
It was 3.45 now, and I got my sign out again and started trying to get another lift.
The snow came down, and I swear I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that my bags that were on the ground at the side of the road actually got buried in the white stuff.
I looked like Raymond Briggs' The Snowman!
Some of the lorry-driving wankers would indicate then pull over the side of the road, wait for me a bit further up, watch me pick up my bags and struggle through the blizzard to get to the door, then just as I was about to reach out they'd drive off laughing.
That actually happened 3 times!
It must be a game that they all play. I made sure to show each one of them what I thought of them by doing a little movement with my wrist. I guess that gesture is internationally understood.
When it got to 4.45 I'd had just about enough of standing there being laughed at by every car and lorry that went past, and I was also freezing to death, so I had another one of those silly moments that I get sometimes where I said to myself "Fuck it. Riga's only 200km from here, I'll walk it!"
And so I picked up my bags and started walking along the motorway, keeping my thumb out on the off chance that someone might pull over and pick me up.
I'd been walking for 50 minutes when a car pulled over just in front of me and I got in.
The driver was a guy of about my age, Mandus, and he told me he was going about 50 kilometres to a place called Panevezys.
He dropped me off 35 minutes later at 6.10 and I carried on walking in the right direction.
Every time a lorry went past, the speed of it combined with the wind and almost blew me off my feet and into the path of the traffic.
I walked for another hour, saying to myself loudly over and over again "I won't stop until I get to Riga. I won't stop until I get to Riga."
Cori had given me a little bag containing a few slices of bread and cheese, some peanuts, and some biscuits. I opened the bag to find that the snow had got in and ruined everything. There were strange peanut-smelling juices everywhere and it was all just sopping wet and ruined. Great!
At 7.10 a car pulled up behind me and I turned around hopefully. This was gonna be my lift to Riga!
Wrong again!
It was the police. They asked me something, and I asked if he spoke English.
He did, and he asked for my passport, as well as asking where I was heading.
After checking my passport, the one in the passenger seat got out of the car and I assumed I was in some sort of trouble. I wasn't.
This guy turned out to be the friendliest policeman I've ever come across.
He asked me if I had anything reflective, maybe a jacket or something. I told him that I didn't, and so he opened up the boot and found the kind of reflective thing that people put on their bikes. He told me that I was taking a bit risk walking in the dark, and that in this snow it would be hard for a car to see me and could easily run me over.
He took some string and tied the thing to my bag, then we wished me good luck.
"Hang on." I said. "Are you driving that way?"
"Yes."
"Take me with you!"
"OK, we'll take you a bit further but then we'll have to turn around."
And so I got in the car and we drove for about 10 minutes at speed. As he put me out, he told me there was a petrol station a bit further up and maybe I'd be able to find someone there to take me.
I carried on through the blizzard. When I call it a motorway, by the way, it's not a motorway in the way that we have. It's a one-lane eachway road running through the forest, with no pavement for walking, and no lights.
I finally got to the garage at 7.40. It was a tiny little place and didn't look like it got many customers. A sign told me I was 145 kilometres from Riga.
I stood in front of the building and waited for some cars to come for petrol. The first few that came weren't going my way or had no space in the car.
Then a guy pulled up in a white transit van. As he came towards the building, I asked him where he was going.
"Near to Riga". He said.
"Perfect. Please can I come with you? I'm freezing and really need to get there."
"Um, I don't think so." He said. I could tell that he didn't really speak English and just had the basics. I checked his plates and found out he was from Poland.
"Come on. Please!" I asked again.
He told me to wait, then he went off to the toilet and then into the shop to buy cigarettes.
When he came out I asked him again.
He really looked like he didn't want to take me, so I decided I had to play my trump card. Out came the bottle of brandy.
"This is for you if you take me to Riga." I held it out to him.
He smiled. "OK".
We weren't able to speak much as his English was apalling and surprisingly I don't speak Polish, but I managed to find out that his name is Kristof and that he drives all over Europe, even in England and Wales, delivering some kind of materials to energy companies. He even sometimes delivers Polish contract workers to the plants.
How he manages to drive through England and Wales without speaking in English is beyond me, but he does, and told me that he's often in Port Talbot in Wales.
I also got from him that he wasn't actually going to Riga but was driving fairly close and would drop me off somewhere near.
Around 2 hours later at 9.50 he dropped me off.
Nowhere near Riga.
I was in the fucking forest!!!!!! I can't complain, though. He brought me a long way.
I'd seen a sign a few minutes before he dropped me out saying that Riga was 17km away.
I then walked around for about an hour, up and down different motorway turn-offs, in the pitch black (I couldn't even read the roadside signs unless a car went past and put it's headlights on it), trying to find a sign pointing me to the right motorway for Riga.
I found it eventually and got walking down this tiny little motorway turn-off that took me from one main one to another. You'd think that at least one car would see this guy walking around the motorway in the blizzard, struggling with heavy bags and looking lost, and at least pull over to ask if he knew where he was going.
You'd be wrong.
I walked and walked until I came to a motorway service station. As I saw it from the distance, it became my holy grail. I battled through the wind and snow to get there. As the elements battered me, I thought of one of my favourite films of all time '
In this world'. It's a film about some Afghan refugees going through a brutal overland journey to make it from a refugee camp in Pakistan to London. Every time I watched the film, I was always overcome with a desire to travel in that way, to go through the extremes, to really test myself and see what I'm made of.
There's a part of the film where they're fighting through the snow at night to cross the border from Iran into Turkey, and last night I got to have a taste of what that journey was like.
I know that a lot of you reading this will think that I'm exaggerating or dramatising things for effect. All I can do is tell you honestly that that isn't the case. It was a harsh journey. My body was hurting from carrying the bags, I had cramp in my right leg from the effort needed to walk through thick snow, my body was soaked through, there was a pond of water in each of my shoes, I'd eaten just a banana and a few slices of bread and pate all day, and I was exhausted.
I got to the petrol station and went up to the first car I saw. There were 2 guys, my age, putting air into one of the tyres.
"Do you speak English?" I asked.
"Yea."
"Are you going to Riga?"
"Yep."
"Can I please jump in?"
"Sure! Why not?"
And I was getting a lift into the city.
The guys were Renars and Janez (I hope I've spelt the names right) and they were returning to Riga after a day of snowboarding.
They asked what I was doing and I gave a brief explanation, although was too cold and tired to speak too much about it.
Renars went in to the shop then came out with a hot cup of fruit tea for me, plus a tuna sandwich.
These boys were legends!
They asked where I was staying and I said I didn't know, but I did have the number of my host. I used Renars' phone to call, then got Liva (my host) to explain to them where I was to go.
It was pretty close to where they were going, and so they took me all the way to the flat.
We got to the flat at around 11.30 and exchanged cards as I got out of the car. Renars invited me to the bar where he works at the weekend for some drinks.
Liva and Paulis, a young Latvian couple, were waiting for me.
I was taken up to the flat and given another cup of tea while we sat in the living-room and got to know eachother.
Liva studies History, Paulis studies philosophy. They're both into snowboarding, skating, and that kind of scene.
I had a shower, ate the tuna sandwich, and watched Family Guy with the two of them, before going to bed at 2.
I wasn't able to sleep at all, even though I have my own comfortable bed, because my body was aching so much from the day.
Even now, almost 24 hours after arriving, my shoulders are killing.
I spent most of today in the skate shop where paulis works. It's also joined on to a record shop. Not the old kind of records that your dad buys, but the kind that DJs buy.
I used to do a bit of mixing as a teenager, and so it felt good to mess around on the decks for a few hours, mixing (although, nowhere near as good as I used to) house records.
The record shop's owned by a German guy (whose name escapes me), and basically Paulis and him share the same job description. It looks like this;
Sit around all day. Serve the 3 or 4 customers that you get throughout the course of the day. Play records and mess around on the computer. Eat sandwiches. Play poker, but not for money, for forfeits. Smoke lots of cigarettes. Make a snowman outside if weather permits. Go home at the end of the day.
It's really that simple.
I didn't do any sight-seeing today just because it's dangerous to walk on the streets. The snow is melting and is falling in rock-hard heavy blocks from every roof. I even saw a car windscreen almost smash from a falling piece of snow.
In the late afternoon I came home to the flat and met Sohail, the flat-mate of my hosts.
He's a 25-year old Pakistani medical student. After speaking for a little while about why I'm in Latvia, he invited me to the kitchen for food. He made a delicious vegetable curry with rice and potatoes. I'd had a sandwich in the morning that Paulis got me, but my stomach was aching from hunger and it felt so good.
I talked a lot with Sohail, mostly about religion (he had to leave kitchen in between the curry and the potatoes, to go and pray in his room).
He's a devout Muslim, whereas I won't go along with any of the main religions that basically say you're going to hell if you don't follow the one way that the particular relgion preaches.
Sohail tried his best to put into me that Islam is the only true way, and that everyone must accept Mohamed as the last prophet.
I had no problem with this whatsoever because he wasn't doing it in a preaching kind of way, he just told it the way that he believes it. I took him to task on a lot of things that are obviously wrong with the religion, for example, the over-reaction of all Muslims to a few silly cartoons published in European newspapers. We disagreed a lot on the severity of publishing such cartoons, and we also disagreed on a lot of other things, but all the time the conversation was respectful on both sides and I enjoyed it. I also learned a lot about Islam that I didn't know before.
Of course, I could never even imagine what it's like to follow a religion that forbids two of my favourite things; alcohol and pork.
Most of what Sohail said, I could at least understand the logic behind. One thing though was a bit too out-there.
"Alcohol is bad because when you are drunk, it is impossible to differentiate between your wife and your sister."
I don't know of anyone who's ever had that problem. I think you could probably drink enough absynthe to put you in a coma before you mistook your sister for your wife. But hey, we all have our different beliefs, and I'm not going to ridicule his. I'll just disagree.
Sohail is a really nice guy, who really goes that extra bit further to be hospitable and to make sure that you're comfortable and have everything that you need. He's been making me tea all evening, and generally just making sure I feel at home.
The two Latvians are out snow-boarding.
I'm off to bed now. After getting no sleep last night, I'm ready to try again.
Thanks to another sponsorship from my good friend in Alaska, we're now only 100 quid away from the target amount. Every penny goes directly to Cancer Research UK and making a sponsorship only takes a minute. Click
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Brighton. Home.
My final view of Tallinn as my ferry pulled out of harbour.
My favourite thing about Tallinn is the abundance of seagulls. It's just like being at home in Brighton. It's been 5 months since I was woken early in the morning by their loud roof-top calls to one another. 
Oliver, me, and Dan (the Canadian couchsurfer). Looking a bit thin. Not long until I can sort that out with some proper English food!
I think I'm going to sit out on the balcony for a little while, listening to Slovenian radio through the internet (it's bright, sunny mornings like this that make me nostalgic to my 3 years in Ljubljana, where I'd sit out on my balcony over-looking the castle and eat breakfast with Vanja) then I'll get out and explore a bit of the city. In the afternoon, around 4.30, I'll meet Mikko from work and then we're going to take the ferry to the fortified island of Suomenlinna which I'm looking forward to seeing.
He wished me luck and drove off to his house. What a nice bloke!
I'd seen a sign a few minutes before he dropped me out saying that Riga was 17km away.
It's really that simple.
Sohail is a really nice guy, who really goes that extra bit further to be hospitable and to make sure that you're comfortable and have everything that you need. He's been making me tea all evening, and generally just making sure I feel at home.
Ozge couldn't get a bus home until 6 in the morning, and so we tried to pass the time so that we could keep her company and not just leave her to wait while we went off to sleep, but at around 4.00 the club emptied out and the snow was making the idea of hanging around for another 2 hours seems more and more uncomfortable, so in the end she did what she really didn't want to do and called a taxi.
St. Michael's church. Apparently Napoleon thought it so beautiful that he said he wanted to take it back to France in the palm of his hand.
Artists trying to flog their work.
The presidential palace.
Right in the centre of the old town.
The gates of dawn.
An old woman asleep inside the church of the gates of dawn.
