Sachmatine Palanga

... Amis sind ja so furchtbar! Offensichtlichere Floskeln gibs ja wohl GAR NICHT! Aber ich bin ja nicht unhöflich: "Where are you from?" - "US. Nice Shirt." - "Thanks."<br>Gut, dachte ich mir. Was für eine bekloppte Unterhaltung. Er musste möglichst cool wirken, als erfahrener Backpacker, Martina hatte Mühe ihre Augen wieder zuzukriegen, ich glaub er hats gemerkt, aber ich habe an seinen Lippen förmlich gehangen. War ja nun aber auch interessant was der Gute so zu erzählen hatte ...

... dark at night when walking back, but didnt feel unsafe to me. From the hotel to old town takes around 15 minutes on foot. Most of the way is a shopping street. The old town it self is small and not very exciting, but has some nice restaurants and bars. I had dinner somewhere outside in the city centre, which was very cheap. This being a Sunday evening, it was pretty quiet. <br>

... are covered by people seeking shelter and possibly privacy. <br><br>Wimbledon and the 1000 year Lithuanian celebration are that night so I head back. The receptionist does not know of any sports bar. I go in search. No luck. Any TVs are on the independence celebration. I ended up missing a match that concluded with Federer winning 16 games to 14 in the final set.<br><br>I head over to the dock where ...

... the US but is starting to really hurt. Not good when I have to carry 75 pounds of stuff. <br><br>Only 1 hostel in Klaipeda. It borders the bus station. Rooms seem to be clean. I an in a 12 person with 2 or 3 beds taken at the moment. Not many reasonably priced choices and the reduced impact to my back from a close place wraps it up. It is only a place to sleep. <br><br>I am off immediately to lose my family resemblance to Casper. How white can I get? A 20 minute walk ...

And now to one of the most bizarre things we've gone to see on this trip. In 1960 the Russians, who occupied Lithuania at the time, built a nuclear weapon facility in the middle of a forest. It took 10,000 people to build it over 2 years, all done in secret. Much of it had to be done by hand because of the noise factor - in fact it was so secret the local population didn't ...

... It was large and made entirely of plastic and I couldn't help wondering where someone would store something so big in the typically small homes here. The salesman had one audience member stick his foot in a tub while the gizmo was bubbling and two ladies stick their forearms in another tub to get treated. There were different scents you could add as well. He collected rings from people that he placed in the tub which came out very clean. This confused me since I wasn ...

... race competition which looked as if anyone could enter we thought about entering winnie but didnt want to put all the fancy cars to shame. Claire was gutted by the time we had set up camp and got back into town it was all over so no pics ahhhhh bet your all really sad. The best of it all was they closed a public highway for all these petrol heads as if they would do that in England no chance..........

... dei har åtte kasus, så det kan henda eg ikkje klarer å bøya alt riktig. Den baltiske språkfamilien er interessant, særleg for oss som likar å kalla oss slavistar. Det er klåre etymologiske samband mellom dei slaviske og baltiske språka. Ei rad døme kan trekkjast opp for å påvisa desse likskapane og ulikskapane mellom kentum- og satem-språk, men eg skal ikkje det no (for å vera heilt ærleg, sit spr ...

... of everything nice had been destroyed. Was pleasantly surprised with how nice the town was and how comfortable I felt walking around everywhere (again, I had been warned). Found my way to the ferry terminal and froze a little waiting for the ferry to take us across to Smiltynes. Once on the other side I had quite a bit of time to kill until the next bus to Nida. I went to the pub and had some lunch (I am guessing everyone has figured out by now ...

We woke early and packed our daypacks for a night on the Curonian Spit. We had organised to leave our big packs at the hostel, but when we were ready to leave the hostess was still fast asleep... Glenn had to wake her to drop our stuff off! Oops. Our guidebooks had warned that getting accommodation in peak season was nearly impossible in Nida, the main tourist town on the Lithuanian side of the Curonian Spit (the southern side is owned by Russia). We went to the information centre ...