Expatiperro

Well, my is over, but the memories remain! For those of you all who weren't able to view my pictures through Facebook during the trip, here are direct links to the albums, so that even the non-members can enjoy.

Dubai

Petra

Jordan

Israel and Palestine

Egypt

Bulgaria and Thessaloniki

Romania

Budapest

Auschwitz

Kiev and Krakow

Chernobyl

The Baltic States

St. Petersburg

Moscow

Mongolia and Siberia

Thailand, Laos, and China

Remember me? It's been a while, so you might not, but things are still moving along here, albeit at a slightly faster pace than I can blog at. In the space of the last month, we've passed through Eastern Europe, crossed the Mediterranean, explored the ancient ruins in Egypt, took in an enormous number of holy sites in the Holy Land, circumnavigated Jordan, and are now trying to get a grasp on the paradoxes of runaway capitalism in a conservative Muslim country in Dubai. Jumping from continent to continent, culture to culture has left my head spinning, but with some down time on the horizon, catch-up posts will be frequent and will happen soon.

I've always found that there's something about renting a car outside of the US that's so much more adventurous and exciting. There's no clean airport counter with handy brochures; no smiling Avis/Hertz/Dollar representatives trying to sell you extra insurance covers of gas reimbursements; no big, gas-guzzling American cars sitting out in the parking lot. Instead, there are shady one-room offices on the outskirts on the city, bearded men with thick accents asking for your passport, and tiny, inevitably European cars that a handful of frat boys could pick up and flip over. The whole process just feels so much more unpredictable, even exotic, for lack of a better word.

To start our week driving around Romania and Transylvania, Kyle and I picked up a rental car Monday morning in Bucharest, Romania. We chose the cheapest option, a four-door Dacia Logan, and apparently the law "you get what you pay for" applies in Eastern Europe as well. What we got for our €23 a day: a dirty, slightly dinged-up car that needed to be jump-started with no power steering, no ABS brakes, a radio that shorted out after two hours, smearing windshield wipers, and a lack of windshield wiper fluid. On the plus side, the clutch was set up so that the car was nearly impossible to stall, and it had seat belts.

Our car in hand, we set off on our drive north. Even on the main roads, you pass horse-drawn carriages, which, believe it or not, seem to have just as much right to use the lane as cars driving 60 mph. Drivers make passes going around blind corners, and you can only cringe as the guy in front of you pulls out to pass with a semi barreling towards him in the other lane. Of course, this being Romania and with a certain 'natural selection' process occurring on the roads (only the good drivers survive!), accidents are surprisingly rare, at least that we've seen.

(So you don't think that it's just me who's making this up, here's a funny article on driving in Romania. It's a few years old, and our car isn't quite as bad as the one described, but it's an entertaining look on what it's like to be on the roads here.)

It's not all near-death experiences, though. The scenery is beautiful- like everywhere else we've been, the fall colors are spectacular- and the Transylvania Castle's we've seen have been just as amazing as they're described. Driving is by far the best way to see a place as large and varied as this, and a few adrenaline rushes on the road is a small price to pay to see the sights.

The funny thing is, running into a deer with our car was one of the less memorable parts of our day driving across Lithuania. Sure, the front of the car got slightly bent out of shape; the driver (none other than yours truly) was a bit shaken up by the sight of Bambi bouncing off the bumper; and the four other passengers were temporarily reduced to screaming, stressed-out captives. But in a day jam-packed with sights and stories, the one about the accident ranks down on the list.

Let me backtrack a bit and start from the beginning. Our weekend in Lithuania, the southern-most of the Baltic states, was spent with three of Kyle's friends from England who had taken some time off work to join us on our adventure. Lithuania is one of those places, like Timbuktu, that one hears of in passing, might be able to find on a map, but really has no idea what is in it or why on Earth someone would go there. And walking around the capital, Vilnius, which apparently is the country's biggest city but could have been mistaken for a ghost town the weekend we visited, my questions as to the allure of the place only grew.

That all changed when the five of us hopped into our rental car and set off on a cross-country drive (of 400 kilometers). The Lithuanian countryside is gorgeous: the narrow roads snake past gently rolling hills. Cobalt-blue lakes contain picturesque castles on islands, connected to the mainland by drawbridges straight out of a fairy tale.


Our first stop of the day was the Hill of Crosses, a Catholic pilgrimage site for the past few centuries that gained increase importance during the Communist years, when it became the place to quietly protest the ruling regime. There are around 200,000 crosses on this hill alone, so many that it's impossible to get a sense of the topography of the land-- the crosses just seem to rise like trees from the flat ground.


Two hundred kilometers past the Hill of Crosses, we reached the coast, where we caught a 3 minute ferry ride to the Curonian Spit. At 100 kilometers long, it's the world's largest and spit, a giant sand dune barrier between the Baltic Sea and the Lithuanian shore. After getting off the ferry, we quickly crossed the 1 kilometer width of the spit and watched a glorious sunset from the beach.


Darkness upon us, we set off driving the 40 kilometers we had left before our destination, the town of Nida. A narrow road through a forest late at night is never the set-up for a cheery story, and this one was no exception. I'll skip the details, but a brief summary is that the deer survived and ran off, the car was only cosmetically damaged, and no human was injured.

That adventure in the books, we proceeded to Nida, where we had hoped to be able to find a place to stay without making a reservation. Imagine our surprise when we drove into town and found ZERO sign of life. No people on the streets. No lights shining through any windows. No open hotels. After a brief and slightly frantic search, we found the only open hotel in town, a huge place in which we were the only guests.


The next morning, thing returned to normal. The drive back to Vilnius was uneventful, Kyle's friends returned to England, and he and I boarded an overnight bus that took us to Warsaw, Poland. But our time in Lithuania was fab: it's perhaps the only place in the world where in one day, you can go from city to sacred pilgrimage site to giant sand spit, with a little wildlife thrown in there, too.

We woke up our only morning in Riga to swirling skies, howling wind, and pelting, cold rain. Days like this make you want to stay in bed, but with only one day to spend exploring the capital of Latvia, we knew had to get out and do some sightseeing, weather be dammed. Armored up in multiple layers and waterproof jackets, Kyle and I marched out the door to battle the elements.

The weather suited the mood of our main destination of the day, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. Like all the Baltic States (and much of Europe), Latvia was the victim of a series of invasions and occupations, starting in 1940 and not ending until 1991. The history is simultaneously fascinating, incredibly depressing, and nearly totally unknown in the US. In the years after WWI, the three Baltic States were some of the most developed in Europe, with democratically-elected governments and living standards on par with the Scandinavia countries. Unfortunately, they were located between two of the most powerful and bellicose countries in Europe, Germany and the USSR, and in the years immediately before WWII they essentially became their doormat. Germany gave control of the three Baltic States to the USSR (notwithstanding that at the time they were independent, autonomous countries); the USSR invaded and occupied them; Germany turned on the USSR and invaded the occupied territory; the USSR fought back and eventually took them back.

In the German and both Soviet occupation, the population was terrorized and many were deported en masse to concentration camps or Siberia. During the German occupation, he Jewish population on Lithuania, for example, went from nearly 200,000 to zero. The Russians, in just ONE YEAR, arrested and deported to Siberia nearly 10% of Latvia's population. Estonia suffered similar tragedies. In each of these three States, institutions were wiped out, and the intellectuals, scientists, teachers, and politicians were persecuted and killed, leaving just a shell of what each country used to be.

Given this history of repression and destruction, it's incredible that all three Baltic States emerged from the Soviet years as vibrant, active, and most importantly, historically aware places. Each capital city has its own museum dedicated to those years, and the one in Riga was arguably the best, with fabulous displays of original propaganda posters, artifacts from exiled Lativan in Siberia, and exhibits illumination many aspects of life under occupation. It's sobering and a bit depressing, absolutely. But there's no better way to appreciate your own freedom and fortune than seeing how others have had theirs taken away.

Rested, laundered, and relaxed, Kyle and I said goodbye to Helsinki and boarded the ferry that would take us over to the Baltics. Two hours later, we arrived in Estonia's capital, Tallinn, and were met at the ferry terminal by Martin, who would be our Couchsurfing host for the next four nights.

Tallinn, and the rest of Estonia for that matter, is a place whose reality contrasts with what the world expects it to be. While it is a Baltic state along with its more Slavic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, it refuses to be bunched together with them. Looking around, you can sense that it has much more in common with Scandinavian countries- the language looks and sounds almost Finnish, the people are blond and fair-skinned, their English is probably better than mine, wi-fi is ubiquitous, and in conversation they are insistent that they are only tied to the other Baltic States by an accident of geography and the Soviet occupation, and not by any voluntary choice.

The capital also contrasted with the expectations. The old town is beautiful, an incredibly well-preserved medieval area with some of the oldest buildings in the region, including the oldest town hall in Europe. Wandering around its winding lanes was like being transported back in time, at least if you didn't see the souvenier shops lining the streets. Our three days there was plenty to explore the gorgeous city center, visit several museums, and eat some delicious food (including a meal at the wonderfully named "Hell Hunt" restaurant).

Our three nights there were somewhat less bucolic. Martin and his friends did their best to show us the incredible nightlife of Tallinn, whose small size (only 400,000 people) belies the intensity and energy of its bar and club scene. Highlights included eating some of the best chicken wings I've ever tasted at a cafe at 5 AM; making best friends with a 50 tear old bartendress and earning a standing invitation to come back to Estonia and stay at her place; going to a birthday party of one of Martin's friends and meeting not only the Estonian Oprah, but also both the most famous actress and weatherman in Estonia. Over the weekend, sleep was definitely fleeting.

Monday morning we picked up our rental car, said goodbye to the city, and set off across the countryside. Outside of the few main cities (definition: population 5,000 and up), human life seemed to dissappear, replaced by endless forests, huge lakes, and sandy coastline. After our hectic stay in Tallinn, a little time spend relaxing was much appreciated.

After three exhausting weeks of travel around Russia, with the constant sensory shocks of being in a place completely unfamiliar and alien, we needed a break. Luckily for us, our final destination on our train journey, Helsinki, proved to be the best possibly place to chill out, get things done that we needed to get done, and enjoy being in an ordered, relaxed, non-adrenal-gland-draining environment.

Helsinki might be the world's cutest city, a small town that somehow also manages to be a completely unpretentious capital of a first world, developed country. Tress line nearly every street, almost matching the heights of the buildings around them, which are all under 10 stories tall. Trams carry people (and tourists, as one of the tram lines also serves as a type of "tourist bus") around the city, coexisting peacefully with cars. The Baltic Sea and its inlets give Helsinki its unique form, and from almost any point in th city you can see the water. Like St. Petersburg, there's no sense of hurry, just a casual, calming mood that imbues the city and its inhabitants.

Our chill-out time was helped by our foray into a different kind of accommodation: Couchsurfing. For the uninitiated, CS is a community of people who offer up their apartments without charge for travelers to stay in, in exchange for good conversation, cultural interchange, and the opportunity to make new friends from around the world. Our host, Ville, was a fantastic host, letting us sleep on his floor, telling us the best places to go, and engaging in some great conversation with us.

The two days that we spent there didn't leave us with a lot of time to explore every nook and cranny of the city (and the pouring rain on our first full day didn't help, either), but luckily Helsinki is a small enough place that it isn't took hard to see most of the major sites in just that small amount of time. Samples (from Kyle's camera) are below.

While we had technically completed the Trans-Siberian Railway the moment we stepped off the train in Moscow on September 30th, our trip through Russia still had one leg remaining before we set foot in the last stop on our itinerary, St. Petersburg. The night train from Moscow to St. Petersburg is said to be the busiest and nicest stretch of rail in the country, the Russian equivalent to the Northeastern Corridor, except without the overpriced tickets and overhyped "high-speed" trains. After a night spent with two snoring Russian businessmen who enjoying moving around the small cabin in only their underwear, Kyle and I stumbled out of the train station into the 9 AM twilight and were ready to take on the city.

If Moscow is a representation of what Russia is today, a clash of the Soviet and capitalist eras, then St. Petersburg is a representation of what Russia was before the 1917 Revolution, a near time capsule of life during the Tsarist age. Massive, ornately-facaded Baroque palaces line the broad streets, which cross over canals that give the city an air of Amsterdam or Venice. Old trams run down the streets past pedestrians who stroll as if they have no particular destination in mind and are just out to take in the scenery. Even far out from the city center, St. Petersburg presents an elegant, unhurried face, of a city trying to ignore that it was ever a witness to some of the horrors of the 20th century.


We spent our first day walking down the main street, Nevsky Prospekt, and passed a few hours in the Hermitage, which might be the world's most outsized art museum (yes, including the Louvre). Everything about the Hermitage is enormous and grandiose, like the insanely comprehensive collection of art (world-class collection in things ranging from Russian archeology to 19th century French art to Japanese prints), as well as the over-the-top Winter Palace where the Hermitage collection is housed (the place has 400 rooms!!). It's the only museum in the world where a room with two--TWO-- da Vinci masterpieces could be overshadowed by the decorations of the room where they hang. And best of all- free admission for students, a rarity in Russia. They say that if you spend 30 seconds in front of every world of art in the museum, you'd be there for like 50 years; after exhausting 3 hours there, I completely understand.

High culture was the theme of the rest of our four days in St. Petersburg. We took in a Russian ballet, Swan Lake, where we battled other tourists for the best seats and shot a few dirty looks to other tourists who mistook the ballet performance for a social hour. We went to the Russian State Political History Museum, the main Cathedral, and the Summer Palace (Peterhof). After the hustle and bustle of Moscow, a relaxing, cultural experience was exactly what the travel doctor ordered.

Despite a few wrenches thrown in at the last minute, and our exhausted states after an amazing and incredibly social weekend in Tallinn (to be blogged about soon), we're finally on the move in our own car! So it's a rental car- unfortunately, we learned after arriving in Estonia that buying a car in the EU without having EU citizenship is a week-long process, not to mention the headache that could come with selling it back- but being in control of our transportation after three weeks at the Russian Railways mercy is a welcome change.

We picked up our Opel Astra (we're taking name suggestions) at 11 AM in downtown Tallinn, and by 11:30 we were off in the countryside, driving on one of the main highways (a 1 lane, partially paved road) through thick forests and past six-point bucks. Outside of the major cities, there's not a lot going on in Estonia- many of the towns that we passed weren't even noticeable from the side of the road, and we would have passed them without realizing their presence had it not been for a road sign and a church steeple punctuating the treeline.

There's not a much better way to get a sense of a size of a place than driving through it. You know that the US is enormous when you spend three full days in a car, and you STILL haven't reached the other coast. Conversely, you know that Estonia's essentially a blip on a map when you spend eight hours behind the wheel and cover 2/3s of the entire country. If you don't believe me, check out today's route:


Tonight we're staying at an adorable bed and breakfast in Viljandi, a small town that apparently is on a lake, but that we haven't been able to see yet on account of darkness. (On that note, adorable is the adjective that comes to mind most often when describing anything in this country) Tomorrow we set off to the coast, then take a left and drive down into Latvia. We'll spend three days there before returning to Tallinn, dropping off the car, and catching a night bus to Vilnius, Lithuania, where we'll rent another car and meet up with three of Kyle's friends.

Not having a car has slightly complicated our itinerary, but I'm choosing to think of it as a gift, as a way to more fully explore the transportation options available to us. By the time we're done with the trip, about the only modes of transportation we won't have taken will be an ox-drawn hay cart and Segway. Though if I see a Segway tour offered in Vilnius, I might have to add it to the list.

Twenty four hours on the train later, we arrived into Moscow's Kazansky station, and immediately dove into the morning rush-hour crowds that packed the metro. Moscow's metro is unlike any other subway system in the world. For starters, it's one of the deepest systems in the world, with some stations over 150 feet underground, and every ride begins with a 3 minute escalator descent down to the platform. Trains come every 60 seconds, but even that isn't enough to adequately cull the crowds that jam the system day and night. And for a subway dork like me, riding on original 1950 model Soviet stock is a huge thrill.

But the most unique aspect of the Moscow Metro is its sheer beauty. Every station is a work of art that tell a story or celebrates an event with stained glass, bronze sculptures, faience tiles, mosaics, and painting. Of course, the subjects of the artwork is closely tied in with the era in which the subway system was built- the 1930s, when Communism and Stalinism were in full swing. Changing lines, it's not uncommon to pass a bust of Stalin, a mosaic depicting a particularly moving speech by Lenin (complete with throngs of cheering proletariats), stained glass memorializing a WWII battle, and hammer and sickle plasterwork below a coffered vaulted ceiling. In the metro, it's hard not to feel like you're in a bit of a time warp, like by going underground you've entered a time warp where the the Soviet Union still exists.





Much like the metro system, the rest of Moscow lives in an uneasy space between its Communist past and its capitalist present. Flocks of tourists line up to enter Lenin's mausoleum, which sits directly across from the Louis Vuitton and Cartier stores that are the new tenants in the former Soviet state department store. Multinational banks occupy buildings that still have the decidedly anti-capitalist hammer and sickle symbol carved into their sides. A 24-hour McDonald's is in eyesight of the Red Square, where Soviet military parades used to file across. And when you're at the market, don't forget to buy your Lenin coffeemug or Stalin matryoshka doll.


Despite the myriad of signs of it's Communist past, Moscow is firmly rooted in the capitalist, money-grubbing world. For starters, it's EXPENSIVE. A Big Mac meal at McDonald's (at which we ate for research purposes, of course) costs $7; computers are marked up 50% from US prices; even a burger and coke dinner at an "American-style" diner set us back $15 a person. Luckily for us, Russia's fast food options are tasty and cheap; if it wasn't for those, we would have gone broke. How any Russian (average salary: $750 a month) affords anything is beyond me.

(Runaway capitalism might have also played a part in the other most frustration aspect of our time in Moscow: the closures of nearly every restaurant recommended in our guidebook. Nowhere else I've been has a year-old guidebook been so hopelessly out of date.)

Even though Moscow had it's share of frustration, there are so many interesting things to see there that it's hard not to have a good time. Lenin's body and mausoleum was as bizarre as we'd expected; St. Basil's cathedral is even more mesmerizing in person than it is in pictures; the Gulag (Soviet forced labor camp) museum was sobering; and the vodka museum was intoxicating. Not even the closures and four days of cold and rain could dampen (or freeze) our spirits- Moscow's a city that deserves to be seen for itself.