II Trip Report

Bialystok

Vilnius

Riga

Berlin

We had already done south, so in these few days (about a week or more...), we went north. To the Baltic area. The initial plan was, cross Poland until Bialystok, only for a pit-stop, then Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn and catch a flight from Tallinn to Berlin, where we would be only 5 hours away from the starting point, Wroclaw. As we where travelling through the first stops, we heard about the problems in Tallinn, riots and manifestations, and a guy had already died, so we gave up of this destination. We ended our "Baltic Experience" in Riga, leaving from that airport to Berlin, with some extra days on our sleeve to enjoy our visit to the capital of Germany...

Bialystok- What's there to say about this city... East of Poland... Small city. Has I said before, it was more of a pit stop, after 9 hours on a train crossing Poland. Even so, we took a spin at night, before going to bed, on the main avenue. Nice town hall, a lot of advertisements on the streets... But, all the warnings they gave us in Wroclaw were true, it's eastern Poland... It's not exactly the same thing as the western side. Well, it full filled its purpose: to allow us to rest, although the lady in the hostel reception(by the way, the only one in the city!) had some kind of problem with her feet, if I make my self clear. It was hard to breath through all the bureaucracy of the "check-in". Early in the morning in the next day we where already on the move: next stop - Vilnius;

Vilnius- "Slightly" bigger than Bialystok, after all it's a capital, Vilnius was a nice surprise. Calm town, good weather (such luck...), and a very beautiful city center. It was characterized with a lot of medieval remains, and, some new ones: shopping's. I mean, I know that the communist era ended some years ago, but, for Christ sake: Giorgio Armani, Prada, Escada... They were all there. Some years ago, someone sang: "Go west...", but the after all, it's of no use, because West is going East! Anyway, we climbed to the castle, and went up the tower, were we had a panoramic view of the city, even beyond the old city center, and there it was possible to see a new, growing modern area of the city. The hostel wasn't bad... Although no one spoke English there, which doesn't make things easy. The one main problem was that we had a bunch of middle aged Russians, in the next room. Practically drunk all day, when sober, they kept bugging in and asking cigars, or asking for Irina (who the f*** is Irina?")! It might had something to do with prostitution, or some kind of human traffic, but who knows? I don't speak Russian, and I didn't understand also the moans of the also Russian woman back in the next room... So odd it could be a David Lynch movie. Oh, one more thing, Pedro, the girls are nice although not in the same quantity as in Wroclaw.

Riga- We had a blast in Riga. The city is filled with nice details. The architecture is great, and you can see here that the European Union money is being applied in recovering the historical part of the city (and also in the above mentioned shops...)! The Orthodox Church is amazing, Sadly enough, we weren't allowed to take photos inside of it. In the central garden you can find a lot of statues and sculptures, some of them quite comic. Once again there's also the famous costume of leaving locks in some bridges (also in Vilnius). I figured out it should be some kind of ritual for matrimonial good fortune, because almost all of them had the names of couples engraved in them. Before I kept thinking why they take the bikes and left the locks... Regarding the hostel, we broke our record: a 20 bed dormitory. It wasn't that bad. When we arrived there, there was, what I thought to be, a whole strip tease team, sleeping in it... They checked out in that morning... On the door of the room there was a sign saying that the hostel didn't had anything to do with the bar on the basement, so I decided to go out the building and find out what was. Although it was closed, the name said it all: MADmoiselle... So everything was clear then... The strip tease team, with flashy clothes, and the bar bellow the hostel!

Berlin- What a life, what a city! I don't know if I lost a lot by not going to Tallinn, but the extra days in Berlin sure where cool! We decided to spend almost all the first day in a tour (in Spanish, 'cause the group was smaller) around the city's most important sights. We seen it all! And Berlin is also a city of museums, so I had to check some of them too: Pergamon, Bode (the Nefertiti sculpture!), Neue National Galerie, the Bahaus archive, It was great. My feet where killing me, but I couldn't stop. I just had to keep walking! There's so much to see! The Reich stag, Berlin Siegessäule, the Wall (or what still remains of it!), the Bradenburg Gates and so on! Needless to say, I took hundreds and hundreds of photos. Some of them are in these sets of this post, but later on I plan to post some more interesting details... About the hostel in Berlin... Jesus... That wasn't a hostel! I think it categorizes already as an hotel!!! It was called Generator Hostel, and it also exists in London. Its HUGE, a whole block building! It's not in the city center, but it a very good connection by tram or underground: 15 min. I loved Berlin, and since it's "only" 5 ours from here, I just might return there before going to Portugal in the Summer.

There is so much more things to tell, but then again, this is getting quite long, and I know that most of you don't ready the texts anyway. I fell like a writer for the Playboy magazine... One more thing: if you would like to see some more photos from our trip, take peek at Filipa's own blog: Enfezado. Take care!