Last traditional Lithuanian šaltibarščiai soup at the border station.

This time we did it in my favourite style; hitchhiking and sitting in a truck, Simona chatting what ever with the driver and me sleeping in the bed behind the seats.

It’s going very well. Simona is learning new things about art of hitchhiking and I’m just smiling and enjoying; both our lifts so far are from Lithuanian truck drivers – and I suppose it’s gonna take some time before I hear again this language this much again.

I, unintentionally, ate Simona’s sūrelis. Hope I can find one from Poland for her… those with poppy seeds if possible, dziekuje?

Also I ate my first zapiekanka after New Year’s – such a good memories I’ve got from just some simple bread.

More views from our trip before the big trip: here.

Of course it feels sad to leave family, friends, the beautiful city that we got attached to, especially on such a beautiful summer day. But eh, nobody can be everywhere at the same time! So tomorrow is the day!

But before going to the East we go to the West, hitchhiking through Poland and Germany, first to visit friends in Krakow, Nurnberg, Freiburg (maybe even hitchiking competition there), Berlin and then finally flying to far away lands from there in less than two weeks. That’s the plan, but eh we’ll see how the road (and good-willing drivers) will shape it. Wish us good start and wait for our news!

My lift. Having a pause in Riga.

Beginning of the motorway to Vilnius in Panevėžys. Sunrise and morning mist. Beautiful moment.

Bus stop - a million star hotel.

It's raining in a trolley.

I don’t consider myself too comfort-seeking person, as I’ve proved by all kind of exciting adventures. I really enjoy lazy moments; but when I need to continue still many hours after getting tired or having a tolerance against craziest things, I can manage.

Moving to Lithuania; how smoothly everything has gone! Just one small misfortune, but it was just my own fault and turned out to be an adventure.

I found the flat super easily from my friend. It’s located in Žvėrynas, Vilnius – a super cool area just around the center. Rent is cheap even for Lithuanians (300LT/month).

When I started hitchhiking from Tampere, Finland and got to Helsinki just by one lift, I was thinking I’m so gonna got stuck somewhere in Latvian countryside later on. Ferry from Helsinki left just when I came to there and even a bus to the hitchhiking spot in Tallinn was waiting there when I needed it.

Only after 5 minute waiting I was on a road again, but this driver wasn’t speaking English, Finnish nor Estonia. Only Turkish, so he couldn’t explain that he’s only going for 10km. So short you don’t even count it as a lift. Then in a next moment; a truck! Oh, so you don’t speak English either… oh you are Russian and going to Panevėžys in Lithuania! (Or actually to Klaipėda but I’ll go there some other time.) Basicly all the way from Tampere to Vilnius with just two rides.

And so we were driving long hours and Russian radio channel was playing club-music. It’s just like some Latvian roads/traffic; bad and fast, but it keeps you awake. I was dreaming about traveling; in Estonia there was a graffiti on a bus stop saying “vamoose a Madrid”.

In first place I was thinking I’m gonna spend my night in Riga, Latvia. But hey when you get a ride to Panevėžys, you ain’t letting it go. It was a complete darkness at 2am, some 10km after Panevėžys on a motorway and I was walking. Blinking flashlight and few reflectors on my backpack keeping me safe. You can’t hitchhike in that darkness.

Oh but look there is a bus stop! There would’ve been a hotel nearby, but just for few hours it’s no-go and expensive. It wasn’t most enjoyable sleep on that bench with a sleeping back and all clothes on, but I kinda liked it at morning, how I had spent my warm summer night. It was ok.

At morning I woke up and it was a cockcrow – and actually a real rooster singing there. Beautiful sunrise and some old lady milking a cow on a field. And we are still in EU, only 550km from Helsinki.

I would not done this kind of night-hitchhiking stunt if I would’ve been traveling with my friends and surely I would had planned more. But when I’m alone, I can handle these adventures. I have a lot of tolerance for all this crazy stuff. It’s nothing!

Though at morning my hitchhiking luck ran out and there I was, on a empty motorway for over 3 hours. Finally I just took a local bus (and it came just when I was thinking about it!) to Panevėžys and then from there a bus to Vilnius. Again it was there 10mins after my arrival.

Now I’ve been waiting all day in Vilnius with my backpack, because man with my keys is somewhere out from the city and will be here at late evening.

It’s been like this, kinda smooth and then some little things not that smooth, but hey It’s been some really cool days!

Last really nice thing happened when I was asking about cheap prepaid-SIMs from a CouchSurfing-group. In just one hour there was a man with free spare SIM and I could get it right away. At the same time I could see my future neighborhood (it’s super cool!) and could use a shower. I got some very good hints for living in Vilnius from very nice Austro-Lithuanian gay couple, thanks! Like just around a corner of my house there is a farmers market. More about that in future.

Yay!

Now it’s raining cats’n'dogs, everybody at the railway station got scared of huge lightning, and right after that everybody were laughing. Luckily my friend had an umbrella, because raining followed us into a trolleybus.

Greetings from Latvia:

Driving along via-Baltica in Latvia, with ABBA.