When we arrived in Lithuania we thought we'd go in and just sleep a bit to recover from the bus ride, but after checking schedules to our next destination we decided on just a very short stay in Vilnius and so we headed straight out for sight-seeing. We met up with a really nice Aussie guy who'd been in the city for a few days and we spent the day with him and a nice American man too. We saw a quirky little part of the city called the Republic of Uzupis, which is a place that declared itself an independent republic in 1997. Follow the link for more information about this interesting place which is overrun with artists and even has it's own constitution!
We also went into the Genocide Museum which is in the former KGB headquarters building...
I've read my whole life about WWII and horrors that happened there but not too much about the Soviet regime and occupied most of Eastern Europe for many years after that war. The Baltic countries were not free of this until 1991...another thing I was quite oblivious to as I was just a small girl at the time. The Museum had so many informative and interesting things to be seen and even more than that a lot of really disturbing things as well. Tales of torture and imprisonment, lack of freedom and personal choices. The further I travel north on this trip the more I find that I am exceedingly lucky to have been born in a country with rights and freedoms abounding. Things that we as Americans take for granted every day these people had to fight for as little as 20 years ago.
The next day Megz and I just wandered around on our own. We went shopping a lot but managed to see at least one important thing. In the square in front of the big cathedral there is a stone marking the spot where a 2,000,000 person human chain ended. The chain was formed in 1989 as a public outcry against the Soviet occupation. It stretched from Tallinn, Estonia all the way to Vilnius!Speaking of Tallinn, this was our next destination...a mere day and a half after arriving in Vilnius we set out on a night bus for Tallinn. It wasn't a long one this time, only 9 hours, but it was filled with nosey Spanish people...very little sleep was achieved! We arrived very early in the city and were dropped off at the port where we made the freezing walk to our hostel of choice and arrived at 6:30AM.
I love Tallinn (I mean, take a look at that picture above, where else can you find a giant egg for sale in the refrigerated section of the grocery store)!! That is all I can say, we didn't see much of it and what we did see was under construction, a lot of the city is, but it is just fantastic! We walked around a very medieval old town for most of our visit or spent time gaining energy in the hostel by watching mind-numbing movies, but it was great. We found time one day to take the short ferry over to Helsinki, which is in Finland.
Yay, we added Scandinavia to our list of places we got to go, though I think one day hardly counts. We went into the two main churches, the orthodox and the protestant, saw the changing of the guards at a little place that gathered no crowd, and got our feet totally wet when it started to rain. It appears that Megan and I have both ruined our shoes on this trip by walking holes into the soles of them. Mine were purchased specially for the trip so I am happy to say that I've walked enough to ruin a pair of shoes in less than two months...an accomplishment if nothing else on this trip has been!
Oh, back to Helsinki though....We did take a ferry out to Suomenllina Island, which is a short 20 minute ride. We were able to walk around this unique fortressed island, which is actually made up of 3 different islands...it was made a UNESCO site because of it's uniqueness, in fact. 
There we were able to see also a really interesting lighthouse which is also a church...it was really plain on the inside, much like the churches at home, and I loved it so much!On the day we were set to leave Tallinn we planned to, yet again, do nothing. We went and organized our bus tickets to the next city and walked around enjoying the city once again. We left ourselves plenty of time to get to the port, where we were supposed to catch our bus at 1:55, or so we thought!
It turns out that the girl at the booking office told us the wrong time, the bus left the port at 1:25 and so we were sitting there all along thinking that we'd made it in time and we really hadn't! Luckily I had one of those really weird feelings about it all and went in to the info booth to check there about the schedule...we rushed into a taxi driven by, quite possibly, the nicest man alive! He ran every red-light and sped the whole way to the bus terminal, only to get there and see our bus pulling out. He then basically blocked the bus with his car and shoved us on with our belongings as we thanked him profusely...yet again another story of the kindness of many strangers along our journey!
And so we were on our way...to Riga, Latvia. Riga is the capital and again a quite charming city. We checked into a very quiet 20 bed hostel, which incidentally we had all to ourselves for 2 of the 3 nights...Megzi and I treated it like our own apartment. We have gotten into the habit of making our own food to save $$ and this hostel was impecably (sp?) clean and tidy, just perfect for making grand meals!
We went out and enjoyed walking through the parks and winding streets of the old town. We took recommendation from our hostel manager to try some local dishes at a restaurant called Lido...have no idea what we ate but it was really good! 
We went into the spire of the St. Peters Church, which incidentally has fallen off before, killing many civilians (but never fear...that was 100s of years ago!), we drank LOTS of hot chocolate and just throughly enjoyed the coziness of the cafes because it was FREEZING temperatures outside. But my favorite bit of Riga was 
something we did on the day we left...we saw the new 007 movie...and it was really cheap! We payed 2.45LAT which is just over 5 CHF and I guess would be right around 5 dollars (since the going rate in Switzerland is around 18CHF we really found this movie date a bargain!). When we exited the theatre we realized just what a time crunch we had on our hands and so we hurried back to the hostel, grabbed our lunch/dinner and our things and ran to the bus stop where we just barely made it on board and headed to the airport.
On a really sad note, I was standing in line in a grocery store in Riga on Wednesday when my cell phone rang. Mom and Dad, my great grandfather has died. He's not been well for quite some time and had a stroke on Sunday. He was in hospital when his heart gave out...nearly 90 years old, married for over 70 years. He had children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and even great great grandchildren...he worked hard and gave everything he had for all...his church and his community. No one can blame his heart for giving out...he gave it all away in the numerous years that he lived. I will miss him so much, I regret not being there for my family, specifically Mom and Grandmother, right now. I love you all and I'll be home soon!
We are currently in Berlin, Germany (wait for that post later!) and loving it. This is our last stop and we plan to be here for 7 days before returning to Zürich.Thanks to you all for reading.
LuLu
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