And the road trip begins!
I had a really strong desire to travel to part of Eastern Europe this summer. The way I viewed it, once I am back in the US again, I would make a trip over to Europe to visit Italy, or Greece, or somewhere romantic and fantastic like that. But I was less likely to travel abroad to go to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc. I was planning on making a small trip by myself, via trains in Europe, but a good friend of mine (Katrine) had some vacation to spend, and wanted to go with. This was interesting because when I mentioned the idea of a trip to Eastern Europe to most of my friends, they cringed. There is definitely a negative stereotype towards that area of the world amongst Danes. While these countries are new EU countries, they still are EU countries - but the stereotype is that they are still dark, Soviet-era territories - just not a place that you would vacation. Katrine joining me on the trip also changed the possibilities for me because she owns a car (luxury in Denmark), so we were able to drive and come and go as we pleased)!
We spent some time planning the trip, and these are some of the highlights of what we came up with:
Aarhus, Denmark
-began here, after work and drove to Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark
-spent a night with one of Katrine's friends, as we had to pick up our passports and visas to Russia from the Russian embassy the next day
-what's funny about Copenhagen is that, even though it is 'close' - 3.5 hours away, I still don't feel like I have a grasp on the city. I have some friends living there, but I have only ever gone for one or two nights at a time, maximum
Stockholm, Sweden
-drove up through all of Sweden
-McDonald's EVERYWHERE in this country! So many
-if you can believe it, we only saw ONE Ikea the whole 7 hour drive through Sweden!
-saw very few smokers, predominately, healthy, good-looking people
-stayed the night with my Icelandic friend Ros, who I used to play soccer with
Turku, Finland
-we took an overnight ferry from Stockholm to Turku, Finland - my first time on an overnight ferry (7 hour ferry)
-amazing experience, felt like I was on the Titanic!
-slept in a cozy little cabin with two pull-down beds
-massive ferry
-could only feel the rocking of the ferry when you got out of the islands and hit the open sea
-at dinner, could TOTALLY feel and see the rocking back and forth!
Helsinki, Finland - Vaalimaa, Finland (Russian border)
-we did not stay the night in Finland, as we lost a day of our trip due to the delay in our Russian visas, so we just drove through Finland
-drivers drove below the speed limit
-stopped by a river and had a picnic lunch to take a break
-took about 5 hours, if I can remember correctly?
-it was a 2-lane highway, one lane for each direction; to pass slow cars, you straddle the middle dotted line while the cars in both directions straddle the shoulder (this would be the norm for the rest of the trip until Germany)
Vaalimaa, Finland/Torfyanovka, Russia (Russian border control)
-CRAZY experience! and a bit scary!
-I must admit, I had a bit of anxiety about the whole Russian experience
-we got through (what was the) first border check and thought...that was easy! boy were we wrong
-there were 4 check points along the way
-a Russian man who lives in Finland helped us, as he said he used to be a truck driver and knows the whole process is tough for people who have not done it before
-we had to fill out forms that were solely in Russian! So this man translated for us
-when entering the first checkpoint, there was a lllooonnnggg line of semi trucks waiting to get through - 100s of semis - and I am sure that took them forever to cross into Russia
-we almost did not get let into Russia (and this would have been awful, as this was the highlight for both of us), as Katrine had left a piece of her car title/registration at home by mistake...but after some time, they let us through
St. Petersburg, Russia
-2-3 hour drive from the Finnish border
-right when you cross the border, there are prostitutes on the side of the road, waiting to get picked up, along with old women selling fruit, etc
-biggest culture shock of the whole trip - so happy I went there
-there is NO order in Russia; no sense to the lines; everyone just pushes to the front and cuts there way in line
-culturally, not the most attractive people - larger noses and thicker forehead/eye thing
-people don't smile, ever; even if you smile at them
-we happened to be there on a big celebration day, where everyone was dressed like sailors - from what we understood (from the big navy-like ships parked out front, as well as from what our waitress said), it was a celebration of the sailors returning home
-there is little-to-no English...although with our hotel and our waiters, we managed ok
-street signs were all in Russian - nothing in English. SO HARD to navigate both driving and walking around
-so again, hardly any tourist signs in English, as they are just beginning to let tourists in, and for the most part, tourism is coming from Russians traveling around their own country
-maps were AWFUL - many BIG tourist things were simply not on the map
-I was bit-up by mosquitos in our hotel room - 21 on my face alone, predominately on the left side of my face. I looked like an acne-stricken teenager! Then I had at least 20 on my body and legs
-In general, I would say this:
-such a great experience to go there, I will never forget it
-there are so many modern conveniences in St. Petersburg, yet, somehow, everything is so far from our way of life - it's like a weird anomaly
-everyone we spoke to was super nice, which was against the grain of the stereotype
-we were not bothered AT ALL, or stared at by men, which was expected, and has been customary on most of my travels East
-this is a great city to visit, and we felt predominately safe the whole time; I highly recommend it!
Tallinn, Estonia
-drive to Tallinn from Russia took about 5 hours
-beautiful old city! My favorite stop on the vacation, totally pleasantly surprised
-people are very Scandinavian-like; blonde hair, blue eyes, good-looking
-very picturesque city
-this city has a tie to Denmark, and is where Dannebrog (the Danish flag) is said to have fallen from heaven during a battle in 1219; the Danes were close to defeat when God sent this flag down from heaven - the Danish king grabbed it before it hit the ground, and the energy of the troops turned around and they won the battle, and it has been the Danish flag ever since
-got a parking ticket...oops!
Riga, Latvia
-drive to Riga was about 4 hours
-this was a more 'Eastern' city in terms of the looks of the people
-largest Baltic city in terms of population
-I actually felt like it looked like an American cityscape, with some tall skyscrapers, etc
-we were a little more than halfway through the trip at this point, and were pretty tired; we toured the city a bit, through the help of a bike taxi (a crazy young student who was hilarious!)
-spent a whole afternoon basking in the sun and the heat, having a beer at an outdoor cafe
-our hotel had a bowling alley attached to it with arcade games that was super nice, so we spent an evening there, having so much fun; lets just so I am ashamed to admit my body was sore for two days from the bowling!
Vilnius, Lithuania
-drive to Vilnius took 4-5 hours
-Southern-most part of the whole trip
-very clean city
-less 'Soviet'-like than some of the others
-people here were much more fashion-oriented than many of the other cities
-again, a big city feel, and very American-like
-people looked Scandinavian again
Ryn, Poland
-drive to Ryn took about 6-7 hours
-got off course a little, and were headed to Kaliningrad, Russia, which would have been bad because we would not have been able to cross into the country
-knew going into this part of the trip, we would stop somewhere along the way to sleep if necessary, sort of an unplanned venture
-Poland = HUGE COUNTRY, with sort of unstructured road system; all 'highways' took us through towns, and we were never able to go faster than 80km an hour (normal speed on highway is 110-120km)
-we were frustrated because everywhere we tried to stop was booked because of major festivals and holidays across Poland
-finally stumbled across a place that turned out to be a 4-star castle in Poland - most expensive place we stayed in, but still less than $100 each, and well worth it in terms of dinner (an extremely nice dinner) as well as breakfast (included, and delicious) - highly recommend Hotel Zamek Ryn
Gdansk, Poland
-again, drive took wwwwaaayyy longer than expected, I believe another 5 hours, and this was only the halfway point through Poland
-pretty exhausted at this point, so we only took a car tour through the city, which was okay - Katrine informed me that 95% of the city was destroyed in the war, and everything was new, although old-looking, as it has been recently rebuilt in it's old style
-some of the roads were 'German' roads, built the way German soldiers built them, laying down cement block after cement block, in a row - not very smooth drive, like, dadunk, dadunk, dadunk every 3 seconds
-ate at a KFC here! So excited - I don't normally eat there back home, but it was a nice comforting reminder
-storks everywhere along the highways
-got warned by some Polish police officers for turning the wrong way down a one-way street...ooops!
-honestly, I don't feel like I saw much of Poland, and would like to go back soon, to visit Warsaw, Krakow, etc - and to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp
Gdansk, Poland - through Germany - and home
-we met two Danish hunters at our hotel in Gdansk, and they clued us into a new highway that was not on maps or GPS's yet; we aimed for that and drove the other half of the country in 7 hours...which I am sure saved us a ton of time; we ended up powering through, and driving until 2am to make it to Aarhus, as opposed to stopping in Germany to stay at a hotel, when we would only have been 3 hours from home
Beautiful countryside everywhere we drove! Another thing I knew, but now realize for sure - I am not an adventurous eater in cities where I feel less than totally comfortable - and in those cases, I eat spaghetti, or cheese pizza, or McDonald's. But again, all of these cities were surprisingly modern and Western to me - much more than I anticipated. Again, it is so fascinating for me to see these countries that have such a dark past - wars, Soviets, Germans, concentration camps, etc - and they have come so far. One of the highlights of the trip for me was Katrine mentioning that she was thankful for me that I suggested this trip, and encouraged her to go, because she would never have really chosen this place on her own (or, it would have been low on the list of priorities). And her view, stereotypes and opinions have changed, and now she would recommend these places to her family and friends to go visit; that was cool to me, because I had an open opinion of these places because of the students I knew from school that came from them - but to know the Danish stereotype was overcome meant that these cities, and countries, who have such varying cultures and languages, have come so far in a short period of time.
Stockholm, Sweden
Swedish guards in front of the palace
Note the lock on the bridge. Will discuss this later
Overnight ferry from Stockholm to Turku, Finland
My bed in our cabin
View out our porthole
The isles through Finland are gorgeous
Helsinki, Finland
Checking out the area for the picnic lunch
Line for semis to go through the Finnish/Russian border
St. Petersburg, Russia
People selling stuff on the side of the road all over Russia
Street and road signs were hard in the Cyrillic alphabet
Man fishing in a tiny fountain
Styled like street signs in Paris
Trash piles on the corner
The maps were not great - this building was not even on our map
These locks were all over the bridges in the city - it is because people who are in love, enscribe their names on the lock and then lock it to the bridge
McDonald's in Russia!
Drunk man getting arrested
I am running away from a huge yellow snake wrapped around a man's neck, that I just turned the corner and saw
Total replica of Banana Republic signage
Love this! This is what Russia is about to me!
Open potholes
Chunks taken out of the marble columns because of the war
You can see the 20 mosquito bites on the left side of my face; in total, I had about 60, with 40 being on my face!
Intimidating!
Tallinn, Estonia
Dannebrog is the name of the Danish flag
The Danish flag is said to have come from a battle between the Danish and the Latvians in Riga, that it fell from the sky.
Riga, Latvia
Vilnius, Lithuania
Eating a Lithuanian Torte
Katrine had never seen a stork before, so we stopped a zillion times to get a picture of them.
The castle we stayed at in Ryn, Poland
Stockholm
My Icelandic friend Ros, who lives in Stockholm and let us stay at her apartment
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