Crossing against the light

It’s been about a month since I’ve been displaced to Vilnius, and I’ve done what I can to see this country in this short time. The last two or so weeks, I’ve had the use of someone’s car and I’ve made the most of it.

Gas here is really expensive and the borrowed car is an SUV, so my little excursion over the weekend cost close to $200 in gas, but I took off a day (my first full 8-hour day off since the Antarctica cruise in January 2020) and headed to the coast. The Baltic coast, that is. There’s a resort city (by Lithuanian standards there called Palanga and I hung out in the beach town for a couple of days. It was just me, or, rather, me and my laundry. I got an AirBnB and made sure to reserve a spot with a washer.

I enjoyed the pier way too much.

The beach was nice – tan coarse sand but no shells. There was a long L-shaped pier that I photographed at multiple angles several times a day. The water wasn’t too cold, but as many times as I walked up and down, I only dipped once. Mostly I just made the 6000-step walk from my room to the beach, then down to the pier and back through the park. I was really a nice weekend.

And quite toasty. I forgot I’m in Europe, where air conditioners are not a thing. And, while I know the Western U.S. is cooking and this doesn’t compare, it’s pretty hot for Europe, too. It’s hit over 90, which is pretty rare. It follows a record-setting bitterly cold winter, so I guess it’s an el Nino thing.

All in all, the trip was nice. I had intended to go down a spit to see a lighthouse that’s right near that part of Russia that’s in the Baltics, but after taking the ferry over and starting the drive, I realized that it’s inside the national park, not just outside of it like I had thought. It cost way too much to get into the park, as it was a per vehicle charge. Had I gone with a group – or even another person – it would have maybe been worth it, but as it was, I decided to save four hours of driving, the entrance fee and a third take of gas and just started wandering back a little earlier on Sunday.

Two weekends ago, I did a one-day trip with a colleague to a city called Druskininski, which has a really nice nature park that is smattered with old Soviet statues. I’d read about some of these parks before; when the Soviet Union fell, the statues came down and for whatever reason, they have been installed in parks. When I heard about it, I pictured sort of a graveyard of statues in varying phases of deterioration lying haphazardly in piles. That was not the case at all. The park was set up as a nice walk, with the statues lining the path, along with descriptors for each, saying who the person was (not all were Lenin), where the statue had been, and a couple of other facts about the situation.

Sunset in Palanga, 10:08 p.m.

The Soviets sure spent on propaganda. In reading the detail, most of the statues were from the area. It wasn’t like stuff was hauled in from the FSU – that’s Former Soviet Union in this case. Nope, by and large, it was all local. Presumably, there are parks across the map with these parks, which is kind of eerie.

So that place, randomly selected off a map, was pretty cool, too. It’s been nice to have a car for this short amount of time, but I’m ready to give it back now. I may try to do another short road trip before I leave, but if I do, I’ll rent a fuel-efficient one.

All told, though, it only takes about four hours to drive across Lithuania. I didn’t start from the Belarus border, but Vilnius is only about 20-30 minutes from it, so driving from here to Palanga is basically driving the length of the country. Try doing that in America in one weekend. Perhaps The Bandit could rival it, but I also drove back in the same weekend!

Next week, I am taking four days off and heading on another trip, but it worked out that it would be better to fly, even if I am only going to Poland. Strange, I know, because Warsaw is only five hours away, but that’s the plan. I’ve got AirBnBs (with washers) reserved, train tickets bought and an Auschwitz tour booked.

Druskininski Soviet park

Honestly, this Minsk tour might go down as the most depressing in history. Not only has the job itself not lived up to what it could have been, but the fraudulent election, protests and mass detentions and obscene number of political prisoners and the whole situation adds to it, too. And the fact that my “fun” trips from here have basically been Chernobyl (Ukraine), Chernobyl (Belarus) and now Auschwitz. That’s might sad.

But still, Vilnius is a nice city. In many ways, it’s similar to Minsk but in many, it’s not. The most notable of these is the prices, but another big difference – and one I am enjoying – is crossing streets. Yeah, that sounds weird, but in Belarus, people will stop, Rain Man-like, if the little red “Stop” sign tells them to. They are frozen in place and will not, under most any circumstance, walk until the green walkie light comes on. I’ve seen people – mostly young, but very few in general – muster up the gumption to cross while the red sign is up, and the tension among the other walkers is palatable. It’s just not done, even at 3 a.m. in a snowstorm. People will wait until they are signaled.

Not so much in Vilnius. Mostly, people wait, but if there is no traffic, they’ll cross. It honestly surprised me, but now I have regressed to being one of those rule breakers. Everyone who does it – and I see this on a daily basis here, whereas in Minsk, if I saw one every two months, it was memorable – looks both ways and will not step if there is traffic anywhere, but they will do it. I’m not sure if that’s progress or not, but I’m relieved to not feel guilty about it since I cross several large intersections on the 30-minute walk to the office.