Auschwitz, with a grain of salt

I finally got a “vacation” this past week, darting off to Poland from Saturday until Thursday. I had to be back before Friday or I would have lost my hotel room for the weekend.

Flying in the time of COVID stinks. Going there was really not a problem; I bummed a ride from a colleague also heading out and no one even bothered to look at my vaccine card. Coming back, though, it was nuts. I thought since it was EU to EU there was nothing involved (I mean, hey, the way there was EU-EU, too) but I had to log on to some site in the airport and get a QVC code and then when I went to check in with the airline staff (none of whom were wearing masks), one asked why I’d done it. I pointed to another one and said, “He told me to.” I have no idea. Boarding the plane, they were looking at everyone’s QVC code, but not mine – I just got shooed onto the plane back to Lithuania. Getting off, though, they looked at multiple things from everyone. As if something had changed from boarding to deplaning.

Anyway, I spent two days in Warsaw and then took a train to Krakow, spending two days there before heading back for the last night in Warsaw before heading back. I should have thought to just fly back from Krakow, but I think I would have had to go through Warsaw anyway, so whatever.

The highlight – or lowlight, however you want to view it – was Tuesday, when I did a package Auschwitz-salt mine tour.

As you can imagine, Auschwitz was gut-wrenching. We visited both I and II, standing right on the sites where thousands of Jews were murdered at once multiple times a day. We saw the warehouses that had been found filled with sorted goods, such as one for luggage, one for eyeglasses and one for shoes. Over 300,000 pairs of shoes had been found at the time of the liberation. That’s not how many there were total; that’s how many were found. The Nazis had offloaded stuff as it came in, even – and I did not know this – using the hair they shaved from the Jews for weaving into textiles. There was an entire storage display of human hair. It was absolutely horrifying.

It’s hard to imagine that kind of hate, but there it was; brick building after brick building, each one built for 700 Jewish (or Roma) women or men, but holding over 1k of them, six to a bunk. We saw the spot where the Germans would shoot any misbehaving prisoners. I just can’t comprehend it. Over a million people killed in that facility, right on the edge of town.

We walked for about three hours, and it was pretty hot. All I could think of was that the Jew were forced to walk that far to the factory before they worked 10- to 12-hour days. And as hot as it was, it gets that cold in the winter, and darkness comes early. I honestly cannot imagine. The guide said the fences were electrified and that people would commit suicide by throwing themselves on them.

Since I knew I wouldn’t have been able to handle both Auschwitz and Schindler’s factory in one day – just too much – I opted for the tour that went to the Wieliczka salt mine, which is just outside of Krakow. I took as many pictures as I did in Auschwitz, but it was a bit cheerier. First, we descended 60 meters or something like that down; it was 53 flights of 6-7 steps each. I was towards the last in my group and was humming “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go” the whole time – I have no idea how I managed without bursting into song, because the whole experience screamed for it.

The mine was incredible. Honest to God, I had no idea the “salt mines” in “off to the salt mines” were a real thing.  I thought salt came from the ocean, not underground. By the end of the tour, we had walked three hours, finished over 130 meters underground and the tour guide said we’d only covered 1 percent of the whole thing. The thing was huge. For the tourist part, they had set up displays that included statues and such, all made of salt. The flooring in many parts was made of salt blocks. There were even multiple cathedrals underground, with everything carved out of salt, including a replica of “The Last Supper” and a life-size statue of Poland’s favorite son, Pope John Paul II.

It was a nice way to end the day; I knew the morning would be emotional but had no idea what the salt mines were all about. I went in with no expectations and it was a pleasant surprise. Even lunch was pretty good.

I stayed in AirBnBs the first four nights, two in Warsaw and two in Krakow and it was fabulous having a kitchen again. Unfortunately, rice apparently isn’t a thing; that’s what I wanted to cook but the grocery store I went to (a tiny one) didn’t have any, so I opted for pasta and a salad. It was just nice to be able to turn on a stove.

My housing was in Old Town in both cities, but Old Town in Warsaw is really a Disney-eque version, because all of Warsaw was leveled and has been rebuilt. But it’s been done nicely and I had a great stay, walking around everywhere. I got a bus pass for 24 hours but someone still surpassed 30k steps; I’m not even sure how that happened.

The only museum I went into was the Polish museum; it went back to Abraham, so that was pretty cool. I went to the Uprising museum but the guides said it was best for hard-core history buffs so I skipped it. Mostly I just walked and took pictures, which is what I usually do.

Krakow was more authentic old town, and again, my housing was right there. The windows were open and I could hear the horse-drawn carriages clomp-clomping down the street. It was a nice break.

The trains were fine other than setting off in the wrong direction and turning a 15-minute walk to a hotel into a 30-minute walk, everything was good upon return to Warsaw. Since I’ve now reached some kind of ultra-special level at Marriott, I sprung for the Westin for the last night, although, unlike in Vilnius, I declined to get the rate with breakfast. It was a good decision. With my newfound specialness, I was welcomed with open arms and informed that I now get breakfast, so that was nice. Even nicer was a coupon for a dinner in the restaurant downstairs, an upgraded room and a massive bowl of fruit upon arrival. We are talking banana, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, cherries, pomegranate, fig, apple, orange, grapefruit, kiwi and a plum, assuming I am remembering them all. I gorged and then took a walk.

The dinner menu was limited but perfect: I could pick two items off an abbreviated menu. I opted for “chicken with seasonal vegetables” and a “tart with fruit.” Well, again, it was a farmer’s market. The chicken itself maybe half a breast and seasoned nicely, sitting on a small bed of mashed potatoes. The veggies mirrored the fruit basket: so many varieties, but just a couple bites of each: one asparagus stick, maybe 3-4 strings of beans, some kind of carrot and zucchini cut into a cylinder, broccoli, cauliflower … possibly more. It was so much. Then dessert, I could not locate a tart, but again was hit with a massive fruit pile, but this time it included watermelon, pineapple and at least three other melon kinds, plus other stuff. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much non-meat in one 24-hour span than I have in my life. But eat it I did. It took forever, but I sat in that hotel bar and paced myself. By the end of the evening, the only things out of all three services that I didn’t eat were the apple, orange and banana. Since they packed well, I took them back with me.

Once home, I still have my Marriott status, and the kind folks at the Courtyard moved the bag they stored for me into my new room, which they deemed an upgrade. I kind of had to laugh at that because, well, it’s a Courtyard. There’s really not an upgrade. The room is five doors down from the other one and its mirror image. However, they did leave me a piece of pie, four cherries with whipped cream and some other kind of berry. I could get used to this.

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.

Come fly with me

 It’s a four-day weekend for me and I had wonderful plans that crashed and burned. Fortunately, how it worked out, nothing crashed and burn.

Cemetery garden

Since I have access to a car for the next two weeks, I’d hoped to make a run for the Baltic Sea and go to a castle located on a split. The sea is only about 3-4 hours away, but you have to ferry to the split, so that adds a couple hours; it’s not a safe trip for one driver to up and back in a day, so I hoped to overnight somewhere.

Since Tuesday is a Lithuanian holiday as well, I guess it booked up fast because there was nothing available on or near the split, so I looked for nearby things. Found one, but in trying to book on Friday for Saturday night, it turned out to be a little late, I guess. By Saturday at 10 a.m., I hadn’t gotten confirmation so I called it off and looked to other plans.

Research these days is done on the internet, so I checked Viator with no intention of actually purchasing a trip but instead just getting an idea of what’s out there. Lithuania is not so big, but you have to head in the right direction.

There are a couple places that seemed really good and I opted for what someone on Viator called “The Troy of Lithuania.” No horses, just an archeological site about 30-40 minutes outside of Vilnius in Kernave (Ker-NAHV-ee, I think), which seemed doable in someone else’s car. It’s a much bigger car – full-sized SUV for a family of four – that normally are found around Vilnius, and just getting out of the parking garage proved a challenge.

I walked ALL over the site in Kernave

Other than getting utterly confused in trying to find the right freeway – roundabouts; question as to what was considered “the second exit” and not knowing which direction was north – I got there just find and found parking at a cemetery.

The cemetery itself was pretty awesome; the plots had been transformed into actual gardens with lovely flowers and plants. The landscaping was beautiful, even for the plots for the people who had been dead for generations. There were several people there tending gardens; I drove in following a group of three women who hauled out dirt, rakes and loads of begonias out of their car. They really take care of them.

After heading to the museum, I went to the site itself, which is a huge, huge area that once encompassed five forts on the top of five hills. There was also a flat area between the hills and a river that would have contained tribes of people; the land had been inhabited going back to the 13^th century. It was the capital of Lithuania at one time. It was quite interesting, but in the end, it was basically a lovely walk through a lot of grass and up and down a lot of stairs. I did ALL the stairs, up to each of the five forts sites and back down again. My calves are killing me today; my iPhone says I did a total of 39 flights of stairs yesterday.

But it was wonderful to get out of town and just wander. There weren’t many people there at all, and at one point – at the top of the last fort, which was a bit away from everyone else – I just plopped down and read some of my book.

As this is my only weekend in between classes, I could do it with a clean conscience and not feel I should be concentrating on something else; that was why doing something this weekend was so important to me. (Never mind that everyone else I know was out of town.)

Before I took off for Kernave, I also looked for hot air ballooning here. I know they have them because I see them outside my hotel window on a regular basis. I looked up some companies, sent and email and immediately got WhatsApp’d. I’d plugged in looking for Sunday but it turns out, it came out that they had an opening for Saturday night.

So last night, after walking 25k steps (the last hour to the balloon meeting spot), I got into a balloon for the third time in my life.

This one was smaller than the ones I’d taken in Cappadocia and Luxor, but it was glorious, at least after I relaxed. It was far more crowded; I think we had eight people in there; six Russian tourists, the pilot and the guide. Everyone spoke Russian, and I learned I know absolutely balloon-type terms in Russian, because I understood absolutely nothing. Even the abbreviated English-language safety instructions were vague, so I was glad I’d done it before so I kind of knew what was going on.

We sailed for about an hour, drifting over close to Trakai, the island castle where I’d gone last week. It also had been a capital of Lithuania. I had thought we’d fly over Old Town, but you’re sort of at the mercy of the wind so we were off in another direction. Since I’d been to the fort and the Hill of Three Crosses, I do feel like I’ve had a good view of Vilnius from high, anyway. We did pass over one absolutely majestic castle/church/something. I don’t know what it was, but it was right on a lake and beautiful.

In general, Lithuania is full of trees and lakes, which looks lovely from the air. I really don’t know what path we took, but there were lots of balloons this weekend, about 35. This pales in comparison to New Mexico’s 700 or so, but it on par with Cappadocia, which has 30-40 most mornings and evenings. Normally, Vilnius – the only European capital that has hot air ballooning over the city – has far less than that, like 10 or so.

It was a lot of fun. My photos don’t reflect the beauty of it; I was on the west side of the balloon and was shooting into the setting sun lots of the time. It really was gorgeous.

As we got closer to the ground, we could wave to the people there, many of whom were out watching the balloons go over. One little girl chased us, waving as she ran across her yard, clearly delighted. My mind flashed to the little girl Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi) had tea with on Con Air’s layover in that movie. Her dog was quite excited to see us, too. It must be the things to do in the evenings.

Since you’re sort of at the mercy of Mother Nature upon landing, too, we wound up coming down in someone’s back yard. There’s a chase car that finds a spot, asking permission of the owners before landing. We came down in the vicinity of another balloon, at the house of a couple who were swimming in their little baby lake.

Considering that the shaky plan I’d had for the weekend went kaput on Saturday morning, I think I made quite a recovery. Today, Sunday, I am planning on checking out an English-language church service and then walking to the ritzy mall and just poking around. I had hoped to catch another movie but the one that sounded palatable isn’t playing. Something with Liam Neeson is, but as much as I like him, his movies are better viewed on cable.

One of my colleagues returns tonight and we were considering a quick day trip tomorrow, but the destination is as of yet unknown.

Zhive Belarus! Long Live Belarus!

On June 3, my boss got called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Minsk and was told that the embassy had to lower the number of diplomats in the country. It has to do with retaliation of our sanctions against Belarus for, well, not treating people nicely.

Here’s a fairly succinct summary from https://diplopundit.net/.

In 2008, the Belarusian Government imposed restrictions on the number of U.S. diplomats allowed in Minsk, and the State Department was forced to reduce its embassy staff from 35 to five diplomats as well as withdraw the U.S. Ambassador. The number of U.S. diplomats was later increased to six in July 2014. We are not sure how many were at post prior to this latest development.

I arrived to Minsk in October 2019 and was American No. 11; people told me that so often I felt I should have a jersey made! We added a few others after I arrived, so when we had to cut back again, a handful of us were told on Sunday that we would be leaving the following Saturday.

Photo from the tweet about us
being forced to leave Belarus.

Initially, I was told I was just going to have my tour cut short and that I would be getting some well-earned time off, but once I pointed out that I did not, indeed, want an additional 280 hours of annual leave, someone at a higher pay grade than me determined that I’d go at least temporarily next door to Vilnius to work.

 So that’s where I am at the moment – Europe’s G Spot. (Not kidding: https://vilniusgspot.com/ - “Nobody knows where it is, but when you find it, it’s amazing”). It’s been a gut-wrenching and emotional ride and no one can say for sure what will happen. For me, it’s easier because I was, and still am, destined to end my tour in mid-August, but the others affected were to be in Minsk for much longer and they are fairly clueless as to what tomorrow, next week and next month bring.

 In a span of less than a week, I found out I’d be displaced and packed out my entire apartment, threw everything else in a couple of suitcases and convoyed three hours. I’m now camped out in a Marriott and working out of a big room with a table for a desk. The embassy in Vilnius was already full when we arrived and we’re cramping them, but they’re being really nice about it.

 My successor is SOL; she will have to find another assignment. It occurred to me that this is the third consecutive tour where my position’s been eliminated, and the second where I’ve had to leave post early. Last time, I headed to Washington, D.C. to finish my tour but for whatever reason that wasn’t on the table. I would have been fine to do that again and don’t really understand what happened, but I’m fine working here for now.

Vilnius is a lovely little city and the weather has been really nice. So nice that I had to go buy a sun hat; I packed up all my hats to ship to Baghdad. I did the same with my workout clothes, so I’ve taken advantage of a chain of thrift stores here to go and buy some what will be disposable exercise gear. There are plenty of places to buy new stuff, but Lithuania is on the Euro and it’s way, way more expensive than Belarus. Someone in my displaced group pointed out that as far as prices go, the numeral is the same but the value is different. Something that cost 10 Belarusian rubels, like a decent sandwich, costs 10 Euros here. The difference is the Euro is worth three times more than the rubel, so it’s quite an increase in price.

My hotel room has a fridge and a kettle, plus offers breakfast. That’s my big meal of the day, and after six days, my “regular” is already known. Today, a Saturday, there were a lot of families down in line for breakfast and one of the employees asked if she could just get mine for me. I was fine with preferential treatment in that case. Unless something goes South, I’m here for 21 days initially and then have the option of this hotel or moving to another. Since I have a lot of stuff, I’ll likely just stay here but I do loathe the thought of two solids months in a hotel.

What is happening in Belarus makes me sad and it hurts to leave. We had a “hail and farewell” and I essentially broke down; on top of everything, it was also one of my employee’s last days and I tried to give a little talk about how amazing it’s been working with him but I could barely speak.

The people of Belarus deserve what they voted for, which is not the dictator at the helm.

Positives First

Everything has changed, but at the moment, this is going to be about Hrodna, the last city I visited in Belarus, which was over Memorial Day weekend. I managed to cover quite a bit of the little country in my time, and I am grateful for that.

Zhive Belarus! This is considered a protest in Belarus;
whoever did it could be fined $1k or be
put in jail. Not kidding.

Hrodna is about 3-4 hours away, on the border with both Lithuania and Poland. Three of us went and stayed in a really nice hotel on the edge of (or maybe in; I wasn’t clear about that) a national forest. It had a pool and sauna in addition to the lovely breakfast. The first full day we explored the city and the second we went to the Augustów Canal, which is almost on the Polish border.

There’s been a lifetime full of stuff since we went even though it was only two weekends ago. Hard to believe.

Anyway, we walked into the city and saw another cool old town. I’ve seen lots of ruins in this area and in Turkey, that is for sure. We saw several churches and a synagogue, plus the old castle that’s there. It was closed for renovations but it is definitely the highlight of the “skyline.” (Not so many skyscrapers, you know?) Had pretty good schwarma (I felt like it was legit because the guys at the next table were speaking Arabic, and they would know.) Didn’t buy anything because I felt like I had everything I needed from Belarus. I have so many magnets that I no longer pick them up from every place I go. I have one from Belarus already (a tractor) and just don’t have room for each individual city.

Boats and flowers. My favorite combination.

So I took pictures. A lot of pictures. We had bizarre weather in that we covered several seasons in a day. I’d brought a rain jacket but didn’t take it, although we did get sprinkled on. (It’s a heavy-duty rain jacket and seems wasteful for a sprinkle.) I wore my Chacos for the first time in the season and got the annual horrible blisters that I get, but I’ve learned to arm myself with Bandaids so it was fine.

The canal was much tinier than I thought it would be. I have nothing to base any opinion on, but I was thinking Suez and this was small enough for a tourist boat to squeeze through. But it was very cool to watch; we saw a boat go through it. A guy manually opened the gates and we sat there and watched the water level lower so the little party boat (maybe 50 people) could pass on through.

One of the cool churches in Hrodna.

We rented bikes there and had an hour-plus ride, which reminded me that I am not a biker, but it was pretty. We just went down the trails – over the river and through the woods to the little tent refreshment stand by the river. My colleagues had the wheat beer (barely any alcohol) but I just had a soft drink and an ice cream bar. There was no indoor plumbing, so we used the outhouse. I went into a wooden one across a field, where someone had thoughtfully left some really big leaves to use as toilet paper.

I liked this little guy. Saw him crossing the
road and felt it was photo-worthy.

On Monday, we headed back but stopped by the Lida Castle, which looks more like a fort. There are differences and we discussed them, but I really don’t know which is which. But Wiki calls that one a castle, so I’ll go with it. At this point, I’ve been in dozens of them so we didn’t stay long, but there was a field trip of kids there at the same time and we got a kick out of watching them because the employees had staged activities from them: Tandem skiing, sword fighting, archery and the like. After that, we went to the drinking establishment by the river and had either a cold or a hot one (beer vs. chocolate and then headed back home.)

Flash forward to two weeks and now I am sitting in a hotel room in Vilnius. More on that later, but much has happened. However, at the moment I am working on two classes and the paper due dates are on Sundays, so I need to spend the day doing that. When I catch my breath, I’ll update.

Depressing sights

 

If you squint you can see the reactor. 
View from a fire tower.

A couple weekends ago, I went with a small group to the Belarus Exclusion Zone, a 30-kilometer area that was devastated by the Chernobyl disaster 35 years ago. Belarus suffered far more than Ukraine did; it dealt with 75 percent of the damage and is a much smaller geographical area than Ukraine. Belarus is only 5k from the reactor that caused the damage. I run further than that every morning. (Though not very quickly.)

A Minsk travel company, Walk to Folk, organizes tours and one of my colleagues contacted them about taking just a group from work on a tour. This was in part because we needed an English translator and in part because our boss would only agree to allow a group of us to go if it was only us in a van. (Not many people in Belarus have had the COVID vaccine, so it was a health precaution more than anything.)The company met us at the office at a horrific 5 a.m. and then drove us the four and a half hours down. Since this was a one-day trip, it was a very, very long time in a car – in the end, we got home around 11 p.m.

Once there, we suddenly became a “delegation” when someone from the Ministry of Emergency Services joined us, having come down from Minsk to accompany us on the trip. It was quite a surprise, and very “Big Brother”-ish, although it wasn’t anything nefarious. Just the same as in the Exclusion Zone on the Ukrainian side, the tour company has to apply for permits and needed copies of our passports to get them. The permits come from the ministry, so they saw a bunch of diplomats – and only diplomats – coming, so they decided to give us the quarter tour for the price of a nickel. It was quite nice of them, actually. (The chocolate factory did the same thing.)

At one point, I was talking to the representative and he asked if our trip was a team-building thing of some sort and assured him it was just that we had wanted to come and explained the parameters of our boss allowing us to come and he understood. He was quite nice and he was taking advantage of the opportunity to visit the park (it’s a nature preserve now) without having to be “on” – he took more selfies than the rest of the group combined.

Of the group, I was the only one who had previously been to the other side and the damage entirely paralleled it. One difference, though, was that we were giving much more rein to wander through the decrepit buildings, some of which had rotted and sagging floors. I mean, it’s been 35 years.

As on the Ukrainian side, the visuals are astoundingly depressing, especially considering the Belarusians didn’t know about the disaster immediately and continued to do things like go to school. There are discarded and abandoned items everywhere, and, although I don’t doubt that they’re authentic, it does make you wonder how they’ve survived exactly in the same place for so long. At the very first viewing, the guide pointed to a rusted toy truck lying in the grass -- a very sobering sight – and, after taking several photos at different angles, you realize that wow, how odd that the side of the road has been mowed but some truck (or shoe) isn’t completely overgrown. So there’s got to be a little bit of staging involved, but that doesn’t take away the authentic feel to it.

As a wildlife area, they monitor for forest fires and have about 25 towers around the area. At the one closest to the border – 18 kilometers – the reactor is visible, but only if you climb three of the five flights of stairs up the fire tower. It terrified me, but I did it. No way was I missing that.

Following the visit, because we were a “delegation,” we were shown the monitoring room, where a guy watches video feeds from the towers to monitor from fires. It was quite cool and a bit creepy – their cameras were WAY better than mine; the operator called up a picture of the reactor that looked like the ones I’d taken from the Ukrainian side. And he also called up, while we were watching,  video of us in the tour van!

There’s a river – the Pripyet, same name as one of the larger communities that was devastated (the one that has the Ferris wheel) – and there were several aged boats, which, me being me, loved. I hate to think of how many photos I took. I can’t imagine doing having done that at camp in 1982 with only 24 shots for a whole week! But the river was gorgeous; the tour company also offers a kayaking tour there.

Now that I realize that the tour company is operating again, I will have to look at other weekend trips. I’d been monitoring the site but not seeing any updates. Turns out, they’ve been operating through COVID but just hadn’t gotten a chance to update the English version of the website.

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend and three of us are headed to another city in the direction of Lithuania. Because I’ll be out of commission until Monday, I am having to put together four papers for the two classes I am taking. Needless to say, I had a crappy weekend. ALL I did was coursework.

But that’s better than being on a diverted/hijacked plane and being yanked off. The world is again appalled at what “Europe’s last dictator” has pulled. I cannot imagine what he thought the reaction would be, but it’s not looking good. I will refrain from commentary. 

Here's the State Department statement:

The United States strongly condemns the forced diversion of a flight between two EU member states and the subsequent removal and arrest of journalist Raman Pratasevich in Minsk. We demand his immediate release. This shocking act perpetrated by the Lukashenka regime endangered the lives of more than 120 passengers, including U.S. citizens. Initial reports suggesting the involvement of the Belarusian security services and the use of Belarusian military aircraft to escort the plane are deeply concerning and require full investigation.

We are closely coordinating our response with our partners, including the EU and Lithuanian and Greek officials. Given indications the forced landing was based on false pretenses, we support the earliest possible meeting of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization to review these events.

Independent media are an essential pillar supporting the rule of law and a vital component of a democratic society. The United States once again condemns the Lukashenka regime’s ongoing harassment and arbitrary detention of journalists. We stand with the Belarusian people in their aspirations for a free, democratic, and prosperous future and support their call for the regime to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Saving Soles

 Since I’m down to maybe 3-4 months left in Minsk, I’m trying to wrap my brain around what I need to do, what I should do, what I want to do and what I can do. Stuff starts to get real about this point in a tour, when you scramble to figure what needs to be done before you leave. Places to see, things to do – you know.

Soles like new. Inside, not so much.

And of the random things to do, “get shoes resoled” fell low on the totem pole, but I found a place and had gotten my black shoes redone a bit earlier. The LL Bean shoes were originally around $80 and I bought them when I was in Minot, so they’re almost 9 years old. Here, getting them resoled took two days and only cost around $12! I was thrilled with the black ones and went this week to get the brown ones done. My small little victory. It’s really hard to do with little to no language skills. I know how to say “new” but not “shoes” or “soles.” Fortunately, when I went with the black ones earlier, I went the day after going with someone to scout the place, so the guy had an idea of what I needed. When I went to do the brown ones – at a different place because the original place was closed that particular day – I just showed the bottoms of the black ones and pointed to the brown ones. I guess it makes it easier that the shoes are identical except for the color.

A couple months ago, I finally splurged on some new clothes. Like pretty much the rest of my wardrobe, it all was from LL Bean. When I got the order in, I went to hang up the shirts. I think LL Bean is using different manufacturers now because I am no longer an XL in some of the shirts, but that wasn’t my takeaway. I hung up three new shirts and then counted all my hang-up shirts. I have exactly 26 of them. Sixteen are from LL Bean; all variations of the wrinkle-free oxfords. And the pants I wear to work? Every single day (except Fridays when my boss is working from home), I wear a pair of LL Bean Perfect Fit pants, which I have in a couple of styles and a range of colors. I have 13 of them. So essentially, every day, I wear three catalog items. Well, four, if you count my backpack. I have two of those – a backpack for M and F and then a slingy thing for the rest of the days. On Mondays I bring in my Russian textbook and then I take it home on Fridays; it doesn’t fit into the slingy thing. If I was better looking, I’d apply to be a model. I certainly feel like I should have some street cred with them.

Sums up my closet

Today, though is one of those unicorn days where I’m wearing zero LL Bean – at least now that I’ve warmed up enough to take off the vest. It’s Saturday, so I’m wearing Levi’s and my “Kurdagonia” shirt from Erbil. It’s also the first day of another four-day weekend, so it’s likely I’ll be wearing the same thing tomorrow, too.

No out-of-town plans this weekend. We have a couple of social work events on Monday and Tuesday, so that was reason to stick around. Today, I cooked for the Monday one. Ran myself out of red beans, so that’s something. Tomorrow, I’ll use the second-to-last brownie mix. Tomorrow my big thing is a massage. I’m going to splurge and do an hour and a half.

Still no trips planned to the grocery store. I was going to go this weekend but the one thing I planned on getting was bread to resume PB sandwich lunches and since we only have a three-day work week, I’ll just continue with rice or macaroni like I did this week. Geez, this morning, since I have no potatoes, I decided to eat a side dish of macaroni with my scrambled eggs. It was a bit weird, but I just can’t justify buying carbs when I have so darn many carbs in my pantry. But I’ll cave next weekend. The call of ice cream is strong, and I can justify it because I have a thing of caramel waiting to be ingested.

Next weekend, we have the road trip planned and now there are, I think, eight of us going. It’s only a one-day trip, but it’s a seriously long one day. Hopefully it all works out; I keep having fears something will happen.

I pulled out the Belarus map and realized that the next weekend trip isn’t exactly where I thought, so that will still leave one region unseen. I may try to do another little train trip either later this month or June to see it, especially if the EU hasn’t opened up yet. However, we realize that Ukraine is also open, so that’s a possibility. But I really want to get to Poland before I leave here, so I hope that opens up.

My next classes start on Monday, so I have to work around that as well. Going away for a full weekend isn’t the greatest idea because Sunday night is the day the assignments are due, and I’m doing two classes instead of one this time. It’s probably not the wisest idea, but for some reason it seemed that way at the time. So I’m just going to take it week by week and hope it works.