Well, I'm back from behind the Iron Curtain. I am currently in the process
of writing up my travel logs, including many, many photographs. Then I have
to figure out a way to broadcast it. Any ideas?
How could I possibly summarize this trip? I visited Poland, Lithuania,
Latvia, Estonia, Russia, and even Finland, in just two and a half weeks.
Much of this time was spent on a train. Some trains were very nice. Some
were not. I do not recommend the night train from Tallinn to St. Petersburg
(hence the train to Helsinki just to avoid that return trip to Tallinn), but
that was just my personal experience. Nor can I highly recommend Bauska,
Latvia, but that's another story.
It was probably the most exciting adventure in my whole life, but if I were
to describe only one thing that made a truly lasting impression on me, it's
that I am just so GLAD that I speak the native language of this country. By
the end of four days, I cannot tell you how HAPPY I was when I could
understand what they told me in restaurants. Even though it was, "That'll be
24 rubles," just the fact that I UNDERSTOOD this was more than enough reason
to rejoice.
Perhaps my biggest challenge was understanding the directions on the back of
this Metrocom phone card. It was some new company, and I asked so many
people, all gave me conflicting advice, but can you understand that just
because I understood that they gave me conflicting advice made me really
happy? And when I asked the customer service clerk (this is a loose
description) at the metro how the card worked, and when she yelled at me
because I was supposed to read the instructions on the back, can you
understand how happy I was that at least I understood what she was yelling
at me?
Since I was a little girl, I was always mystified by Russia, this land
behind some big wall. The alphabet looked like this secret code, like
backwards English. The language sounded like they were speaking backwards.
It was so hard to find out anything behind it. It always looked like the
most recent photos from there were at least ten years old (later I found out
they weren't, but anyway...). So, to one day actually BE in Russia, to be
yelled at by the people, and to comprehend it, well, it was a dream come
true for me, really.
Plus, from those sometimes painful four days (actually more, as they speak
Russian in Poland and the Baltics - I only got yelled at more in Russia) I
just learned to appreciate these incredible little things, things I normally
just never even think about day to day. It's made my trips to the gas
station, post office, super market, or just asking general directions SO
much more enjoyable.
So, it was actually quite an expensive trip just to help me appreciate
Safeway, BUT I did get some nice souvenirs. :)
Cheers,
Katie
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