in philadelphia, discussing frustrating band habits with
clayton, but currently enroute to see a submarine.
saw a nice motorcycle helmet that matt linkous would
have really loved, it had a horse on a silver crest.

trying to tie up loose ends, making sure we have the right
clothes for the trip. so walking up and down surplus store
aisles.

tomorrow the bus to NYC

the bus to NYC, the subway across NYC
either bored faces or talking way too loud about
how they are going to beat someone up.

but besides that it was strange to roll into the
Lincoln Tunnel and look out at the Manhattan Skyline.

JFK was easy to negotiate, just too many hours waiting
staring at 5dollar pints of budweiser. the military guards
apprieciated my boots and lamented how they would love to
have a 1940╢s paratrooper shirt.

Icelandair, another airline. couldn╢t see much out the window

ICELAND-----ппппппфффффччччччччЧ
iceland, yes it is. or more aptly named "bust-your-ice-land"
QUICK BRIEFING
favorite
color- ice and snow
temperature- 0 degrees Celsius
building material- concrete
auto- Toyota trucks with huge tires
language- english
american- possibly Will Oldham
number of police cars- zero
amount of litter- zero
amount of trash cans- zero

windy and crazy, the maps here are deceptive, Rekiyavik isn╢t
that big. you ride the bus and the map is huge with lots of
bus-stops. it looks far but the bell for the next stop is always
ringing.

saw Will Oldham play a club with a disco ball. it was packed
(note:in clubs everyone squeezes by without saying a word, no
"excuse me", it is just normal nobody cares, the smiles all remain
even someone plows into to them by mistake) it is also clear that
icelanders are fans of Will Oldhams more recent works. the songs
off of I See A Darkness got the most applause. Older songs like
"i am a cinematographer" were met with polite applause.

wandering the icy streets here is great. it never seems busy here.
WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE? IS THERE A RUSH HOUR HERE?
IS THERE ANY CRIME HERE? DO PEOPLE KNOW WHAT CRIME IS?

surreal. about 5-6 hours of daylight, the sun rises just long
enough to set.

-----down to my last 12 hours in Iceland
spent the thawing day in the old parts of town by the harbor.
visited a modern art museum with an show on Erro a Icelandic
surrealist. saw traces of shawn thornton in some of the chaotic,
dense distorted forms. the museum itself used to be a warehouse?
halls were completely sheathed in black cor-ten steel and green
sheets of glass.

now there are goofy british commericials on the TV and it seems
like it is 11PM (because of sunset hours ago) but is only 8PM.

its a pleasant 10 degrees celsius, and a storm is supposed to
roll in tomorrow, but by then we will be landing in amsterdam.

---------
didn't sleep because i was afraid the alarm was too quiet.
all of the ice and snow is gone, but the wind.
i was afraid the flagpoles were going to snap as we awaited
the "flybus".

quiet and dark ride to the airport.
but once i was sitting at the boarding gate i saw that the
airplane was bucking around in the 45-60kt winds. heh.
so i slept between the delay updates.

but once getting on the plane, almost 2 hours late i wasn't
worried about the wind, because planes take off into the wind
silly! so we "zoom climbed" with ease and the icelandic coast
followed for about 15 minutes, and then i slept some more.
"mad about you" was on the television, and the breakfast was a
warm cheese omelette.

----------
arriving in amsterdam my body told me i had not slept enough.
my body clock and sense of direction were AWOL.
stumbled to the train into amsterdam
stumbled to the hostel
and decided my one goal in amsterdam is to not be mown down
in the bicycle lane.

took a nap after climbing the super-steep stairwell.

awoke with a little more common sense. amsterdam is much
cheaper and busier than iceland. (hey Boss Linkous, i walked
past the Heinieken brewery about 10 minutes ago).

it seems many women in zebra-print underware want to become my
close friends. there seems to be a language gap except for
most of the four-letter words. it is almost midnight here and the
streets are filling up nicely (saturday night).

--------sunday night in amsterdam
drizzly but the streets are still very busy, and it appears
i don't walk fast enough for everyone. but i have avoided getting
too glassy eyed with all of the shoe stores and tommy hilfiger
outlets. ha

rode on the tram and the metro today. the metro is pretty much
any other metro you will ride. but the trams are about 7 feet wide
and ride light gauge rail tracks that are right in ther middle of
the street.

went to the modern art museum here and saw a retrospective on
Ernest Ludwig Kirchner one of the more famous expressionists.
it was odd though to see his work and then also see a large exhibit
on R. Crumb.

very sleepy, and curious how tomorrow's 20 hour bus ride to Warsaw
will be. why a 20 hour bus ride? because it is the off season and
Warsaw and 20 hours was about as close to perfect as was possible.

found a nice pub down the street from here that always has soccer
on the TV and old drunk men singing drinking songs. i am going there
now...

-----well i am in Wasaw Poland, but here is the last of Amsterdam
it was a wet day, and after check-out we locked our bags at the
Central Amsterdam station. mostly killing time in the rain, so
examined the houseboats in the canals which range from small
obviously one-person abodes to converted barges that a family of
six can live in happily. the have green porch carpets and small
Amsterdam pennants on their decks.

went and saw Moulin Rouge in a modern airport-styled theater.

started back to the train station and walked past The Dam. The
Dam is one of the main squares that until that moment had been
filled with carnival rides. the workers there were slowly stowing
the ferris wheel onto the back of a trailer. it had been a huge
ferris wheel, and now it is dissolving radian by radian.

took the metro to the Amstel station and arrived at the bus station
earlier than expected and spent our last Guilders on gummi-frogs.

------the 22 hour bus----
in the dark drizzle waiting for the bus i met Wojtek (VORtech)
{a great Polish 23 yr-old}. i learned that he had just spent two
weeks in Ireland playing Djembe in DeanCanDance's converted church
studio.

that night on the bus drank vodka to the dulcet tones of a Leslie
Nielsen movie dubbed in Polish. the comedy of it was that the voice
dubbing it was the same for every character, man woman or child.
it was as if the bus driver was simultaneously driving and dubbing
the movie over the PA. it really saved the movie.

later in the dark the killer-shark movie Deep Blue Sea played and
Wortek Amanda and I all chuckled through the monotone action drama.

awoke at the border of Poland and Germany. it was already slow going
but then customs agents took Wortek and another guy off the bus.
it was about 6AM now and we stood in the drizzle wondering when
we would srart again. then as we left the 2 "suspects" returned to
the bus. evidently Polish customs didn't appreciate Wortek's incense
but at least he was back with his djembe in hand. the customs agents
had asked him waht kind of TRUMPET his djembe was. this became a
running joke for the next 10 hours.

couldn't sleep because the sunrise was revealing the Polish countryside.
which is low hills covered in misty pine and birch forests. it was
a breathless scene for hours.

talked a lot with Wortek (great guy) before he got off in Lodz. and
spent the last 2.5 hours watching miles of apple orchards swing past
the window.

-----warsaw-----

the bus dumped us at the station which is in the newest end of town,
so new hotels and cranes dotted the walk up to the hostel. i was excited
because everything was labeled "bar". but i learned after eating
Vietnamese that "bar" stands for any place that will serve soda and
junk food.

so after dinner amanda and i parted (her to the hostel, and me looking
for Piwo [beer]). within seconds i had a GREAT chat with polish police
who were very intrested in my activities in Poland and how long i was
there. but i guess my Polish was so poor they figured i was too dumb to
be a drug-dealer or terrorist.

after that i felt my fatigue and soreness more acutely and decided
sleep was a better idea.

the fifth story was infested with about 50 French teenagers, screaming
and playing ping-pong. but in my room was an Aussie, Canadian, American,
German and an unknown pissed off Asian in very tight underwear.

after the angry guy insisted on turning off the light the German
began sawing his way through the Black Forest in his mind. so sleep
was tough between the snoring and the nagging cough i picked up on
my last rainy day in Amsterdam.

awoke to the stampede of French teenagers and rolled out of bed
about 30 minutes before the hostel lock-out. strolled across the
busy street to the Polish History Museum. We didn't go inside, but
instead went to an outdoor park full of weapons starting from WWI.

lots of artillery ranging from 1914 Polish 75mm field cannons
to Soviet SCUD launchers and Katyushas.

but of course my favorites were the WWII Russian Warplanes;
Yak-9, Pe-2, and Il-2's I had never seen any of these Russian
planes in real life. They are so small compared to their American
counterparts. The Russian MIG-21, the most common fighter in the
60's and 70's is bafflingly small a wingspan of maybe 25 feet.

then there are the mandatory Russian Tanks. which in the WWIII
scenario out-numbered NATO about 3-to-1. the Russian armor
onslaught would have likely reached Paris before NATO could
regroup.

so there are WWII vintage T-34's a perfect example of simple,
tough and formidable. they also had a few WWII German tanks
but alarmingly all of them had obviously been destroyed,
semi-reconstructed and repainted.

then there was the Soyuz-20 capsule, the Russian answer to
the Mercury or Gemini capsule. the heat shielding was scorched
and the bottom heat shield was neon orange with directions
in a few languages on how to get the Cosmonaut out.

HELP! MAN INSIDE!

after that down the hill into old town. the city square looks
more Medieval than all the Communist Concrete and Marriott's we
had seen earlier. but after visiting the Warsaw History Museum
you realize all of the Medieval Buildings had been rebuilt after
WWII when 87% of the city was flattened.

we watched a film that showed Warsaw in the 1930's and then the
war. footage taken from airplanes of all of Warsaw, a pile of
smoldering brick and hundreds of thousands dead.

after that new perspective on Warsaw we went to an internet-pub
and watched the Polish soccer team play to a draw against Cameroon
on a World Cup qualifying match.

back to the hostel for our last night in Warsaw.

woke up late and had to rush out basically chased by the hostel
cleaning crew. a cold walk to the central train station where we
waited on the platform as Gypsy Beggars threw headache hexes at
us.

-------three hours to Gdansk by train was scenic with the colors
of the sunset------

called my friend Mark Klo who lives in a village near Gdansk. he was
having his car worked on and so after an hour or so in a McDonald's
Mark's father Waldemar arrived to take us into the country.

Waldemar is a sailor. the head engineer on a German merchant vessel.
he is a great man who showed me his hunting rifle and shotgun. and
then he showed me the tattoo on his arm of his wife Wanda, who is
like all mothers very kind and always worried we were not eating enough.

Mark appeared after we had been sitting with his parents for an
hour. he had been working on his car (the water pump had gone)
"my car is damaged" is how Mark put it. he is very proud of his
car (a 1981 Mercedes diesel), and he insists that when he visits
the states again it will be coming too.

well Mark obviously doesn't like to hang around the house and we
were soon in Old-Town Gdansk, with a couple towering cathedrals
the most amazing St. Catherine's. down the cobblestones we went
and down the stairs into CELTIC PUB. it was a quiet night and i
practiced saying "dwa Lech" or "dwa piwo" and thank you sounds
like "jhanki".

Mark (actually Maurice) is an antsy 22 year old, who has travelled
much more than most his age and it shows. his english is good and
was very excited about learning new english words like; peninsula,
jellyfish, trunk, hood, lung, sacrifice.

he has only been back from Richmond Virginia for about a month and
already is tired of being back. in Richmond he worked at King's
Dominion, Old Navy and of all places (for one day Sept.11) at
Labor Ready the labor temp agency that specializes in drunks.

after a few beers we were back in Mark's village Kolbudy (coldbooty)
and had a great sleep in a real bed.

the next morning we decided to go th HEL. yes HEL, a small town
on the end of the peninsula that surrounds the northern edge of
the bay of Gdansk. it was a great drive although the muffler of
the Mercedes was bottoming out much to everyone's concern.

Hel a 100km drive from Kolbudy through a few large towns but then
just rolling heavily forested woods. on the peninsula it flattens
out. half way to HEL (hee), we stopped to see the Baltic Sea at a
point where the Bay and Baltic sea are divided by only 200 yards
of land.

we started to walk on what we thought was the trail and ended up
in a small cemetary with a few visitors. they laughed when we asked
how to get to the beach

on the beach it was very cold and the stiff wind was making immense
scary waves. Mark said he had never seen it so dramatic. it was
the first time i had seen the Baltic Sea.

back on the HIGHWAY TO HEL we passed a few surfshops, but out here
it is a seasonal area so most places were closed. further up the
road we passed the remnants of an old Soviet base with a few
amphibious vehicles sitting in rows.

well we arrived in HEL, hellbent on eating some fresh fish. after
walking past many closed shops we found a place to eat and our
older waitress was very excited about her American guests. the
fish was fresh and after eating the waitress emerged from the kitchen
with three free T-shirts that read "I drank three and am still standing"
and on the back three cases of Polish beer.

we HAD to buy some postcards in HEL, and after that we headed back
to Kolbudy. tonight we were going to Celtic Pub again but to meet
some of Mark's friends, one of them Magda was going to be their after
she picked her Irish boyfriend , Mike, from the Warsaw Airport.

we stopped at a huge mall Gaent to buy food (Pierogies and Borsht)
and beer (Lech). evidently in Poland they don't have much of a budget
for their women employees uniforms, so i stood in aisles eating
samples of Brie from Polish women in mini-skirts. the cheese was
pretty good.

so after a lot of eating and some drinking at "home" we headed into
Gdansk. it was of course Friday night so the Pub was full already
at 8PM. so sat drinking with one of Mark's cousins , Deborah, but
she only speaks Polish and French, and her shy friend Monica whose
birthday was the next day and she spoke some shy English.

finally after some dancing and 3 hours of drinking Magda and Mike
arrived. the dance floor was covered in Polish youth dancing like
maniacs to Vanilla Ice and Depeche Mode. not much talking just
shouting and laughing. Mike's Irish accent made him impossible
to understand above the din. everyone was exhausted and we decided
to meet tomorrow in Magda's coastal town Sopot and hang-out.

slept heavily that night and went into town around 2PM to determine
when we would be leaving. it was a disaster, everything was closing
and nothing went to Tallin without first going through Kalingrad
or Belarus (which require VISAS). Mark was getting frustrated and
said that being in Poland was just like being in Bangladesh, everything
is a pain in the ass to get done.

once it became clear no questions would be answered we headed to
Sopot. (how are we going to get out of here?) but Sopot was a
nice break, a quiet town with a large pier. during the summer it
is a vacation spot with a nice beach. during the German occupation
many high ranking officers had elaborate villas built on the quiet
wooded streets.

Magda lived in an apartment at the end of a sketchy 8 story elevator
ride. there was also Carolina there a young Polish girl there (we
had met her last night, but because of the noise it was impossible
to talk). we talked a bit (Mike's accent though still thick was easy
to follow). tomorrow we were all going to visit a small concentration
camp on the coast, Stukhof.

well Mark had plans for me to shoot some pool and for me to meet
his crazy cousin Jarjk, so back in Kolbudy, Amanda decided to relaxe
at home. Jarjk arrived honking the horn of his Polish natural-gas
powered car. in the car Mark and his cousin argued for awhile,
because Jarjk and his friend David wanted to go play the field
at a local discoteque. but first some pool.

the village Pub and pool hall was directly adjacent to its owners
house. this was clearly the Townie hang-out. the stereo was blasting
Kazik a Polish Gypsy/eastern/metal singer, very entertaining. Mark
and i played a close game but his practice in the Triple (in Richmond)
helped him prevail. after that David, the ex-Polish Army driver
insisted on playing me, but this time the West won. next darts.
here was Jarjk and Davids game, so Mark and i were along for the
ride enjoying the Faith No More on the stereo.

after losing the darts and drinking some piwo, Mark and i agreed
to go to the discoteque much to Jarjk and David's glee.

Hotel VIP, a locals place on a small lake, driving there we saw many
kids walking down cold roads, beer-in-hand on their way there as well.

Hotel VIP, the townie kids dancing like freaks to a lot of bad
music i had never heard before the most part. crammed into a
table with Mark and a bunch of Polish country girls dolled up
for a big night out. it was a surreal hook-up fest, this is the
big night in Kolbudy. after Mark and i had enough we took the
short walk home.

the next morning we met Magda, Mike and Carolina at the Train/Bus
station while we bought tickets for that night's departure to
Vilnius.

after a nice drive across the lowlands we arrived at Stukhof,
a small concentration camp. as with the going trend it was about
to close, so we walked through the camp the wrong way, starting
with a large empty field where prisoners' barracks once stood
and then past a huge stone monument. the camp is in the middle
of a picturesque birch forest. all the buildings were closed but
we peered through the windows and saw a enormeous pile of shoes.

after exiting the entrance with period pictures showing what the
camp looked like in 1943, cats started appearing everywhere, every
size and color. a little kitten has sitting on a guard's shoulder.
we left the camp with a sunset adding such an odd light to such
a tragic place.

after eating some pizza and saying goodbye to Wanda, Mark's mother,
Waldemar, Mark, Amanda and i all piled into the mercedes for one
last drive into Gdansk. we stood at the bus platform and awaited
our 720PM bus. waved a last goodbye to Waldemar and Mark. hopefully
i will see Mark back in the USA this summer.

the bus was nearly empty and wound a very winding path through
dark Polish industrial cities. at our second stop we realized
the toilet on the bus was broken, so we had to rush into the
bus station full of homeless people only to realize we had spent
our last change. so the attendant would not let Amanda use the
bathroom since we lacked the 1 zloty we needed, or 25 cents.

well we found a nice alley to piss in, and back on the bus.

slept as well as you can on a bus on rough roads. and awoke in
Vilinus as the sun rose.

------Vilnius-----
the bus station and streets were busy even then at 7AM. time
to find a bed. our first choice was either nonexistent or the
language barrier was too thick, so we walked on the tight streets
into a courtyard where the Old Town Youth Hostel is and were let
in by the owner Vilijus. since it is the off season check-in was
right then, so we didn't have to drag ourselves around for a few
hours like we had to in Iceland.

the hostel is in an old apartment block on the inside of a courtyard
where other people were drying their clothes in the near freezing
air. i slept till noon and hit the streets alone since Amanda chose
not to sleep.

the streets all have small sidewalks and it seems you be knocked off
the sidewalk by a pedestrian right into the path of some speeding
eastern bloc car. people appear nice even under all their winter clothes.

found a internet cafe VOO2, a pretty hip place where all are drinking
smoking, typing and shooting each other via the internet. walked
back to the hostel and met up with Amanda about finding some dinner.
decided on The PUB, a British run place with great meals for about
nothing. the whole dinner and drinks ran about $11. it is too bad
that we will only be here until tomorrow night.

back at the hostel we ran into the newly arrived Jaime, a Canadian
news reporter. she works in the northern territories of Canada near
the Arctic Circle. she does news for the mostly indigenous Inuits up
there. we talked extensively about current events and how various medias
paint different pictures. like how American news is about as introspective
as a rock, and so on.

when Jaime does her report on the World news, the translation for her
broadcast in the local language is THE BIG OUTSIDE.

also met a Canadian named Philip who had been jumped 5 hours earlier
in someone he was visitings apartment. he woke up on the street
not knowing if he was still in Vilnius. so in just a sweater he
walked back to the hostel as it began to snow.

the snow was light and wasn't sticking to anything, but walking into
the wind it flies straight into your eyes.

++last day in Vilnius++++++

stopped in a few of the seeming hundreds of second-hand shops on
the way to buy bus tickets. it was a sunny clear day as we wove
a way through the busy open-air market with vendors holding up
huge beets for all to see.

walked up back streets and the main streets, which are about the same
busy with cars bolting around and grinding to halts for every pedestrian.
saw crumbling churches and apartment buildings over a hundred years
old. after seeing every statue in Vilnius we found Frank Zappa's head
on a 20 foot pole with a wall full of graffiti behind him. he was a
honorary ambassador to Lithuania the last few years of his life before
he died of prostate cancer in the late 1990's. WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH!

now just strolling, killing time before the nightbus to Tallin.
Vilinus looks like a great place to just stay in a cheap apartment
and live a quiet life painting the colorful buildings, or just writing
the next great novel. i guess that will have to happen next time.

TALLIN------ESTONIA------
there is so much to write, we are currently sitting around berlin
for a few hours, but once we get to Prague, i will write all about
all of the great family members i met for the first time, and the
snow that never stopped falling

TALLIN---
slept most of the bus ride, and awoke to a sunrise spraying light
on to endless rows of tall,thin pine trees with all of their foliage
on the very top like a quill.

the bus station appeared to be quite a distance from the city center
so we crammed onto city bus that we thought went closer to the center.
well it did. now i just had to find the department store that my
cousin Lauri worked in. well it wasn't too hard to find Kaubamaja,
it is a 5 story modern building right in the middle of lots of people
and traffic.

armed with only Lauri's name i approached the information desk. the
woman was helpful, but a bit baffled that i could not give a physical
description. so after sending a girl who was dressing a mannequin
to look for Lauri, i sat and waited.

soon after the girl returned with who i assumed was my cousin.
Lauri is a thin guy with bright eyes and a quick smile. he was in
the middle of decorating the front windows for XMAS. after sprinting
up and down some stairs and seemingly secret hallways we headed to
his apartment.

a cold but short walk with our packs with Lauri and i hitting it off
pretty well. the elevator in his building looked like a efficient
communist way to die. crazy switches, big enough for 3 people safely.

Lauri let us into his apartment and started to apologize for the
appearance because he was slowly renovating it with his father.
decades of wallpaper had been removed down to the plaster and cement
walls. nice windows and wood floor, it was about as postmodern as
is legal in Estonia. the bathroom had recently been tiled, with a
huge bathtub. Lauri's is planning to turn it into a luxury apartment
Lauri has lots of plans for a 22 year old, that and his wit were
quickly apparent.

he had to go back to work, so we absorbed some hypnotic MTV Europe
and fell asleep. as we tried to sleep a guy named Erik kept calling
urgently seeking Lauri. after about 4 calls he decided to come over
later in the evening.

kind of sleepy but decided to see the Old Town, a short walk past
communist apartments and shiny metal buildings. the Old Town is a
small winding hub of people trying to deal with the snow and iced
cobblestones. followed the city wall past sweater vendors and chinese
restaurants. came to Fat Margaret, a short and fat tower on the
harbor-side of the Old Town.

what is inside Fat Margaret?
THE NATIONAL ESTONIAN MARITIME MUSEUM

inside the tower a spiral staircase led us past model boats, fragments
of sunken boats and the tomb-like copper diving suits. on the top
floor there was a medival wooden door with a cryptic sign
"scenic view".

after forcing the ancient doorbolt, i was on a metal fire-escape
that clings to the outside of the tower and leads to the roof.
a wind whipped, snow covered circle with a flashing beacon in the
middle. i could see the town stretch out as far as the snow would
let me. terra-cota roofs dusted with snow, and the four famous
church towers of the Old Town jutting up high above the other
old buildings. the weather was getting a bit much, so we heading
back down the hill.

it was dark by four, and i expected Lauri around 5:30, but soon
it was 6PM, and suddenly Erik was there. a 90mph 19 year old who
has a grasp on dressing fashionably. i believe he will be in control
of a small country before he is 21. he was starving for conversation
because he had just returned from mandatory military service as a
border guard.

shortly Lauri and Birgit (his girlfriend) arrived and were very
shocked to find Erik in the kitchen as well. everyone was very hungry
so it was time to go out. not to some local dive, but since Lauri
and Birgit are some of the hippest kids in Tallin we went to a
members only place with other young estonians smoked and drank.

after dinner we wandered over to a club called COCK. drank a few
tequila shots as a group while waiting for the dancefloor upstairs
to open. once we were up there it made dancing in Poland look
more absurd. modern electronic music with throbbing hip kids shedding
their heavy coats to get their grooves on, and warm up.

everyone was very tired so we walked back very late, and i had my
first spill on the frozen Estonian soil. none of my falls were bad
just made the lack of tread on my boots more apparent.

at the apartment the girls were in bed quickly, but Lauri and i
told stories and attempted to remember songs on guitar. hearing
Lauri's stories and hopes for the next few years in Estonia. but
we mostly butchered Hey Joe until we saw fate was against us.
at about 3AM the liqour exhausted and so were we.

the next day Lauri somehow found the resolve to go to work. i
got some healthy sleep, and around 2PM i headed to the department
store to visit Lauri.

obviously the window decorating was behind schedule, as i found
Lauri out of breath, explaining how he wouldn't be able to show
us around today. so instead amanda and i wandered around Old Town
some and found a great Lego store and a coffee shop with
reasonable vodka prices.

after relaxing at the apartment some more Lauri arrived and we
visited the Old Town again, but with Lauri as a guide. we also
were on a mission to pick up Birgit from work. Birgit, a lovely
girl, works at the Estonian National Football headquarters, which
is of course just around the corner from the Loompea (Estonian
Parliment) in Old Town. on this walk i found out that Lauri was
involved in a prominent student orginization. i asked him how big
it was (3,000 kids), then i asked what he did
(oh, i am the leader). he gave me one of their shirts, black with
a false white tie on the front and name tag, and on the back it
said I WAKE UP LATE.

after picking Birgit up from what seemed like a busy day at work,
we walked home and decided to eat at a nearby Austrailian
restaurant. then while sitting around our meal Birgit looks up
and says, ISN'T IT THANKSGIVING IN AMERICA? yes it was and i had
forgotten. so i used almost an entire phone card to catch my
family just as they were about to sit down for their turkey.

as we returned to the apartment it seemed the night would be a
quiet one, but again the girls went to bed, and Lauri and i
drank and told bad jokes until 3AM.

--so a plane with a German, Russian and Estonian guy is running
--low on fuel and each of them has to throw something out to
--save weight. the German goes first, throwing his wristwatch out
--saying that he has plenty of them back in Germany. the Russian
--goes next, throwing a bottle of vodka out, saying that he has
--plenty of them back in Russia. the Estonian goes last, he picks
--up the Russian and throws him out the door, while saying, we
--have plenty of them back in Estonia.

the next day (friday) we are going to catch a train into the
country to visit my Great Uncle Artur, who saw my grandfather Leon
for the last time in 1944.

Lauri took the day off and we mostly slept in. we then decided we
would try to move our bus ticket back a day. so dashing around
town and packing our bags for the day trip in the country. at the
bus station are hopes were dashed since the bus to Berlin seems to
be very popular. Lauri was a bit dissapointed since he wanted to
take us to his parents house in eastern Estonia. so instead we
would spend one night in the country, return the next day and
catch the bus at 7AM on sunday for berlin.

from the bus station we caught a tram across town to the train
station where we were to meet up with Birgit. in the snow we
waited realizing that it is hard to recognize people since
everyone wears black coats and hats. but Birgit appeared out of
nowhere saying she found us because of Amanda's furry hat.

as we were buying our train ticket we ran into Lauri's aunt Helva
who was coming with us. for a train on rails it felt like there
were potholes all the way to Lehtse. it was an hour ride in the
dark. soon the four of us were standing on a small concrete
platform in the middle of nowhere, we were in Lehtse. Lauri's
father and mother were waiting in a car nearby. the only light
came form the headlights and the windows of the small wooden
houses that make up the village.

we were soon and my Great Uncle Artur's house where members of the
family had lived for 40 odd years. up some dark steps and into
a cozy room where my very vibrant Great Aunt was cutting up bread
for all the visitors. a very excited old dog, Yes, was darting
around. after a few minutes my Great Uncle appeared from his room.
he had broken his hip earlier in the year and still seemed very
fragile on his feet. i immediately knew it was him, he looked
like a shorter, balder version of my grandfather. he had bright
eyes and was very excited and moved emotionally by my arrival.

sat for about an hour eating homegrown pickles while Artur acted
out his life as a young cavalry bandit against the russians. he
said he heard the bullets come very close, but they never found
him. Lauri translated although Artur looked me right in the eyes
as he spoke as if i could understand.

soon we left Artur's and went to the house nearby where they are
planning to move some time soon. it was an apartment full of
furniture from the old house, and soon Lauri, Helva, and i were
getting firewood out of a shed packed to the ceiling with wood.
it wasn't quite as cold as we feared, only -6 celsius. but had
to get the fires going so we could cook a late dinner. somehow
made a pasta sauce out of nothing and no garlic. Lauri grilled
some pork for Helva, Birgit and himself. it was a good meal after
riding the train and the intense meeting with Artur.

Helva had been up since 5AM, and everyone was quite tired, so
we moved the furniture into little bed shapes and unfolded a
cot. again Lauri and i talked quietly in the kitchen while
everyone else slept. he talked about his father's contracting
business and how its very bang and bust in Estonia. we decided
would we need our rest for the sauna the next day, so we crept
in the dark into our makeshift beds.

the next day, we walked along the streets absorbing the
quiet village. most of the houses were old and wooden,
with snow covered gardens. we arrived at the family
summer house, where Lauri spent many holidays. the house
had been bought with vouchers under communism, and the
family had been slowly renovating. but the reason we were
there was to go into the sauna. Lauris grandmother had
started the fire over an hour ago, and it was now sweltering
enough use.

so Lauri, Birgit, Amanda and i had been walking around in
-6 celsius, but now it was time to take off all of our clothes!
we stripped down, our breath condensing in the cold. into the
sauna, a small wood lined room¨with a metal stove that heated
a bubbling pot of water and the rocks that you ladled water
onto to produce scorching steam.

within in seconds all four of us are drenched in sweat. i
could feel my rings getting hot as we sat there. we had brought
some beer for refreshment, but the beer we drank there in that
scalding sauna was so cold and delicious.

every few minutes we would leave the sauna room and cool off
for awhile in the next room. Lauri explained that it is a pretty
macho thing to see how much heat you can stand. but neither of
were intrested in passing out to later wake up with brain damage.
so instead of more heat we decided to go dash around in the
snow for a few brave seconds. we erupt from the sauna, still
naked, tossing snowballs and creating a enormeous cloud of steam.

it was pretty close to heaven out in the snow naked. but we
went back in a last time and i was shown the traditonal way
of refreshing yourself in a sauna is to flog your legs and back
with wet birch switches? it wasn't that bad.

Helva and Lauri's Grandmother also wanted to use the sauna
so it was time to put our clothes back on and wander around
in the cold. walking over to Artur's, Lauri kept pointing out
piles of rubble that had been houses last time he had visited.

spent the last two hours before the train sitting with Artur
he talked about breaking his hip and how when it happened
a bunch of neighbors found him and carried him home. then
he talked of how it was too bad Amanda and i didn't live in
Lehtse as well. from all the walking i pictured sumnmers there
as working the crops and chopping firewood in the sun with
nothing but the sounds of birds and trains.

standing on the frozen platform, waiting for the train signal
lights to turn green. i really want to come back to this place.

on the train back to Tallin we discussed the plans for the
evening. we were going straight to Lauri's other aunt's house
for dinner. there we would eat and meet Reymo, his cousin studying
to be a master electrician in Finland.

at the apartment there was quite a spread, smoked trout, baltic
salad, and some vegetarian blood sausage. it was a great meal with
good company Lauri's uncle was a steel worker, and was very
intrested in knowing how much he would make in the USA doing the
same job, when i told him, he got a big smile on his face and made
another vodka toast. we sat around for about an hour when Reymo
burst in, a tow headed tornado holding aloft a bottle of Finnish
licorice vodka he had won in a dance contest. Lauri assured me
"he is always like this."

within 5 minutes we drank a few more toasts and were spraypainting
the concrete walls of his bedroom. Reymo had about a hundred CDs
that he was very excited about playing for us. so he played about
45 seconds of around 45 different selections. after 30 minutes of
chaos we piled into another cab to go home.

Reymo sweet talked the cabdriver into stopping to let him buy
beer and cigaretts. Estonian law only prohibits the driver from
drinking. so we shared a quick beer as we flew around Tallin.

we were soon back on Lauri's doorstep, said goodbye to sweet aunt
Helva. since the our bus was leaving the next morning at 7AM i was
intent on staying up late to avoid the trauma of another 24+ hour
bus ride. so Lauri, Reymo and i walked to the nearby non-stop
alcohol store where Lauri warned me not to speak any English while
inside. picked up some beer and Y2K some random Estonian Vodka.

one last night in Lauri's postmodern apartment. Reymo stayed up
long enough to ascertain if i was crazy too. well after half a day
of vodka toasts i was. so after he went to sleep Lauri and i
talked about my return to Estonia possibly in the summer so i
wouldn't be falling down as much on the ice. Lauri and i drank
one last toast to "cousins" and we went to sleep, it was 3AM.

hellishly cold and dark dash to the bus station. Birgit and Lauri
came with us and waved. Lauri did a little comedy act for us akin
to the Beatles movie Help.

---another long bus ride, watched one crappy american movie and
a vaguely entertaining russian comedy circa 1965-------

we are in berlin for only about 12 hours. miserably wet, all the
museums are closed (its monday). Berlin is not a walking city.
but still we walked, found the most god forsaken intersection on
Earth, Potsdamer Platz. resigned ourselves to watching Harry Potter
in some stupid expensive theater. the highlight of berlin is when
Harry Potter was zooming around on his broom and won the Quillage
match.--------another bus

it was an empty bus, so we were all stretched out for the 12 hour
bus ride. awoke in Prague--it was tuesday--one more week in europe

the hostel we are stating in, The Clown and Bard is up a very
steep hill past a football stadium in a neighborhood called Ziskov.

our beds were in the loft of the 37 bed dorm room. i slept a bit
and woke deciding i was very hungry and had no idea how to get
anywhere. there is a pizza place right across from the hostel, so
the hunger was solved, but as the waiter added up the bill i was
9crowns short (about 25 cents) because i had mistakenly ordered
a "big" soda. first lesson in Prague---beer is cheaper than soda.

i promise the waiter i will return with ALL of the money i owed.
down the hill into the train station where cops check my passport
twice in 5 minutes, i am a dangerous looking man.

pay off my debt and wander into the hostel's bar in the basement.
(note: the dorm room is up 120 stairs) there are always kids drinking
here, musing about how long they have been "stuck" in Prague. listening
to other's conversations here is almost entertaining.