Unmapped Escapades

We’re on our way out of Estonia. We spent the day hanging around Otepaa, taking short jaunts to the Dali-Lama-blessed Lake Puhajarv, eating raspberries in the square, and trying to get motivated at the energy column.
Tomorrow morning, we bus to Valga and continue by train into Latvia, to Cesis or Seguilda, towns not far northeast [...]

[Read more →]

Bicycle touring is a curious thing. Before getting on the bikes in the morning, it’s easy to insist that, tonight, we’re going to camp at a place 3kms outside of the town where we’ll be stopping for the night, paying no more than 10 bucks. Our determination wanes over the next 70 kilometers [...]

[Read more →]

How long has it been since you´ve seen the video for the Beastie Boys´ “Fight For Your Right”? If you haven´t had the pleasure in a while, watch it. It’s hilarious. Mike D., MCA, and the other guy appear to be about 17, and they take themselves as seriously as John Stewart [...]

[Read more →]

Tartu! Tartu, Tartu, Tartu. I could get used to that word very quickly.
We’ve decided to hang out here for at least 3 nights, drinking “house red” beer at a pub that’s housed in a 17th century gunpowder-storage building built into the hillside. Its heavy picnic tables, blond waitresses holding 8 pints at [...]

[Read more →]

Headwinds are sent by the devil to tempt us to consume more fossil fuels. Monica says that wind “serves no purpose except to irritate people,” like overtype mode.
Two more LP issues:
- The Estonian town of Rakvere doesn’t seem to have the “lively young population ” the book described (unless they were referring to [...]

[Read more →]

(Pictures for this post coming soon - I gotta hit the sack.)
We’re 10 minutes into the ride south from Rakvere, and I haven’t heard any rattling or, worse, sliding, crashing, mangling collisions in the bus undercarriage…yet. This is our first stint of having stashed the bikes, unsupervised and not-well-braced, in a motorized vehicle that could [...]

[Read more →]

WARNING: Returned Peace Corps volunteers from Uzbekistan (of from any former Soviet country, for that matter) might want to refrain from reading the next section or from viewing the pictures.
I don’t know if PTSD has ever been diagnosed in a returned Peace Corps volunteer, but I have no other explanation for the sensations that I [...]

[Read more →]

It’s impossible not to take a picture every time you turn a corner in old Tallinn. The medieval feel of the place is definitely unsurpassed by any town I’ve ever visited. It feels like Robin Hood and his merry men are around the next bend, like Beowulf and his knights are feasting before [...]

[Read more →]

Every last person on this fartyget (that’s ‘ferry’ in some language. I’m serious – check out the pictures) is Russian. Well-off Russian. I have no idea why this is the case. Maybe the fartyget originated in St. Petersburg. Maybe lots of Russians really are getting richer, as the rumors have [...]

[Read more →]