Spring break part 3: Latvi-yeah!

The bus ride from Tallinn to Riga took about 5 hours. The Latvian countryside was pretty, with lots of forests and snow.

We checked into our hostel in Riga, which was run by some extremely laid-back (yet talkative) folk who never seemed to sleep. But they were nice, and let us use their personal laptop to try to look up some bus schedules. They also ran a small pub in the bottom of the hostel, which made trying to figure out the Polish bus system slightly more enjoyable.

The signs of former communism were much more apparent in Latvia than they had been in Estonia.

But Riga has a beautiful Old Town and a lot of things going on. It's known as the "Paris of the north" (not to be confused with Asheville, which is the "Paris of the south"). It has a really good food scene, and there was a yoga studio in the building across the street from our hostel. But even so, we did notice that the quality of the toilet paper decline from what was in Estonia, and we soon learned it would just get rougher and less white the further south/east we went. And it actually seemed to be a pretty reliable incicator of the economic situation/standard of living for each place we visited. It became one of the first things we'd comment on, "what's the quality of toilet paper in this town?"

My hat and scarf hanging jauntily while we eat breakfast. 

Old Town

New Town

T.G.I. Friday's 

Crossing the frozen Daugava River 

But by far, the highlight of our time in Latvia happened during our last hours there. We learned from our trusty Lonely Planet Guide that on the outskirts of town, there is an old Soviet nuclear fallout shelter. And in this fallout shelter in Latvia, you can pay by the bullet to shoot AK-47 Kalashnikovs. And really, how often do you get a chance to do that? 

This is all you could see of the underground fallout shelter from the outside. And the entrance to it was just a little shed in the parking lot of a gas station. 

We had to go all the way down into it before we even found another person. It was pretty intimidating.

Me with the guy who ran the place

You know, just shooting an AK-47 in a Soviet fallout shelter. (I was a pretty good shot, btw) 

So that there was pretty much Latvia. 

Spring break part 1: Eating Eastern Europe

So we missed our flight to Turkey. Non-refundable tickets = no option except for purchasing all new tickets. We couldn't even use our return tickets since it's an all-or-nothing deal. So over a few beers in the airport lounge, we decided our next best alternative would be a tour of Eastern Europe. We went to the book store and bought a Lonely Planet Guide and roughly planned out our next 7 days. And this became my new spring break:

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Our original plan also included the Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia. But Belarus had to be jerks and not let us pass through their country, Poland was much larger than we had anticipated, and we wanted to be able to actually get off the train every now and then.

Apart from the fact that we paid for tickets to Turkey that we never used, I have no regrets going to Eastern Europe instead. Who would have thought I would love it so much. Although there was no camel wrestling or hot air ballooning, we did shoot AK-47's in a nuclear fallout shelter and drink plum brandy with a Czech family in the back of an accordion repair shop.

Since there is SO much I want to post about this trip, I think the best way to go about it would be by category. As an overview, this first one will be about the food (my favorite subject).

Tallinn, Estonia

Dinner:

We went to a "medieval" restaurant in Old Town Tallinn, that sounds like it would be tacky, but was actually amazing. The best part was this dark, thick honey lager in big ceramic mugs. As an appetizer we had dried elk that came wrapped in a linen cloth.















Because of the lack of electric lighting, it was hard to take pictures, but you can kind of see what I had: wild mushrooms in pastry dough with sausage, cabbage, and potatoes.
It was really good.









Breakfast:

The hostel we stayed in offered a breakfast, and for some reason we seemed to be the only ones who took advantage of it. The dinning room was beautiful, with antique furniture and a wooden dishwasher! I was really excited because I hadn't realized kefir was a staple in the cuisine of the Baltic states until now.

Pinky going to town on the kool-aid.

Black bread sandwich and toast with jam, and kefir with kama (a mixture of ground, roasted rye, barley, oat, and pea flour. A little like adding wheat germ to something, but a much stronger flavor. I loved it). 

Yum! 

Riga, Latvia

Dinner:

In Riga we went to a place called Vecmeita ar kaki (which translates to The Spinster & Her Cat) that would totally thrive somewhere like Asheville. The only negative thing I can say about the place is that the story behind the name is totally lame, so I won't even go into it.

The menus were made out of wooden spoons and rolling pins.

Pinky got the antipasto platter and I had potato pancakes with a chanterelle mushroom sauce. It was super good. But my favorite part of the meal was my radish/parsley/kefir drink.

The check came in this cool little box!

 













Breakfast:

For breakfast we went to a buffet style blintze pancake restaurant. Some of them were filled with berries, cheese, mushrooms, or meat.

I could have done a better job with my presentation, but I was hungry.

More kefir!

Lithuania and bus stops

Unfortunately, our time in Lithuania didn't involve much more than riding on the bus and being at bus stations. 

I had a terrible (and I mean terrible: cold, greasy, 2 hairs, came out of tupperware containers) meal in the bus station in Vilnius. 

But the place was pretty nice otherwise (as far as bus stations go). There was a lot of wood and the walls were papered with repeating pictures of Monument Valley AZ, which was funny. The light in the bathroom had died so they put a black light in there instead, which was funny too. 

Other than that meal, the rest of Lithuania was just snacks. 

Here is a "hot dog" from another bus station: 

And Potato Wafers (basically the most inconvenient form of potato chips ever).

And my "feather" candy bar. Which turned out to actually be egg flavored... not my favorite.

Przemyśl, Poland 

It took us nearly 24 hours to get from Vilnius Lithuania to Przemyśl (pronounced: shea-mesh, obviously) Poland. That's a long time on buses. At one point our bus stopped at a little tiny grocery store. Check out this fresh produce selection in the middle of Poland! Who would have guessed. Way better than Finland.

Polish sausage anyone? 

I was SO excited about this: I though it was just going to be a roll with caraway seeds on the outside, but it turned out to be filled with sauerkraut! It was amazing!!!

Okay, now for the actual meals in Przemyśl.

Dinner: 

We went to this super cheesy (we had to listen to Justin Timberlake the whole time), but totally local place with REALLY good food and beer.

Incredible borscht (we were only about an hour from the Ukrainian border, the home of borscht), mushroom pierogi, and cucumber salad. 

Lunch:

We were trying to get out of there in the morning, but had trouble locating the train station and then figuring out where we were even headed next anyway, so we ended up staying for lunch. It worked out great though since the food was really good and we had fun trying to communicate in Spanish with our bartender (who really just spoke Polish and Italian). 

Apparently, the restaurant is the only one in Poland in a cellar with a skylight.

I had meatballs, fried cabbage, and beet salad. In the background you can see Pinky's steak with cranberry sauce. 

Kraków, Poland

We got into Kraków around 11:30 at night (after literally jumping onto a departing train with no tickets) and needed something fast and light to eat. So we went to a sushi place that turned out to be full of really loud and annoying American high school students. It was horrible, but the sushi was really good. I didn't feel like it needed to be documented.


Breakfast:

The hostel offered a free breakfast that I was way into:

Cheesy scrambled eggs with sausage, a vegetable salad kind of thing, deviled eggs, open faced sandwiches, and (not pictured, but consumed) yogurt and coffee.


Olomouc, Czech Republic

I'd like to say right now that Olomouc (olla-moats) was not only my favorite place on the trip, but one of my favorite places ever. I'm totally going to live in the Czech Republic some day.

Dinner:

I got one of the tradisional Czech dishes: roast-beef with cream sauce topped with cranberries and whipped cream, and knedlíky (sliced dumplings).

Pinky had steak tartare (raw beef)

I was not enamored with my meal

Lunch:

We met a bunch of jolly Slovakian postcard collectors over lunch (to be narrated in detail in the upcoming section "Eastern European Friends") and I made my lunch selection based solely on their recommendation.

Pinky accidentally got the same thing I had the night before. Mine turned out to be lamb goulash. We split an order of fried Olomouc cheese (the local specialty).

 

Prague, Czech Republic

Dinner:

The story of dinner in Prague really needs to be told in the context of our entire experience in Prague, which will come later. But just to kind of set the scene, we choose the restaurant based solely on the fact that it had this giant disco strawberry: 

It was also named Fragola, which was just ridiculous.

Me looking disapointed in my expensive drink which I ordered because it was called a FragoLaLa. Does that look like a FragoLaLa to you? 

Pinky looking disappointed in his beer. Or maybe he's just looking at the weird, queen sized bed in the corner: 

We went with an Easter theme for dinner-

Lamb:

And rabbit: 

(I actually got the rabbit because of my obsession with the Czech version of Alice in Wonderland... it's a long story)

Lunch: 

Lunch in Prague was a bit more normal.

Pinky's pork hock. The menu said it came with "fresh vegetables." I guess that's as close as you get in the Czech Republic. 

And this was my roast beef "salad." It was so good though. 

Our last meal in Prague ended up being in a terrible "Mexican" restaurant (this also deserves to be told in the full context of The Story of Prague).  Here is a picture of some of the decorations that were on the wall: 

I'll end with that.