Hi everybody! We got home almost a week ago and had a lot to do in terms of getting back on track here in Bonn so it took me a minute to finish my honeymoon posts but here are a few pictures from Lithuania, Latvia and our journey back to Germany by Stena ferry.
It was a great trip and I’m super glad we did it – I reached my fortieth country (Latvia, which was a new one for Jaco too) and have some beautiful new memories to cherish. As is often the case, it did feel good to get home to our *other* clothes and our own bed.
Thank you for following along on the last (big) journey before our little girl arrives in September! It was a special trip for us and it means a lot to have your love and support here on our East Prussian/Baltic Honey-/Babymoon 2.0…and beyond!
See ya soon,
Jame
Of course I am smiling on the ferry to Klaipeda; he gave me his raincoat and got me coffee! (“Wow, your wife is so prepared!”)This guy loves his Lithuanian dumplings! Klaipeda, Lithuania.The one picture I took in Riga – the guy and a Soviet building. Fun fact: I got stung by a bee I startled when I crouched down to get the whole building in the frame!Took this along the harbor near “Horkplatz” where I got into the tornado warning position to be sick in Ventspils…I was in an altered state when I took it but I’d like to see this as a painting!After 1 am, still not dark, we decided to get up and go find the music we could hear from our little pension. It wasn’t hard to find, the band was good and there was a bonfire, and many wreathed people. Happy solstice Ventspils, Latvia, and world!Boarding our 20-hour ferry back to Travemunde/Lubeck, where we’d catch the train to Bonn via Hamburg. Fun to walk past all the cars on the way in…not so fun when they all got to peel out before us after we’d docked.“Meet ya on the heli-pad for a dance:” hands-down my favorite moment.Couldn’t resist posting 30-week bumpdate from the ship…let’s do this! #stoked #maternitystockings #babyonboard
Spent our first full morning on the Spit walking through honeysuckle-smelling pine forests which reminded me of the grasshoppers bounding around my great-grandmother’s farm in Princeton, Wisconsin.
Lunched on canned curry and rice left over from our dinner the night before and, after a quick snooze at the end of which a baby came and sat down by us, borrowed bicycles and rode the same paths we had walked earlier to a place to watch the sea that made me realize why the Curonian Spit is a sought-after destination.
Found fish dinners (I had perch, Jake had squid) and desserts (me – black currant sorbet and creme brulee ice cream; Jake cold borscht with sour cream) that matched.
Took this un-selfie-like selfie after fixing his bike on the Spit near Lesnoy.Third trimester-ing outside the fish restaurant in Lesnoy on the Curonian Spit.
Twenty-five minutes by bus up the Spit, a kind of paradise awaited us in Rybachy: we found a beautifully restored German guesthouse (read: at least twelve foot high ceilings) in quiet, serene surroundings full of irises, peonies and daisies – a welcome change indeed after the first place which had a few issues with overcrowding and plumbing.
Peonies pretty much the same in Rybachy as anywhere; worth mentioning.
After a picnic lunch (sardines and bread) on the “quiet” side of the Spit (the ocean and bay sides are only about two miles apart for the Spit’s whole ninety miles) we went out for dinner, called both our moms, and organized the next two days: sea, Lithuania.
Digs in Rybachy.
Timer photo after a sardine-and-bread lunch on the chill side of the Spit.
On our full day in Rybachy we read for about an hour and a half after having breakfast outside and then went to the beach and lounged in the dunes.
Believe it or not before lounging we ate sardines and bread again! I love this lunch and hold it dear partly because when I first met this husband of mine and we were traveling by bus through Mali which would stop for 10 – 15 minutes, I would run off to find a bathroom and return to find him just out of the exhaust fumes of the bus but close enough we’d be able to catch it if it tried to leave us, with this snack.
Dune loungin’ (aka ‘sunnin’ the bump’) in Rybachy, R.F.
We are so far north that the sun rises before four (which is what time I have been waking up), but I was still sleeping at six when he woke me up to go stand on the side of the road and wait for someone driving to Lithuania (buses only cross that border in the evening).
No sooner had I arranged a nice seat on the side of the road when, in succession appeared Jake with a piece of cardboard he’d fished out of the dumpster on which he’d penned “LT” (Lithuania) and – in a black 2012 Audi with double sunroofs – Damjan, who “likes to do nice things for people if he can” (or so he told us after waiting for us to get questioned at the border again on the way out).
Lithuania is quite a bit different feeling than Russia – in Nida, we are back on the euro, for one thing, so everything is more expensive, there are a lot more tourists, and everything is much easier, but we also aren’t looked upon with the same general bemusement the way we were in Russia.
Jake did help me see that one can appreciate visiting/holidaying/living in an EU country in a different way after spending some time in Russia: besides maybe China, it (Russia) is the one place outside the US’ sphere of influence; it makes one recognize how one should answer for oneself should there be no ‘state’ protection (to be fair, how much is there anyway?).
AngelfromMontgomery et al. 