"Day 14": Warsaw, Poland to Washington, DC

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Follow this link:

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Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!! $1,910 raised so far.

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So this marks the end of 3 weeks of riding and learning. It has been an amazing experience, with 700 miles (1,100 km) behind me and 5 countries visited. Thursday morning, I woke up at 4:30 am, switched on CNN to hear what was happening with the financial crisis in the US (frightening) and caught my cab for the airport.

Taxis aren't permitted in Old Town in Warsaw, so I had to lug the bike box and my luggage out to the edge of Old Town. It was a short, dark ride to the airport, but it was very satisfying to see Warsaw by night and realize that, 3 weeks before, I had set out from Helsinki and made it all the way down here from Tallinn on only pedal power.

At the airport, despite the fact that I had carefully confirmed many times with United and LOT that my bike box would be treated as a free piece of luggage, I fully expected to hear that I would need to pay a big fee to transport the bike. With a tip of my hat to LOT, they were totally professional and followed the policy they explained to me on the phone from their office at JFK before I left, and the bike was treated as normal luggage.

By the time my flight left at 7:55 am, the sun was up and it was clear this was going to be a sunny day in Warsaw. Finally sun...just as I was leaving. As I flew to London, I was able to get a great view of both Berlin and London. Berlin -- the Brandenburg Gate and the big television tower -- was especially spectacular from the air. I connected at Heathrow and then arrived at Dulles and waited for my bike to come out.

As I came to the baggage claim, to my horror, I saw that the bike box was already there, with the bottom of the box ripped open and full of holes. As far as I could tell, the bike was not damaged, but my bike shop in Georgetown is putting the bike back together now and they will be able to tell me for sure whether this was the case. I was pretty angry to see how the luggage had been treated -- it would have taken a lot of work to rip that solid corrugated box apart like that.

Now I'm back in the US and have been heartened to hear that about $1,500 in contributions have come in. However, it is well short of my goal of $9,000. I know that this is mainly because the credit card giving page is not yet active, but it should be soon and I hope that will bring a lot more donations in.

Soon I'll have one more blog entry with some observations on this trip overall, as well as some details on credit card/paypal giving.

Warsaw, rainy Warsaw....

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Follow this link:

http://www.pdsnoki.org/

Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!! $910 raised so far.

--

So the riding is finally over and all that was left to do Wednesday was get everything ready for Thursday's early morning departure for DC, see Warsaw, and listen to Alastair Moock's shows. This seemed like it would provide such a good bookend to the constant 50-mile-plus rides and rainy, cold days on the road. In the end, though, thanks to a bonehead move on my part, some out of date information in the Rough Guide and some complicated logistics, only the music and meeting people part worked out.

So after having gone to some extremes in Riga, Kaunas and Białystok to find ways to wash my laundry, and looking at the distinct absence of clean sox among my clothes, it was exceedingly hard to resist the temptation to use the washing machine in the apartment I had rented. In fact, under normal circumstances, I might have been daunted by the machine's strange format (see an example here: http://www.darty.com/nav/achat/gros_electromenager/lave-linge/lave-linge_ouverture_dessus/fagor_fft-108w.html), but this was exactly the type of machine I had used for a few months in Paris when I was staying in temporary housing. So with this enthusiasm and confidence, I decided to wash some clothes. This being a European model, all the button positions were icons (to avoid language issues), and one icon looked like it meant "dry cycle". My machine in Paris did have a great dry function, so I thought there was a 50-50% chance this one did too. That said, I hedged the risk by not washing my street clothes, as I would be in pretty big trouble if those were clean but wet and I had nothing at all to wear on the street.

At about 10:30, after finishing The Adventures of Auggie March and catching up on the frightening developments in the US financial markets, the washing was done and it became clear there was no way to dry the clothes in the machine. And since it was still raining, I assumed that there was near 100% humidity and I couldn't count on the clothes getting air-dried by 5 am the next morning, when I would have to leave for my flight. So this began the great Warsaw clothes-drying adventure.

First, I had to check into my new apartment. It was just across the street, but didn't have a dryer either (as expected). So I looked up the laundromat listings for Warsaw in the Rough Guide (or rather, the one listing). The one they listed was about a 20-minute walk from Old Town, but I didn't mind, since I figured a walk in a new direction would do me good, and it also appeared to be near several of the monuments to the Warsaw ghetto uprising, which I was interested in seeing. I figured I'd throw the clothes in the dryer, look around the area and then pick them up an hour later.

Well, one thing I am learning about entrepreneurship is not to open a laundromat in Eastern Europe. Seems that this was the third laundromat that I had seen listed in recently uodated guidebooks (mainly in the Rough Guide) that no longer existed. This one appeared to have been replaced by a fancy new Italian restaurant. So there I was at noon with a heavy bag full of wet clothes and nothing to do with them. Luckily (sort of...) the folks at the apartment rental office had told me there were also such facilities at a place a bit further out called "Arkadia". So I walked through several non-descript, concrete city blocks to Arkadia. I should have known and anyone who has read all of these blogs (all two of you, if you include me) will be able to guess what was there -- a giant new mall on the outskirts of town with French and English chain stores and a 5 a Sec dry cleaner! The folks at 5 a Sec loved me, with my big bag of wet clothes. There were like 10 people behind me in line who were pretty frustrated, too. The cleaners were more than happy to dry the clothes, but I had to pay for each individual article as if I was laundering and pressing shirts. It cost me $35 and everything came back 2 hours later on hangers!!! Oh my.

This was frustrating, but it made me realize that I had in general been pretty lucky with things like this -- this was one of the few times when I had to just pay what I was asked to pay to get an issue resolved. I expected a few more of these such "expensive solutions" to be necessary and had effectively budgeted for them in my mind when I planned the trip, but there had been very few of them in the end. In truth, by far the greater frustration was that I had lost my only real chance to see Warsaw and had to, yet again, spend my time in a big, impersonal mall at the edge of town. And just as I was getting really down on myself for this great move, the handle broke on the plastic bag I was using to carry my books and my camera, my camera spilled out and smashed on the ground. The damage was limited to the flash -- the dent prevented it from popping out. But with a little bit of work later on using the best tool ever invented -- the tiny glasses screwdriver -- I was able to pry the casing back out so everything was fine.

Then it was time to pick up the boxed bike. That turned out to be trouble-free (thanks, Speed Bike Shop, Warsaw!) and I headed back to the apartment, packed up for the morning and set to the task of figuring out how to get to Alastair's concert at the American School of Warsaw. But when I got online, I realized that the school was far away from the center of town. By public transportation, the only way was a long subway ride from the center, followed by a longer bus ride. So I gave myself plenty of time (I thought) and tried to follow the route.

The Warsaw metro -- such as it is, with only one line -- is great. Very modern and easy to use. When I got out at the Wilanova stop, I looked for the right bus, but I didn't find it. And at this point, the show was starting in 20 minutes, so I grabbed a taxi and told him where I was going. Oops. This taxi driver was a little off his rocker, especially when driving. It didn't help that he really had no idea of the address and we couldn't really communicate well. But when I said "American School Warsaw" he began to look confident. So he started driving...and driving...and driving. At 40 złotys on the meter, and as the landscape began to look more and more rural, I was getting concerned as to where we were going, whether he knew, and whether I had enough cash to pay him and get myself anywhere if he got us totally lost. The only positive sign was that we seemed to be following the bus lines I was supposed to have taken, so that gave me some sense that he might be going the right way.

When we passed the "you are now leaving Warsaw" sign, that was when worry set in. But, as strange as it may seem, the American School of Warsaw is indeed just on the outskirts of the corporation limit and, well, there it was! I paid him, thanked him very much ("dziekuje, dziekuje, dziekuje!"), went through the various security screenings and headed into the school, 20-minutes late for the concert. A very kind preschool teacher escorted me to the auditorium and said this would give her a good excuse to check out the show.

What I caught of Alastair's show was excellent. There were many children in attendance and he has that fantastic ability of a great folk singer to sing songs that speak simultaneously to children and adults, working on many levels. As an example, he covered an amazing Woodie Guthrie song I had never heard before called "Ship in the Sky". Here are the lyrics so you can get an idea:

Well, a curly-headed girl with a bright shining smile
Heard the roar of a plane as it sailed through the sky
To her playmates she said, with a bright twinkling eye
My Daddy flies that ship in the sky
My Daddy flies that ship in the sky
My Daddy flies that ship in the sky
My Mama's not afraid and neither am I
'Cause my Daddy flies that ship in the sky

Then a button-nosed kid, as he kicked up his heels
He said, My Daddy works in the iron and the steel
My Dad builds the planes and they fly through the sky
And that's what keeps your daddy up there so high
That's what keeps your daddy up there so high
That's what keeps your daddy up there so high
My Dad builds the planes and they fly through the sky
And that's what keeps your daddy up there so high

Then a freckle-faced kid pinched his toe in the sand
He says, My Daddy works at that place where they land
You tell your mama, don't be afraid
My Dad'll bring your daddy back home again
My Dad'll bring your daddy back home again
My Dad'll bring your daddy back home again
Don't be afraid when it gets dark and rains
My Dad'll bring your daddy back home again

(Alastair, I am noticing that you slyly but appropriately changed this last verse to be about the freckle-faced kid's Mamma, rather than Daddy).

Mom, if you do read this (I know you're very busy right now!), in addition to this being such a beautiful song, it reminded for a variety of reasons of those extraordinary 1930s Art Deco tile mosaics of workers and craftsmen that used to be in Cincinnati's Union Terminal. My own "daddy" -- dedicated to historic preservation as he has always been and also as a good, labor-supporting Democrat -- thought it would be a crime for these mosaics to be lost when Union Terminal was being renovated and he found a way for them to be saved and transferred to the Cincinnati airport. As those of you who pass through Cincinnati when you fly may know, they're still there today and I thank him for what he did every time I am there (which is a lot these days). Anyway, that's the story I always heard and remember -- maybe it has been amplified over time by nostalgia and memory, but that would connect it in yet another way with the great lyrics of this Woodie Guthrie song.

After the show, Alastair kindly invited me to join the teachers from the school for dinner in town. We had a great time -- luckily for me, many of them were fellow Midwesterners, from Iowa and Minnesota. And, this being Poland, we had lots of beer.

I ambled home after dinner into Old Town and got ready for tomorrow's flight. I turned on the TV to see the news of the afternoon in the US and heard that McCain and Obama were talking about issuing a joint statement about the economic crisis. Things sounded very muddled and I started to understand how frightening things are getting in the US. And so I head back to Washington to find out first-hand...

Day 13 (Lucky!): Wyszków, Poland to Warsaw, Poland

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Follow this link:

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Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!

--

WARSAW!!! On lucky day number 13, the trip has reached its end! More than 1,100 km (almost 700 miles), 13 stages and a lot of rain later, I rode into Warsaw without having had one flat tire or other mechanical incident on the bike. For this, I credit my Armadillo tires and the good folks at the Bicycle Pro Shop on M Street, NW, in Washington, DC, for their skill in putting Love #3 together (though I have taken to calling it "Super Mario" these days, because that was the cryptic label on the bike box they prepared for me when I left).

I woke up as early as I could in Wyszków, thinking that, if there was no rain, I could make it to Warsaw very early in the day and still get some sight-seeing in. It was, of course, drizzling. So I wandered into "town" over the bridge (Bug River again) and didn't really linger to take in the sights. I came back to the Bias Hotel, packed up and hit the road for the remaining 33 miles to Warsaw. The rain slowed down some, thankfully, but the road was so wet and dirty that the volume of accumulated grime on the bike was unbelievable. Knowing I would face more rain, I had not cleaned it from yesterday's 25-mile ride in the rain, so this was day 2 of accumulation. The highlight of the travel was the 18 km of construction (which actually meant the road was very smooth where I was riding) and seeing the cutest bulldozer I have ever seen (see photo). The road was also generally good, so I powered through as quickly as I could and arrived in the Praga district of Warsaw around 11:30 am, still about a couple miles from old town, where I had an apartment reserved.

The grime on the bike was a sight to see. The orange ("you really" orange, according to Mr. Pegoretti) of the bike was completely covered in a gray/black sand that was caked on several millimeters thick. I pulled into an Internet cafe, since I was early for my 1 pm check-in time, and the first message I had was from Old Town Apartments telling me there had been a mistake -- they could only accommodate me in the apartment for 1 night. This "you have a reservation but you don't have a reservation" thing was getting old. I told them the term "confirmation" meant the room was confirmed and that I had searched in vain for any other lodging. They promised we'd find a solution when I came by their offices.

I headed across the bridge over the Wistula River into Old Town. I had been led to believe that Warsaw was barely worth the visit -- probably because Karakow is supposed to be so amazing. But I must say I find Warsaw to be beautiful and fascinating. The old town is elegant and well-preserved, the town has the stately, regal architecture of a capital city and the modern sections are in some ways reminiscent of New York and Buenos Aires. I have been pleasantly surprised...but more on that in tomorrow's post.

So the folks at Old Town Apartments found a solution -- they booked me in with their competitors for the last night. I thanked them -- they were very professional about it. They also laughed at the weather I had had these past 3 weeks, and they said that this was normal weather for November here, rather than September. Apparently this time of year is usually called "the golden autumn" in Poland, but there was nothing golden about it this year! Anyway, the two apartments were some two blocks from each other and both very nice, in the heart of the old town. All was well that ended well, so I moved into the apartment -- which was very nice and much more that I needed -- bought some paper towels and began the fun process of cleaning the bike from top to bottom. It took me an hour and a half and a full roll of paper towels (sorry environment!). Then, after some great Polish pierogi, I headed straight for the bike shop that had told me they could box the bike.

The route seemed clear enough on my map in the Rough Guide, but as I headed out the door...wait for it...it began to rain again. This wouldn't have been such a big deal except that the map in the Rough Guide was...well..impressionistic at best. I wandered around for about an hour in the rain trying to find this bike shop, each moment with less and less hope that I would get there before it closed. But I did eventually find it -- Speed Bike Shop. The guys were very nice and helpful and said they'd have it ready first thing in the morning for all of $11. Another guy in the shop, Cuba, who was picking up his mountain bike said that he had lived in Erie, PA for a year of high school. He spoke perfect, unaccented English, and he said he was going back to the US this fall to buy a BMW motorcycle (half the price that it is here, apparently) and ride it from the US to Tierra Del Fuego. Amazing.

Then I hightailed it -- still in this rain -- to a restaurant called "KOM" where my Williams contemporary, Alastair Moock, was playing a small show for Democrats Abroad. When I got to the intersection, I was never more than about 100 yards away from this place, but it took me another 30 minutes of walking around in the rain to find it. I was soaked again, but the welcome when I got in was warm and I met some great Democrats and some other folks who are associated with the American School of Warsaw, where Alastair is playing a concert on Wednesday night.

It was fantastic to see Alastair and listen to him play several very heartfelt tunes, many from his new album, Fortune Street. He rolled out a beautiful number about Woody Guthrie that had everyone moved, and all accompanied by some great Polish beer. After everyone left the small show (school night), Alastair and I sat back from some upscale Polish food and bison grass vodka, caught up a little (he now has 21-month-old twin girls!) and headed home. What a day!

More information on Alastair Moock and his music: http://www.moock.com/

Vitals on today's (last!) ride:
Distance: 33 miles (total: 689 miles, or about 1,100 kilometers)
Route: http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=21840
Soundtrack: Bob Dylan, Live at Universal Amphitheatre (mid 1970s)

Day 12: Ostrów-Mazowiecka, Poland to Wyszków , Poland

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Follow this link:

http://www.pdsnoki.org/

Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!

--

It was a shocking turn of events when I woke up in Ostrów-Mazowiecka to discover that, in fact, it was raining. Again. It alternated between a light drizzle and a hard rain. So I waited and waited and waited. I had 90 km ahead of me, so a full day of cycling to reach Warsaw, and this did not look good.

By 11 am, when I was facing a noon checkout deadline, I asked whether there was an Internet cafe in town. "50-50 there is cafe on this street", the reception said, pointing to the center street in town. So I packed things up and rode 2 miles into town. Sure enough, there was a computer store with Internet in the back (in a dark, black-lit room, strangely). I decided to quickly book my last nights in Warsaw and hit the road, rain or no rain.

Well, I haven't bothered to check the schedule on the Tour de Pologne, but I can only guess it and everyone connected with it are in Warsaw now because there was literally nothing available for less than $300 a night in town. This had me very worried. After 2 hours of searching and calling, I found a service that rents apartments in the old town for what you'd pay for a mid-range hotel, and they had availability, so I jumped on it and was all set -- or so I thought. But by this time it was 3 pm, I hadn't eaten and I had 4 hours to sundown. So I decided to book a hotel between Ostrów-Mazowiecka and Warsaw, so I could ride halfway there. I booked the only hotel I could find in between -- the hotel "Bias" (not making this up) in Wyszków, and got ready to hit the road.

Despite all these complications, there was also some very good news in my inbox. It couldn't be more random, but my friend from Williams, singer-songwriter Alastair Moock, whose music I has been listening to on my iPod in Latvia to pass the miles, sent out a message to his fans that he would be playing in Warsaw Wednesday night! I dropped him a note and we're going out for dinner and drinks on Tuesday, then I get to see his show at the American School of Warsaw on Wednesday night, just before I leave for the US. This is an uncanny coincidence!

Anyway, thankfully, after I went back to the same restaurant that had served the excellent goulash before, I got going towards Wyszków and there was just a very minor drizzle (it is all the same for the bike -- when there is wet pavement, it gets pretty nasty no matter what -- but much better for the rider if there is no rain falling, of couse). But that didn't last. Within about 3 miles of this very short, 24-mile journey, the rain kicked in. And heavily. And that was about the time that the shoulder on this major highway -- the first shoulder I have seen in Poland -- began to turn into a potholed, puddled, cracked mess. It was the worst 20 miles I've ever biked and I am amazed the bike survived it.

I got in to Wyszków and you'd think that I had been biking in a downpour for weeks. I was drenched down to my socks and the bike was filthy. The Hotel was kind of a sad little place, with no heat, unmade beds and another sheet that didn't fit the bed. Oh, and as if to complete the pattern, they acted like they had no trace of my reservation. When I finally pointed to it on their reservation log, they then sort of hemmed and hawed for a few minutes before giving me the room. I made do for the bed using the extra sheets and blankets in the room, had a quick dinner and went straight to bed, absolutely certain that when I woke up it would be raining.

No pictures today -- there was literally nothing worthy of a photo...

Vitals on the ride:
Distance: 24 miles (total: 656 miles!)
Map: http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=21776
Soundtrack: Steeley Dan, Live at the Record Plant, LA (1970s); Lester Young, Live at the Royal Roost in Paris (who knows when)

Day 11: Białystok, Poland to Ostrów-Mazowiecka, Poland

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Follow this link:

http://www.pdsnoki.org/

Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!

--

This may have been the strangest and spookiest day yet on this long ride. It began reasonably enough with the very spartan breakfast at the very spartan MOSiR Hotel in Białystok. MOSiR apparently is a term for a sports complex of some sort, since there are MOSiRs around many towns and this hotel overlooks a track and stadium. It was, of course, gray and cold, but there didn't appear to be any rain.

I had noticed the day before that Treblinka was about halfway between Białystok and Warsaw, but it was not easily accessible on roads -- rather, the best way to get there involved a short jog on a train. So I decided I would search around Białystok for a Internet access, find a homestay online in the area there and bike 50 km to the furthest place from Białystok where I could catch that train for the town of Małkinia, just on the other side of the River Bug from Treblinka. I got online, booked with the help of the man who ran the Internet cafe (since the hotel staff only spoke Polish), saw a few more sights in Białystok and hit the road.

About 15 miles into the ride, I stopped for lunch at a roadside place and the folks were not the most welcoming there. This made me realize how generally friendly everyone had been on this trip, and how this was the one exception. As I left, a light rain started. I still had about 20 miles to go to get to the train station, and by the time I got 15 miles in, it was pouring and I was soaked. I decided it was better to miss the 3:40 pm train and stop into the pizzeria at the local town to get some tea and warm up.

This was a new, completely renovated place and the owner had all sorts of questions about my ride (everyone is excited about cycling here these days, with the Tour de Pologne going on). So I warmed up for half an hour and fortunately the rain had stopped. I bought a ticket for the train to Małkinia, and when it arrived, I slipped trying to climb the wet steel steps to the train car with my bike. A very kind Indian man on the train pulled the bike in for me and I quickly got on and thanked him. He was from the south of India and worked in "import-export", he said (and had a big duffel bag, as if to prove it). He spoke no Polish, but had lived in Warsaw for many years. We chatted for a while over the roar of the express train and I arrived in 25 minutes in Małkinia. This was where the adventures began.

Using my map, I tried to figure out how to get to Treblinka. It was already 5 pm and I knew that the road from here due north to Ostrów-Mazowiecka -- the town where I had reserved my hotel -- was 16 km long; I needed a good 45 minutes reserved to travel that distance before dark. A very kind young man in Małkinia explained the way to Treblinka to me. He said the bridge south over the River Bug (Treblinka was on the other side) was closed, but that he thought bike traffic would be permitted -- just don't let the cops see me do it. He then said, "Ah, Treblinka -- going so to show respect. I understand".

So I headed towards that bridge. The closer I got, the more surreal the situation seemed. Soon there were no people and I came to a completely closed, disused railroad bridge. I had to turn the bike sideways to get it under the barrier, and just as I was feeling like this was a little weird, an older lady and a girl came by on their bikes and did the same thing. I crossed the creaky, wet wood bridge (you could hear the wood planks bounce as I went over them) and then hit about a mile of terrible, potholed road before seeing a sign for Treblinka, next to the remains of the disused rain line.

My guidebook says, in brief, that Treblinka was a tiny little rural town where the Nazis set up two death camps, Treblinka I and II. Towards the end of the war, as the Soviets advanced, they completely destroyed any evidence of the camps, which was a massive undertaking since they had killed nearly 1 million people here. It is totally mindboggling. They then set up a Ukrainian farmer on the land to make it look like nothing had happened here.

Well, it seems in some sense like the area has never gotten past this hide-and-seek game -- I traveled all around the village and saw literally nothing -- no monument or museum. Eventually, I found a small sign that pointed eastward saying that the museum and monument were 4 km in this direction. It was already almost 6, but I traveled this very old, decaying road for about 6 km, passing through two more small towns and seeing no other people. My bike was not liking these potholes at all. When I finally found the monument and museum, the road to it was closed for repaving (or cobbling, as it turns out -- there was something haunting about seeing hundreds of thousands of marble cobblestones lying around in piles and bags around here, with all of the symbolism this brought to mind). It was impassable by bike and car, so I walked my bike up to the entrance. The man there said I was free to walk about the grounds (being a Sunday, the museum was naturally closed).

By now it was 6:30 and drizzly. The monument at Treblinka was simple but moving. I saw two Swedish men there who had apparently parked their car down where the pavement ended and were also a little baffled by how hard it was to get there. Like me, a little spooked, they took their pictures and left. There really is not much here to reflect the enormity of what happened here 65 years ago.

At this point, I calculated that I had 30 minutes to sunset and about 18 miles to go, much of this over very bad road. My general average speed has been about 14 mph, so this meant I would certainly have some night cycling to do. I sped my way there and got to Małkinia by 6:45, feeling a little spooked the whole way (beyond the spookiness of having just seen Treblinka, it felt like something out of Harry Potter -- you have to cross the old, deserted bridge before sundown...). But then the remaining 10 miles were on a road heavily shaded by trees anyway (probably pretty in the daytime), so what little sun was left was wasn't in evidence. By 3 miles in, it was completely dark. I had prepared for this eventuality by buying bike lights, so I turned them on and pedalled like mad to Ostrów-Mazowiecka, where I had a reservation for another "Hotel MOSiR".

I got to town around 7:30, exhausted, in the dark. It is a small town, but for the life of me, I could not find the Hotel MOSiR. I asked a few people and they kept pointing the same way, but I saw nothing where they told me to go. Eventually I saw a tiny sign on the side of a building next to a running track that said "MOSiR Biura" ("office"), pointing to the rear of the building. So as I noticed this, a woman and man came to unlock the main door to this building and let me in. I said "Hotel MOSiR" and they nodded -- no sign anywhere. I guess you just had to know! I said I had a reservation for tonight and she said "no, we are full". I told her that was fine, but I had reserved by phone. She was certain I had not and told me there must be some mistake... Uh oh.

At this point, I was getting very nervous. This is a tiny town, probably with only one hotel and I'm not in it. Plus, I had noticed there were many towns in this region with the name "Ostrów" in them -- maybe I had reserved in the wrong town!! Anyway, she -- Aldonna was her name -- remained firm that I had not booked here, but was VERY friendly and kind about it, telling me not to worry. Finally, I showed her the number I had called and she said, "It is not ours" -- but do not worry. Sit down. Coffee?" Now I am thinking that she is going to tell me she has found a way to put me up, but instead she called the number on my phone and determined that somehow I was reserved in a different hotel, just on the edge of town. I was so relieved and she could not have been nicer. She showed me how to get there and we had our coffee. We talked about cycling and all the cyclists from around the world she had had as guests (this being a sports hotel). I thanked her for everything and hit the road for my hotel. Although by this time it was 8:30 and I was starving. I stopped at a simple little place in the center on my way and the beef goulash they served, with barley and a beet compote on the side, was one of the best things I've eaten on this trip.

I got to the hotel and all was fine -- they had me in a large, bizarrely decorated room and I fell asleep in minutes. Tomorrow, Warsaw.

Vitals on today's ride:
Distance: 65 miles (total: 632!!! This means I passed 1,000 km today)
Map: http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=21711
No music -- no shoulders on these roads, so music would be too dangerous

A day off in Białystok, Poland

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Follow this link:

http://www.pdsnoki.org/

Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!

--

Ah, beautiful Białystok. In all seriousness, there was more to this town than initially met the eye. The first mistake was getting a hotel way on the outskirts of town. The Hotel Turkus was both relatively expensive and not that appealing, so I searched around online and found another place, the Hotel MOSiR, much closer to the center and about 40% cheaper.

The next task was to find a place to wash my clothes for the last two days of cycling. I asked the front desk at the Hotel Turkus and their search of the yellow pages yielded one result -- the Auchan complex at the far edge of town. Auchan is a huge French grocery/bulk store, kind of like Sam's Club, so I was skeptical that I would be able to find a place to wash clothes there -- I suspected that maybe the clerk misunderstood that I wanted to buy a washing machine. Anyway, I had to give it a try. I checked out of the hotel and rode the 7 miles or so to Auchan (they were rebuilding the road, so there was a lot of traversing through dirt). I passed the massive new Orthodox cathedral they're still building here which was interesting to see.

The Auchan was an enormous complex with a mall attached. Seems this is the pattern of development here as it is in the US; the city centers die and all the new development is on the outskirts of town. Anyway, it was like a little French installation in the middle of Poland -- I recognized a lot of the stores from French mall complexes. This reminded me of what I had heard from a client in Paris when I was working on an offering for a French grocery store chain. He said that he had worked a lot in Poland for another chain (Carrefour, I think) and that all the exciting development was happening here. He said he'd rather live in Poland than France. Hm.

Well, the "laundry" here was in fact a dry cleaner -- "5 a Sec", the French chain. But they were very nice and agreed to wash my clothes in 2 hours. So I had lunch, read my book and wandered around the mall with my bike. More than one person asked if I was participating in the Tour de Pologne, which just passed through here a few days ago. Needless to say, this was the most expensive cleaning so far, but for a cleaners, it was still really reasonable -- I'm still not sure whether they laundered or dry-cleaned my biking clothes, but whatever they did, it is nice to have clean clothes. I headed back to find my new hotel, which turned out to be about 7 miles back into town. And, of course, it started to rain again...more rain, and I had just scrubbed the bike and the chain again.

The hotel was fine -- very basic and in another concrete block that reminded me again of Moscow days. But nice people and a clean, corner room with lots of light. I wandered town to look at a few interesting sights: the balcony of the local palace (now a medical school) is where Felix Dzerzhinsky declared the first Polish Communist state in 1920. There is also a monument to Ludwick Zahmenhof, from Białystok, who invented Esperanto. Then, in the rain as it began to get dark, I was able to find a small obelisk hidden in a park behind some concrete block apartments which commemorated the uprising in Białystok's Jewish ghetto in 1943. The writing was in both Polish and Hebrew and stood on what was once the center of the city's Jewish ghetto.

Today, I've looked around a little more and found "General Washington Steet", as well as another commemoration of the synagogue in the old ghetto where 1000 people were burned alive when the Nazis burned it down. Again, a tiny little tablet that commemorates this. I'm now about to head over to the "army museum" to see a few more interesting exhibits on Białystok in World War II. If I have time before I head out, I may also see it they'll let me in to the Orthodox church to see the service and hear the choir. I also came across a statue of Pope John-Paul II, which brought back the Parkinson's connections.

Then this afternoon, I have my second-to-last ride towards Warsaw. I am now about 110 miles away and, if I can find accommodation, I plan to stay in the small town of Małkinia, which is the jumping-off point for visiting Treblinka. I'll need to ride about 50 km to another small town and then take the train the rest of the way.

Day 10: Augustow, Poland to Białystok, Poland

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Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!

--

Well, today was the kind of day on which I just should have stayed in bed. When I woke, shockingly, it was raining and cold again. Each day has been darker and colder than the day before. I rode out anyway and headed to the internet place I had seen the night before in the center of town. I have discovered that most of the internet terminals in Poland are literally coin operated, which is kind of quirky. But this one had multimedia ports, so I was even able to plug my memory card in to put up some more pictures in the blog.

On the way out, I noticed a sports clothing store across the street. It was so cold that I decided to buy some long lycra pants to wear over my shorts. What they had was somewhere halfway between lycra and sweatpants, but it would have to do. That was such a good decision!

I also passed a few "shrines", for lack of a better term. Poland seems to be teeming with shrines, both to saints and to lost relatives, many of these by the roadside. Some have handmade crosses, but all have colored glass incense censers that look like a mix between a lantern and a jar for canning fruit preserves. I saw several of these just on the way out of Augustow.

One of the elements that drew me to this part of Poland was that signs of all three of the major religions from the region can be seen here -- Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish. I had read that right outside of Augustow in a little town called Grabowe Grady there was a community of Orthodox old believers: the men in flowing white beards, a beautiful church and a spectacular choir. So I took a turn off the main road and then another turn off of that road onto an ashen-looking dirt road to get to this town.

I found the church and cemetery here and it was a remarkable place, really out in the middle of nowhere. But there was not a soul to be found anywhere. I had read that the church was at the northernmost tip of the village, so I walked my bike down that ash/dirt road south from the church for about 4 miles or so. I came across a few people, but, at least by the sight of them, no old believers. I met a man with two puppies who lived in a wooden shack. He was in a suit that was caked in mud and he pointed me towards where the dirt road hit the pavement again. He asked me for a cigarette, I think, but all I had was chocolate, for which he thanked me and then he went back into the shack. And that was it.

I suddenly realized it was 2:00 and I still had a long way to go to get to Białystok by sunset, since I lost an hour at the border yesterday. So as I hit the paved road, I did my best to catch the one connecting paved road that would bring me back to the highway. Well, when I got to the tiny town where I was supposed to take a left turn, the "paved" road on the map turned out to be a dirt road. So I quickly figured out that I would have to go an extra 8 km or so to get out of there on all paved roads. Not good, especially as I could see storm clouds coming in my direction. The storm clouds made for very strong headwinds, too, and by the time I made it to the main highway, I was exhausted and my right Achilles tendon and knee were in a lot of pain. This had me very worried, as it was 2:30, I still had had nothing to eat and I had to get to Białystok by 7 pm at the latest.

There was no place to eat at the next town, so I kept pedalling until I did find a "grill" and had some pierogi and soup to warm up. While there, I faced up to my biggest concern about the end of this trip -- finding a bike shop in Warsaw that could box my bike for the plane. I have had visions for the past few days of finding no way to transport my bike back to the US and having to wait an extra week while a bike shop orders a box. So I had written down the phone numbers of about 15 bike shops in Warsaw. Literally the first one I called said: "no problem -- it will take us about 30 minutes. Bring it in whenever!" Major issue resolved!

I got back on the road and every fiber of my legs was killing me, yet I still had 60 km to get to Białystok. And I also began to realize that, unlike the Via Baltica, which I much maligned before, the highways here have NO shoulder. And this is the main route from the Baltics to Warsaw, so the road is loaded with trucks. They've generally been good about going around me on these roads, but at one point a truck honked at me solidly for 15 seconds before passing...I gave him a less-than-friendly hand signal. It was about the time I was having that it started to rain and I really started to feel sorry for myself and wonder if I could ever make it to Białystok today.

About 12 km further in, I stopped for some tea to warm up and noticed they were showing the Tour de Pologne on their TV. The cyclists were all getting soaked AND climbing mountains in the south of Poland, so I realized I was being a wimp, finished my tea and pounded out the remaining 48 km to Białystok, despite the many, many hills and the continual drizzle.

I arrived here before it got dark, but had such trouble finding my hotel that I was riding around for about 20 minutes in the dark. The hotel -- Hotel Turkus -- is a strange place. The halls remind me of Moscow apartment blocks (the legend when I lived there was that the person who designed all the concrete block apartments originally designed prisons, which explained the very severe, padded doors for the rooms). The decor of the restaurant had to be seen to be believed (see photo). But the dinner here (no other options beyond the hotel restaurant, since we're in the middle of nowhere) was very good and was not ruined by the "dance party"/karaoke going on on the dance floor. I'm here today and tomorrow to take a rest, then it is 2 more biking days to Warsaw.

Vitals on today's ride:
Distance: 67 miles (total ride: 567 miles)
Map of route: http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=21577
Soundtrack: Aretha Franklin, Live at the Fillmore West 1971; Steeley Dan, Live at the Record Plant

Day 9: Marijampolė, Lithuania to Augustow, Poland

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Follow this link:

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Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!

--

Before posting anything, I just wanted to thank the first contributors -- I've heard back from PDSNOKI that some very generous checks have been rolling in, so thank you very much for all your support! Keep them coming!

Today started with my good friends at the Zilina Hotel in Marijampolė, Lithuania ; ) all serious, the people here were very nice. I sat down to breakfast and this must have been the first meal I had where there were no tomatoes and cucumbers. A mother and son from East Germany were sitting at the table next to me. They had seen me come in the night before with my bike. The mother spoke a little Russian, but otherwise, we had no formal way to communicate, but we somehow managed. She spent much of her life in Kaliningrad, which is where she learned her Russian. He told me he was born in Danzig, which is now Gdansk, Poland. As best I could undertstand, they were there to go hunting but I suspect I did not correctly understand that part of the conversation!!

As I hit the road towards Poland, there was one more stop in Lithuania -- Kalvarija. There was a beautiful but crumbling baroque church here, but otherwise, there was almost nothing in this town. It even took me quite a while to find a place to eat lunch, but I did find a little basement place which barely mentioned in any public way that it served food. Despite that, the lunch was good (advertised as a shnitzel, it was something else entirely).

I then was ready to speed the last 10 km to the Polish border, with my passport at the ready. But there was no speeding. First of all, just outside of Kalvarija, I hit a police checkpoint. This was the second one I had seen in Lithuania and they did stop me this time. They inspected my bike and pointed to the wheels saying "need, need". I interpreted this to mean that I needed reflectors in the front and the rear. I showed him my light in the front and my reflector in the rear and he seemed satisfied. He let me go but wouldn't let me take his picture!

The next impediment were hills. This was the beginning of a long stretch of beautiful, rolling pastoral hills, but they seemed to be all uphill on this road. They culminated at the border crossing, which again was anticlimactic (other than that of the hills, I guess). I couldn't find any place with the Lithuanian and Polish flags next to each other, unfortunately, to round out my collection! I changed my litas to Polish zloty and failed to find a cash machine. I had a cup of coffee, said hello to the customs guys and kept pedalling into Poland.

I pedalled hard in the cold straight into the first major town, Suwałki, Poland. I am sure I could have done a better job exploring this town, as I later discovered in reading the Rough Guide, but it was a pretty depressing place, with block after block of Soviet-style concrete apartment high rises which you can see from miles back as you arrive in the town. I looked for a cash machine to no avail and was starting to worry that I wasn't going to be able to get cash anywhere.

I just kept pedalling the remaining, thankfully relatively flat 30 km to Augustow, where I had pretty rough pavement and it was getting quite chilly. My gudebook tells me that this stretch, including the Augustow forest, is one of the last remaining large tracts of virgin forest in Europe. It is definitely beautiful (again, I had to imagine what it would have been like in the sun). One lucky thing for such a long day of cycling was that I gained an hour when I crossed into Poland. But since I've only gone due south, that means it gets dark one hour earlier here. By 6:45 I was coming into Augustow and the sun was starting to set. But luckily my hotel was on the northside of town and I was relieved to be at the end of my journey.

I settled into my very basic hotel, the Hotel Krechoviak, and wandered about 2 miles into town to get some dinner and some cash. The town looked pretty -- a place where a major lake meets two canals. I had some fried fish in a little waterside place. These fish were small (bigger than anchovies, smaller than trout) and were served with two forks to help you remove the meat from the bones. I then headed into the center and found that something was going on in the main church -- I could smell the incense from several blocks away.

Tomorrow, I head for Białystok, Poland, another 90 km away. I plan to stay there for a day and do some sightseeing. On the way, there is a small town where some old Russian Orthodox "old believers" live, so I also plant to check that out.

Vitals on today's ride:

Distance: 57 miles (toal trip distance: 500 miles)

Map of route: http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=21574

Soundtrack: Murzilki, Live at Manhattan Express, Moscow, 1995; Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall, 1971; Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, Live at Montreux.

Day 8: Kuanas, Lithuania to Marijampolė, Lithuania

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Follow this link:

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Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!

--

Another cold day in the Baltics, with no sun. The plan today was to make it to the Lithuanian/Polish border town of Kalvarija, but that plan was foiled. I headed over to the tourism office to enlist their help in finding me a homestay, hotel or guest house in Kalvarija. They were very nice and helpful, but after 30 minutes, it became clear that there was nothing. They told me that the border district between Marijampolė and Suwałki, Poland, was just forest, with not much there. They encouraged me to stay in Marijampolė, which was a larger town, but a good 18 km further inward than Kalvarija -- this would mean a very short day of riding (probably only 38 miles) and a very long day the next day to Poland. I agreed and booked a modern-looking hotel called the Keta Guest House for a what I thought was a high price of 130 litas ($54). The man at the tourist office wanted to know all about how my trip had been going and what I thought of Lithuania. We got to talking and it turned out that he had spent one year in school in Kaunas with my Lithuanian friend from Fletcher, Paulus Vilemas.

On the way back from the tourist office, I saw a car with a Vermont license plate -- this one's for you, Leslie! I checked out, picked up my nicely cleaned and folded laundry (which made it very easy to pack!), hit the post office to lighten my load by sending my Baltics book and map home and then got on the road.

As I noticed when I arrived here, Kaunas is in a deep river valley, so I had a 1 km climb to get out, but it wasn't too bad. And the ibuprofen knocked out any ankle soreness, so all was good. Because it was very cold, I stopped on the far outskirts of town to warm up and get some lunch at a cute little place, painted green on the outside and fuscia on the inside. I had one of the greasiest meals I've ever had (Lithuanian potato pancakes, though really good, are fried in bacon grease and served dripping in it. You then dunk it in sour cream...).

I got back on the road and noticed on the map that I had no choice but to ride about 7 km on the full, 4-lane highway before catching the country road 230. This actually wouldn't have been too bad except that they were repairing the highway, so the other direction was closed and we had two-way traffic for these 7 km. There was barely any shoulder and at one point a massive, wide load came in the other direction, while a truck was passing me. That wasn't fun, but I saw it well in advance and pulled off onto the gravel.

When I finally got to the 230, I was relieved. That was a poor instinct. The 30 km of the 230 was the worst riding experience I have has so far. While the paving was quite good (many of these roads use the gravel-on-tar paving that creates a lot of resistance for road bike tires, but this was true pavement), apparently the trucks prefer this road to the highway that it parallels. I don't know why, but this road was FULL OF TRUCKS! There was a permanent ridge between the edge of the road and the right tire line of the road from all the heavy truck traffic, I guess, and there was no shoulder. So as these trucks went by every 5 seconds or so, I had to stay to the right of the ridge, on the white line and avoid falling into the dirt-and-gravel shoulder. It was pretty harrowing and I just couldn't help but wonder why the trucks took this route. Maybe the highway is a toll road, I don't know. The only pleasant moments were the baby goat I saw early on and the statue park dedicated to an early president of Lithuania, Kazys Grinius. Grinius was a doctor who studied in Moscow but fought for Lithuanian independence. He eventually was expelled to Germany as the Russians advanced in WWII and then emigrated to the US. He died in Chicago among the Lithuanian community there.

I made it in to Marijampolė quickly and then searched around for my hotel. But to my surprise I found a bike shop and asked them to help me check my tire pressure. My rear pressure in particular seemed really low. The guy tried to pump the air in but he had no valve on the end of his pump and it literally blew off the tire when he pumped it. So no luck. I also noted there was a little hotel over the shop, just in case there was any problem with the one I had booked.

I got my bearings and found my hotel, the Keta Guest House. It looked nice and very modern and there was a "wurst house" attached. As I came into the room (ground floor, hurray!), the woman behind the desk took a phone call. It was the manager, who must have seem me arrive from the wurst house. He told her I could not keep the bike in the room. I asked her where he proposed that I put it and she showed me the fence outside the hotel. I told her that meant I couldn't stay at her hotel, and she was very sorry. I asked to speak to the manager and he refused! So I left and asked where there was another hotel. She said there was one right next door.

This other hotel looked very nice so I figured it was very expensive. I rang the bell to enter and nobody responded, but while I was there, unbelievably, I saw another bike shop. This was a tiny, bike repair shop and they spoke only German. Nevertheless, they had a pump, a gauge and a presta/schraeder adapter so they were able to pump me up competely. What a difference -- the tires are great now.

When I went back to this other hotel to ring again, someone finally opened the door. This was a very modern building, with conference facilities and African art in the vestibule. The lady who let me in said she didn't work there. She said in broken Russian that this hotel was closed but she had trouble explaining what she meant. Another man came in a suit and tie and said in English that it was not a hotel. I asked why it had the Lithuanian word for hotel and stars on the outside. He seemed confused and said it was used for something else now, but he didn't know what. I was about to ask him why he was there, but then I realized there was really no point in asking more questions -- this was already getting into really strange territory, so I just walked out and figured I'd go back to the other place above the other bike shop.

But then I remembered I had noted an Internet cafe on the way in, so I went there, looked something up online and was all set. The Hotel Zilina was on the outskirts of town, but still wanted 110 ($45) litas for the room (or so I thought), but I booked it at that price and sight unseen, to be sure I had a place.

When I got there, though, it was totally fine. They only took cash, which they wanted up front, but they LOVED that my name was Strauss and the room and shower were fine. I had to carefully close the flimsy shade so as not to give the house next door a show, and there were no restaurants within miles, but otherwise it was fine. There was a grocery store nearby, though, where I was able to get some cash, some local delicacies for dinner (a round sweet bread, some dried apricots, a banana, some sliced salami and cheese, and a beer). They even had a little pharmacy, so I got some extra ibuprofen at 40 cents for a pack of 20.

When I came back and tried to pay, I discovered that in my terrible Russian, I had misunderstood the price. The room was 70 litas, or about $29. I guess tomorrow I'll need to spend those extra litas before I leave Lithuania!

Vitals on today's ride:
Distance: 40 miles (with back-and-forths in Marijampolė), total: 443 miles
Route map: http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=21496
Soundtrack: The Rolling Stones, Live at Leeds (1970s), Murzilki, Live at Mathattan Express, Moscow, 1995.

A day of rest in Kaunas, Lithuania

PLEASE SUPPORT MY RIDE BY SENDING YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!

Make checks out to PDSNOKI, P.O. Box 33077, Cincinnati, OH 45233

My number in Lithuania: +370 648 857 10

---

So today was a day of resting to prepare for the remaining 270 miles (390 km) from Kaunas, Lithuania to Warsaw, Poland. It looks roughly like I have 5 days of cycling ahead of me and I hope my body holds up! My legs are sore, but they'll be alright. I am more concerned about sitt

ing in the bike saddle for 5 more days and, more importantly, about my very stiff left Achilles tendon. But I think today's rest will do wonders and I am also planning another rest day before arriving in Warsaw. I also watched the Tour d'Espagne on Eurosport for inspiration, and I hear that the Tour de Pologne is going to be going on at the same time as my ride! Maybe we'll cross paths.

All is well here in Kaunas's Old Town. Although Kaunas is the 3rd largest city in the Baltic states, its old town really doesn't rival Riga's or Tallinn's. But there is still a lot to see. Nevertheless, first things first -- I spent the morning prowling the town for a place to do laundry. My hotel gave me an address that was within walking distance. I found myself wandering around in this alleyway of decrepit car garages and was eventually pointed to a big building which housed the local "American bowling alley" ("Americkietiski Kegliai"). I went in with my sack of dirty clothes and found that there were all sorts of random businesses in this complex, including a Harley Davidson store (and a sign that read, in English "Motorcycle parking only") and a sauna. I waited in the line to sauna to ask if they knew where the laundromat was and the elderly woman in line in front of me reminded me of why I am here. She clearly had Parkinson's and had difficulty picking up her change.

The woman who ran the sauna seemed very displeased that I spoke Russian to her and I am starting to recognize that Kaunas has a very small Russian population (90% of its population is ethnically Lithuanian, according to one narrative the tourist bureau puts out) and Russian is not frequently spoken here. That said, I did see some interesting graffiti in Russian in town, glorifying the Russian cult rock band, Kino, and thier lead singer, Victor Tsoi (see photo). Anyway, it turns out that the laundromat at the bowling alley went out of business and she was none too pleased to have to tell me that in Russian. So I wandered over to the tourist office and they found a laundry place (and the woman behind the desk told me that she took a trip similar to mine from Greece through the Balkans). Apparently there is only one place to have laundry done; it is in a basement inside a courtyard behind a government building. They'll have my clothes for me by tomorrow at noon, so that's good!

After my tour of the churches in old town and a ride in the funicular up to the interesting, massive cathedral on the hill, I wandered down to the river, thinking there might be some good views. Rather, the river looked very polluted and sad, and the walk was pretty uninspiring. I've done a little more touring of old town and then I came back online here at the hotel in my quest to find a bike shop in Warsaw that will commit to packing up my bike in a box for the plane. I sent out a bunch of emails, so we'll see if I succeed.

The other minor annoyance is that my 8 gigabyte memory card for my camera is already full. This is the problem of taking photos in "raw" mode (thanks for getting me hooked on this, Matt Barton). I'll have to either start deleting or get a second card. On a related note, I also hope to have a connection where I can plug the camera back in to upload more pictures for this blog. My next two planed stops look like very small towns, though, so I am not optimistic.

In other news, I have just heard that the remnants of Hurricaine Ike hit Cincinnati pretty badly. My parents still have no power and a tree fell on the roof of part of my brother's house. So let's all keep our fingers crossed that they get the power back on soon and that the tree damage is minimal.

Tomorrow, after the laundry comes back - body willing and weather permitting -- I'm heading about 80 km to the last town on the Lithuanian side of the Polish border, Kalvarija.