Last Stage of the Citric Dairy Diary - Riga to Warsaw

We woke up far far too late, no one had set an alarm clock and everyone was tired. Toni woke up about 11am and cooked breakfast for us, he had a poker tournament on at 8pm and doesn't like night driving much. I still had to pick up my sleeping bag and do a bit of shopping but we just decided to forget about everything, including a shower and Martyna looked incredibly rough.. I think she just went in her pijamas haha.

Stopped in Bauska on the way down, for a few more boxes of cigarettes and then headed for Kaunas where Toni got a coffee, I did some more "shopping" and Martyna just strolled around in her pijamas looking pregnant and liked she'd escaped from a mental ward haha.

Straight down to the Polish border and stopped twice for coffee and got to Warsaw for around 9pm.. Not bad. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, we didn't hear from the Spaniard and the French guy may or may not have been waiting for us at the hostel, he'd agreed to come with us but he was rather drunk at the time and knocked over a chair and then disappeared from the bar, with or without his jacket/passport.. we're not sure.

Lemons and Milk on the Move - Stage 4 - Tartu to Riga via Viljandi

We had some breakfast with Tonu, took a couple of photos and then headed for Tartu centre where we met up with Babushka, she showed us some places to buy dictionaries, postcards, Vana Tallinn and a bit of a sightseeing tour. Then we headed off for Viljandi, the 75km went fast.. probably because Toni had started driving fast again was cheerful to have an extra person in the car. We took a few photos of Viljandi and spent our last Eesti Kroner on some things (bananas I think, can't remember actually), then said good bye to Babushka and headed for the Latvian border.

My map showed a Latvian border directly below Viljandi, so we took that one.. it was dirt track for the last 20km and we only saw 1 car but all of a sudden we hit a shed at the border with a barrier across the road and a sign saying Latvia. There was also a dog but it was unclear whether he was a custom's dog or not, he spent most of the time trying to get into our car and trying to lick my face.

Over the other side of the border and we filled up on petrol, then picked up a russian speaking guy and took him to Valmiera, Toni had a former guest from Valmiera but it turned out she was in Riga, so we drove straight to Riga and went to Marcus's hostel. Toni met up with his friends and cooked us all a meal, whilst me and Martyna tried to recruit people for the journey down to Warsaw. She'd managed to convince a Spanish guy to come down, as he was heading for Krakow anyway and I managed to get a french guy roped in, promising him more weed than in Finland where he was currently studying.

We also met a German guy, who was travelling with some Erasmus students and one of them (a Mexican) managed to get stuck on the boat without a passport, all a bit strange! Then we went out partying together with another Latvian HC member and met up with some brazilian/german drunk guys... the brazilian dude was convinced he was pregnant, and all together a totally insane bloke.

Got back to Marcus's around 4.30 and crashed soon after.

Lemons on Tour - Stage 3 - Riga to Tartu

We left Riga well into the afternoon and Toni went insane, turning off the road at high speed because he'd seen his "Riga bus" - he collects his photo next to sightseeing buses. After that we drove up to Cesis, mostly eating crisps and singing the whole way. Had a little look around and photographed the place including some girl that everyone was taking pictures of because she was making a point of having her photograph taken.

That's where we split with Kruopa and Tuchkus, Tuchkus wanted to continue to Tartu but that grumpy old Kruopa forced him to go to Kaunas. Anyway just exiting Cesis and I realised I'd lost my passport, so we tip the whole car upside down looking for it and make the lithuanians look for it in their bags on their way back to Riga... it turns out it was in the small gap between boot and back seat.

After that we picked up some Latvian guy who was heading to Valmiera... and then we went over the border at Valga, which we somehow struggled to find (kept on hitting parts of walls in the town that marked the border).. the border crossing was kinda quick considering they'd probably never seen a Singaporean passport before. Just then we received a call from Babuhska, the Estonian girl - turns out she'd picked up my note and had decided to be our tourguide for the night. We got to Tartu met our host Tonu and his family (including very friendly dog), then we headed for the city centre, went to an Indian restuarant.. which was pretty damn awful. Met up with Babushka (who was visiting her.. yes, you guessed it.. Babushka), Toni told a lot of his jokes and then we headed home.. agreeing for another sightseeing tour in the light and to take her home to Viljandi on the way back to Riga.

Went back home and slept like a baby :)

Tandoor Lemons - Stage 2 - Kaunas - Riga

Toni comes round to Tomas's house with Martyna, Ruta & Tuchkus and we cook up an enormous breakfast using Toni's spices and Ruta's ginger. Legendary egg. Also had a chat with Tomas's father who thought we were frenchmen coming for the Lithuania v France football match... no no much better looking!

Tuchkus has decided to join us - so we're up to 5 people! Great! Then whilst we were waiting for him outside his house to pack a bag, Roy tells us he'd like to go to Vilnius and then head back to Poland.. hmm so that leaves another space in the car, and we can't have that.

After a little negotiating in quick Lithuanian, Tuchkus says Kruopa is coming too - but only as far as Latvia. We leave Kaunas kind of late after buying dictionaries and what not. We decided to cross the smaller border in order to have a look at Birzai.. we were the only ones there but they kept us at the border for over an hour, giving Toni's passport some strict studying and then telling him he needed an address to tell them that he was going to. So we rang Marcus who is illegally living in Latvia and had to give his address haha.

An hour later and a bit of fooling around with the RIGA sign as you enter (I.e. me putting my arse through the hole of the G) and we started to meet up with some people. First one is Marcus who takes us to the Old Town Hostel where we met up with about 6 or 8 others. A good night apart from some moronic Latvian baby skinheads shouting abuse at Toni. Around 1 or 2, we headed for the hostel that Marcus worked at, so that Martyna could have a shower. That's where me and Tuchkus started recruiting for a replacement for Kruopa. We met an Estonian girl who was heading back to Tartu herself the next day.. and tried to convinve her to show us around Tartu for some babushka rock concerts. She was nearly up for it but the last words which were from Marcus "yes, they're all bastards".. didn't sound like she'd want to come along. I left a note downstairs at the reception with our phone number on just in case, she changed her mind.

A girl called Anda had agreed to host me and Toni in order to take some of the weight out of Marcus's house.. well we went to hers at 4am, after having had a 15 minute conversation in messed up English and Russian with her friend Cristina, who I thought had 2 children but I think only had a child who was 2 years old. Ended up talking about Eleja of all things, since it was close to where she worked in Jelgava! When we got home, Anda asks "you don't mind sharing do you"... hmm it was the day Warsaw no.1 and 2 slept together and I tell you, there's not much to be desired in the Tomato flavoured crisps belly of Warsaw no.2! About 2 or 3 hours later, it was time to leave already, Anda's cousin was coming around and might have felt uneasy in our company, so we dropped her off at work and then went to Marcus's. It's actually the first time in a while that I've had 2 hosts for 1 night. Marcus's toilet is one of those platformed ones, so lacking in sleep, I for some reason photographed the evidence to show him later.

The Lemon Tree Party in the Tonimobile - Stage 1.. Warsaw - Kaunas

Well on Tuesday 20th, Toni says to me "I'm bored in Warsaw and want to go somewhere", I said "let's go to Latvia, I need dictionaries and cigarettes", so we try to recruit a few more people and set off from Warsaw on Thursday morning, with a bag full of food, some CD's, me, toni, martyna and an englishman called Roy that Ula has sent to us..

Toni has a new style of driving, about 100km/hr slower than last year and Martyna's on the verge of giving birth to a german.. that's never good. We make it up to the Lithuanian border Ogrodniki by lunch time and head for Druskininkai.. which is going under an enormous amount of refurbishment. In fact the whole town was in a right old mess, but Toni took a few photos and the pregnant one went for a piss. After an hour there, we headed for the Soviet Park on the way to Merkine... plenty of Lenin/Stalin statues and even one of them wrapped up in huge black plastic bags which kind of gave the impression that Lenin was a kinky sod. It's a nice park, a little pricey to get in though.

Then up to Kaunas, Kruopa had sorted us some hosts out so I directed Toni to the supermarket near her house and we meet in the centre with Tuchkus & Ruta before heading to a "Jump Up" concert in a local bar. It's all very strange to be in Lithuania and not drinking btw.... Tomas later arrived, a cool young guy who hosted me and Roy. I've been to Kaunas quite a lot of times, so nothing special to go looking for.

No drinking.. Sheize

Hmm, so I've not put anything on here for ages.. mostly because I was organising a big trip to Africa which at the moment has failed to materialise.. well I guess I just don't do planning. Everything almost ready to go and I end up with liver, gall bladder and kidney problems - mostly from drinking and not saying hello to monsieur le toilette as often as I should. The old liver is twice as big as it should be and the gall bladder almost 3 x the size of a regular one...bloody killing after the Ultra Sound Jelly lark. The doctors orders were for rest, pills and no beer... as strange as it sounds, it seems to have done the trick.