the adventure begins
so doesnt look like ill be able to put up pictures until i get to croatia, ill be only blogging on ipod only. so we finished school yesterday and today is the day everybody goes their separate ways. ill give a brief run down of the highlights of the last 3 weeks.1. everyone in eastern europe talks with a ridiculous "Borat" accent, so we have spent the last 3 weeks imitating them at every possible opportunity. we have now listened to the Borat version of the Kazakstan national anthem probably 50 times, and screaming I hate Uzbekistan in the streets. I accused a begging woman in Lithuania of being an Uzbek spy. yes it has been quite entertaining.
2. Bruce the Wise. so i never told everyone about our international contingent on the trip. One half of that contingent is Bruce Packard, aka the Grim Reaper. Bruce was a very succesful investment banker in London, and if you google his name youll see why he was called the Grim Reaper of Banking. We decided that his name is Bruce the Wise, due to his constant supply of wisdom on every imaginable topic. Bruce the Wise is in his mid 30s and has become a vagabond since leaving the banking industry last year, and litterally has nothing to do but read all day. so Bruce joined our Economic Crisis Tour just for fun, and because he likes asking ridiculous questions to eastern european finance ministers. I have found Bruce to be a very entertaining character, and we culminated our trip with a lecture from Bruce yesterday. maybe ill write more of Bruce's wisdom down sometime. just know that he has the keenest sense of predicting exactly what time it is going to rain, and completely avoiding it. Bruce also worked at a ski resort in Checnya in the mid 90s when he was like 18. he is very wise.
3. Latvia sucks. for various reasons (similar to my view of Finland) i have decided that i do not like Latvia, not to mention we had some terrible company visits here. we went to the "Solid State of Physics" lab yesterday. i have never in my life seen more people sleeping during a lecture.
4. Russians. i find they are a fascinating people, and i think the next trip i take will absolutely involve Moscow and St. Petersburg.
5. The worst weather on the planet. in correct fashion, it is a cold raining day today in Riga. there have been two hail storms so far on this trip, and rain almost everyday at some point. they have some of the highest suicide rates anywhere in the world in the baltics, and i know exactly why.
so there is a little taste of whats been going down. the last few days have been fairly uneventful, just working all day and playing all night. last night we had our fairwell dinner and then pulled an all nighter since a lot of people were flying out at like 6 in the morning. we came back to the hostel and there was a norwegian staying on our floor. so at 3am this morning we sat around listening to about 20 old women sing norwegian folk songs to the whole hotel. i cant explain how ridiculous the whole scenario was, but at some point i think we ended up singing sweet home alabama to them. security made us shut up at around 430. then today Bruce the Wise took the bus to Tartu. Bruce the Wise loves Tartu, and has told me more times than I ever want to hear about how great Tartu is and how he is going to take the bus back there. I am now without wisdom. we also went to the top of a giant church tower today, in the rain. so i have some sweet blurry pictures from up there that maybe ill put up if i stumble upon a computer
im off to Copenhagan with John and Mandy in a few hours, then Berlin on Monday, then Krakow for a few days. on friday im hopping the train and going to meet Marie Lamay for a few days on the coast of Croatia, and then maybe ill go to Budapest. this is all subject to change based on my mood and the weather, because if i dont see some sunshine soon im gonna lose it.
posted by Graham Potter @ 6:38:00 AM
