2004-01-04 (horseries)

Bacon and flitch.

Lithuanian cuisine tends towards the hearty: the trademark dish is the zeppelin ("The one can't imagine Lithuanian table without zeppelin on it") a dumpling allegedly of potato that is really a gelatinous wodge of starch, stuffed with meat and covered with a sauce of soured cream and bacon, and very nice with it. However, this takes a long time to prepare, and some restaurants are thus reluctant to bother with it.

The beer snacks are good, too: C^ili Pica does a superb and very hot pepper pizzoid ring with room in the middle for a half-litre of beer, hoorah, and the bar which has become our second home here also has beer snacks such as peas and bacon (a big bowl full of some kind of pulse mixed with bacon, different from the Latvian grey peas with bacon, which is also very nice) but of course, I had to go for the "bacon and flitch with pickled vegetables" to find out what flitch is.

What flitch is is antibacon: strips of pig fat with occasional streaks of meat, and this and the cured bacon (both cold) are arranged very prettily in a ring on a very large plate, with a bowl of pickled vegetables in the centre. What pickled vegetables are, in this instance, is gherkin and garlic. That, Varied Reader, is a snack to reckon with, and no less so for the diner's companions, although it is really an experience that ought to be shared, in the event of two or more persons being found who like that sort of thing.

On menus, as almost everywhere else, the text is given in Lithuanian and Engleesh, and Russian is conspicuous by its absence. Russianophones therefore end up asking what on earth things are, whereupon the Lithuanian waitron will launch into an extract from their ancient and noble national epic poem (in Russian translation). Or that's what it sounds like; certainly it takes an awfully long time. ("When finally Lagas reached Kaunas he was down to his last 300 pigs, and he slaughtered several of them for a feast in a ritual manner, which I will now painstakingly describe.")

But I think you'd still be better off here with Russian than Engleesh: although most touriste-facing persons can certainly handle their duties in the language of Shakespeare, they have a disconcerting tendency to guess what your question was (which sometimes it very much wasn't) and answer that instead. If you lived here and didn't learn Luithuanian, you would have a dull time indeed, unless you were very fond of the company of ex-pats.

Vilnius university, by the way, is very pretty indeed, and well worth the entrance fee to wander its courtyards, and if I ever succede in turning myself into the Scandiwegian philologiste of choice for the discerning university, and they find a suitable quantity of funding, and I learn fluent Lithuanian, I would certainly consider accepting position in their Scandiwegian philologie department.

2004-01-04 (horseries)

New Years Day.

On a reconnaissance mission in the neighbourhood of the hotel on New Years Day, when the sno is still falling and most things are shut, I am relieved to find that at least the local supermarket is open.

The alcohol section is in semi-quarantine near the front, and appears to be well stocked with intoxicating liquors of all descriptions except, bafflingly, beer. But beer has been the staple tipple of von Bladets for generations, since we are a very down-to-earth sort of aristocrat at heart, and not at all stuck up. Mildly bewildered, I repair to the shop proper to gather my wits, and of course this is where the beer is: filed not under "alcohol", but under "staples" along by the bread, and so my wits never do quite get gathered.

The generic beer here is S^vturys (with a hac^ek) which I like just fine, and in the supermarket they have 2l bottles for under a quid, which I like even better. Betterer still, they sell the canonical chunky 600ml (half-litre + head) glasses out of which beer is best drunk. (We acknowlege the rival claim of the litre glass, although we find it a little cumbersome for either daily use or quotidien exploitation. We acknowlege, also, the existence of 300 ml glasses in various shapes.)

Thus equipped, and with a sno-covered balcony for a fridge, the afternoon begins to take on a quite satisfactory aspect. Except for one thing, and it is a thing considerably other than of smallness: the skihoppning. The Vilnius hotel has neither RTL (the German channel which covers it) nor Eurosport (the English version of which covers the action a day late, which is annoying but better than nothing). And anyone who has spent a lot of Twinkletrees in Yoorpean hotels will tell you, watching the skihoppning is a very addictive pasttime, as it is surely the most majestically preposterous sport ever invented. ("Since the dawn of time, man has aspired to fly like the birds. Most persons, however, can easily tell the difference between this and skiing off of the edge of a cliff. Today, we learn more about the persons who can't...") And on New Years Day, it is the turn of Garnish-Pat-a-caken to host the second round of the Four Hills tournament, and we very much desire to see if Mr Pettersen of Norway can repeat his first round triumph.

So there is nothing - nothing, I tell you! - for it but to head out to the bar from NewYearsEve where they had German Eurosport (which shows it live but it attempts to confuse us by calling it skispringsprangsprung or somesuch, which we see through in an instant, for it is clearly the same hoppning we know and love).

The same Engleesh-speaking waitress is on duty, after 2 hours sleep, and normal service is very much resumed, except that most tables aren't reserved, including the one we need in front of the telly which our obliging waitress switches over for us, hoorah. The table behind us is reserved, for a party diligently celebrating that drinking is possible in the new year also. Around 1700, one of them keels over, and does not get up. His companions attempt to revive him, fail, and leave, and it's a couple of hours before a coalition of polices and paramedics succeeds in hauling him off the premises.

During much of this time, the dowager Countess and I have occupied a large booth table to ourselves, apart from a brief interlude sharing with a trio of Russian-speaking wimmins eating very daintily indeed, and we feel (but are not made to feel) a little guilty about this, but the booth behind is after all occupied by just one person, and being unconscious seems to have taken the edge off his appetite, for he orders nothing the whole time.

Later, just about the time I'm bladdered enough to be thinking somehat longingly of towels and their inthrowing, we instead team up with a Norwegian who specialises in selling boutique Baltic wood to Norwegish expats in Spain for the open fires they don't need but somehow feel obliged to have in their villas, an Irish person who is scouting for hotel locations (the budget airline Ryanair is coming to Kaunaus, an hour or so away by train, and this is going to have ramifications and then some) and a Lithuanian pirate CD seller, and keep going.

During this time, of course, no money whatever has changed hands - the waitstaff brings everything, and the cost is put on a tab for settling when it is finally called a day - and foods and beers and teas and coffees and all sorts have been summoned in profusion and despatched with gusto and indeed despatch. Truly, the Yoorpean cafe bar is one of the Great Ideas, and the Lithuanians do it as well as anyone.

And in this case our bill is usurped by one of our companions in an act of impressively casual bigshottery, and I am not complaining; not least because I have by then lost the knack of articulate speech.

2004-01-03 (hors serie)

[Review] Pirates of the Carribean

Zombie pirates, hoorarrrrrrrrr!

2004-01-03 (hors serie)

New Years Eve

Rolling into Vilnius station in predawn halflight in the sno is possibly all very romantique and Dr Zhivagoesque (although I was 7 when I saw that and I hated it, so you might want a second opinion on that) but realy, 0500 is not a time to wake up, and altough it is a perfectly saitsfactory time not to have slept in many ways, tossing and turning on a narrow couchette in a stuffy train compartemente is not one of them.

There were at least two border kontrole stops, an hour apart, and I think there may have been a third, although it may have been the second one on a lap of honour, or I may have imagined it. Either way, I'm a Lithuanian exit short of a full set of Baltic stamps in my passport. If, incidentally, you should ever want to cheer a Lithuanian border guard up, bring Russians. Lithuanian border guards are very fond of Russians, especially their company, are can barely stand the thought of parting from them.

Having arrived as a stranger in a sno-covered city at 0530, we found the hotels ready by the time we got there (a bit later, since bags don't drag themselves through the snow, and ickle wheels on suitcases are not use when the sno is deeper than them. I carry a rucksack for myself, bien entendu), hoorah.

After a night on a train, preceded by a day of tramping around Riga (literally, since we had checked out of the hotel in the morning) waiting for the night train, I was not as shevelled or as gruntled as I have been, although to be fair both my mood and odour have been worse without any particular provocation. The mood, in particular, was disenhanced by the realisation that the first evening in Vilnius was scheduled to be New Years Eve, that I hadn't researched anywhere to spend it, and the realisation that I was in no condition to spend it other than (alone) in my own (hotel) bed.

A few consolation beers later at a passing bar, this didn't seem such a bad thing, especially since the cute redheaded waitron who spoke no a word of Engleesh had gone off-shift by then, and all the tables were reserved at said nice bar, as no doubt at all the others.

(The redheads of Baltiwegia deserve a post to themselves, incidentally, which they will probably nonetheless not get.)

So back at the ranch, I finish off the evening and myself with the with the little botte of Riga's Black Balsams. 45% alcohol and cheap, it's every inch the Local Delicacy, and best served mixed with bad coffee (instant is fine) since neither of them has anything to lose, but it is after all 45% alcohol, and I was more than a bit tired, so that was pretty much that.

We have a traditional saying where I come from, which I have just made up: "Drink hard, sleep soft," which is just what happened. And another, which I didn't: "Tomorrow is another day."

Of course, sometimes tomorrow is a day when you are woken up at 0400 by a knock on the door (wrong number) and kept awake thereafter by the sounds of enthusiastic sex next door, enthusiastic (but probably less enjoyable for everyone) shouting from upstairs, and continual stomping up and down the stairs, but tomorrow is also another post.

2003-12-30 12:27 (utc+2)

Down at the trainstation at lunchtime, wo-oh-ah-oh-h

An overnight sleeper train to Vilnius awaits, leaving at 22:30-ish.

Bags are in the left luggage room, Pirates of the Carribean, which I missed in assorted previous countries, is on at the multiplex next-door, and every cafe in the country sells beer. (Aldaris, this bladet salutes you!)

Plus, we got the scoop on the Four Hills skijumping by defecting from Eurosport's day behind coverage to the original live German, to see Petterson (of Norwegia) win with an astonishing second jump, to the very clear chagrin of the hosts.

Had I but a copy of VG and a decent keyboard, Varied Reader, life would be as complete as it generally seems capable of getting, but I don't.

Will report from Southernmost Baltiwegia, shortly...

2003-12-29 hors serie

The use of suffix is very common in the word formation

The entrance of the Riga history museum is not actually the one guarded by the shiny young soldiers, but it is still firmly within the critical radius I I like to stay from persons with guns, which is what comes of sharing a building with the president. Having thus performed a preliminary circumambulation of the alleged castle, I will say that the Latvian idea of fortification may go some way to explain how come the city was raised to the ground a good ten times before the first world war.

Inside, the museums (of which there are several in the building - we ended up with six tickets each) are the closest I've been to an authentic soviet experience: the extensive collection of museum babushkas stalk you through their respective tiny fiefdoms, to make sure you don't deface any of their priceless, say, no-name Dutch 17th century masterworks. Painting in tje 17th century Netherlands seems to have been like garage bands in the USA in the 60's: just because you've never heard of them doesn't mean they aren't any good, and if this was at heart a Nuggets collection of them, it was none the worse for that.

The cloakroom babushkas, meanwhile, form a distinct and uniquely cheerless caste of their own: while the ticket-collecting babushkas will respond to a "paldies" ("thank you") with a cheery "ludzu, ludzu" ("you're welcome"), the gardeuses des robes (and just how far has that frenchicisme spread?) are having none of it.

I regret to say that I haven't made much of an effort with Latvian ("Tas students ir slinks"), and since I don't Russian either (my Big Sis is the Russianiste), there has been plenty of opportunity to rely on the Engleesh of others, which is pretty OK, actually, babushkas notwithstanding. I have watched two Asterix movies, dubbed into Russian (in the Western manner, thankfully) and subtitled in Latvian on TV, though, and jolly good they were too, since I am more than passingly acquainted with the universal languages of slapstick and vodka.

The local Latvian in 25 Lessons (from which I have quoted) claims that

A communicative approach to the language is dominant - there is no deep research of grammar and language characteristics.

but is still somewhat reminiscent of my school encounters with dusty Latin grammars, and is given to some frankly Beckettian soliloquys:

There was a table in the room yesterday. - Was there a table in the room yesterday? What was there in the room yesterday? Where was the table yesterday? When was the table in the room?

I will however observe, by way of observation, that locally Forren names are invariably transcribed into the local values of the Latin alphabet (c is "ts", etc) and imported masculine nouns (such as me) are generally given an s at the end and membership of the first declension, so I am currently operating as Dess fon Bladets, presumably of the distinguished fon Bladeti family, hoorah!

2003-12-26 hors serie (utc+2)

Things to do in Helsinggrad when it's snoing

• Get snoed on
• Shop at Stockmann's for Local Forren periodicals. (No SvD, helas.)
• Get a bunch of paperbacks, and a couple of Kalle Anka comics, hoorah!
• Chart the mysteries of the tunnels from the station to Forum and Stockmann
• Wait for the nice touriste bus in the nice touriste sno, which is very picturesque, if a little cold in the wind
• Attend the Anglican nine lessons and carols service in the (borrowed) Lutheran cathedral, as The Mystery Tenor
• The mighty Hesburger! (Everywhere else was shut by the time the carols had been carolled, tralala.)
• Speak Swedish! Bonus points if you get anyone to speak it back! (The 'Grad is subtitled in Swedish and Engleesh, more or less equally.)