Romanesti

Friday 29^th of June



George was an awesome host and his village very friendly and nice. I only had time to spend there one night, but even in that time I got to experience a very welcoming environment and lots of hospitality. I also saw George milk a cow, and in the morning we had milk almost straight from the cow. They did boil it first though, so it was warm milk. Pretty good. No one else in the village spoke English, so mainly I communicated with George. But still for example when I was just walking around the village, one guy gave me a lift with his horse... Hitchhiking with a horse basically!



Now I'm sitting on a train on my way to Brasow, Transylvania. The ticket was the most expensive so far, over 20 euros. But it is a long ride of 8,5 hours and it's quite comfortable, so I guess I can live with that. I happened to end up in same cabin with a nice local couple who doesn't speak a word of English. During the long hours we have despite that fact learnt a lot of each other and it made the trip much shorter. At one point I saw them trying hard to tell someone to join our cabin. I didn't know why because so far we had tried to avoid the crowded cabins and had even changed the cabin a couple of times so that there would be enough space for everyone to sleep. But suddenly when I saw the person they tried to get to our cabin I got the point. It was a very beautiful young woman and they were trying to get her join us because of me! It was the funniest moment in a while...

Cherniwzi

Thursday 28^th of June



And indeed it did feel good to sleep! On wednesday I travelled to Cherniwzi (no idea how to spell it correctly). Once again I didn't know where I would be sleeping the next night. On the way I texted my possible host in Suceava Romania, that I am coming the following day. He told me that there are four German girls living in Cherniwzi, and I should ask them if they are awailable to host me. So I did, but I didn't get an answer for a while. So I started walking towards a place I knew there might be a hostel. I had called the only hostel in the city that had any information awailable (such as address or phone number) on internet or Lonely Planet. To my surprise someone answered in good English, but to my even bigger surprise he told me that the hostel didn't exist, but there might be one in a different address. So that was my only option at the moment. Of course I didn't have a map of the city either, but after a while I got myself a map and maybe after an hour I reached the city centre and was almost at the possible hostel, when something unaccepted happened. Two girls came to me and asked if I'm a couch surfer. There was an American girl living there who said I looked like one. And soon I found out that they all knew also the German girls. Then they invited me to a happening in cafe, and I of course accepted because I didn't have anything better to do. But we still had one hour time before it, so three Ukrainian girls wanted to show me their city and took me first to their University. It was funny, because the guard didn't want to let me in with my backbag, but after the girls told him I was a foreign student who needed to go and talk to the professors, he let us in. Eventually we even entered some halls even the girls hadn't been before, because we sneaked in behind a small guided tours (those one had actually paid money to get inside the Uni...).



After the sightseeing tour we went to listen two Indian guys giving a presentation about their homeland. It was quite interesting, and after the show the organiser told the audience about my situation that I didn't have a place to stay (I still hadn't heard of the Germans), apparently he used words as ”trustworthy eyes” and ”kind man”. No one offered me a place to stay even after that, but then the Germans texted me that I can stay at their place. Next I paricipated an English language class (teacher was an old Aussie guy), and after hanging out few more hours with the locals I met the German girls and we watched the football game together. It was a very interesting day, lots of things happened unplanned...

Today I woke up at 5.30 to catch the only bus to Suceava Romania. Here I already had a host, and after meeting with George he took me to his working place we had a huge lunch and had beers and then he took me to his village. Romanesti is a very small village close to Suceava, population around 500. These are the kind of places you would never go without couch surfing. And that, in my opinion, is one of the biggest reasons to use couch surfing.

Kamianets-Podilskyi

Last day in Kiev we were joined by Manuel from Germany, who spent the game night with us in Lviv also. Again quite a lazy day, we took a small walking tour, otherwise just walked around and enjoyed the sun. In the evening I caught the night train to Kamianets-Podilskyi. This time it turned out to be a really crappy one: no beds, just normal chairs, and you couldn't even move the back of the chair. Theis night was very long. Anyways, I had checked some hostels in advance and thought it would be easy to find them when arriving in the morning. Hah, how wrong I was. Not a single person in the station spoke English, and they hadn't even heard of the other hostel. With one taxi driver we found the other hostel because I had an accurate address. But guess what? No one came to open the door. After a while we gave up and the taxi driver got me to one random guest house on the other side of city. We had a small argument of the price of the taxi, but overall he was quite helpful and ok. So I even felt a bit bad afterwards because of the argument. I just hate the feeling of being an easy target to cheat because of being a tourist. (One of those things in Finland I respect so much.. the fact that you can normally trust other people even if you're not a local.)



In the end the guest house turned out to be very good, the owner speaks English and is very helpful. But I guess we still have a small language barrier, because in the morning I took a minibus according to his advise to some small place outside the city. I thought that the famous castle would be there. Well it wasn't. I have absolutely no idea why I was there. The castle was in the old town in the city. Well, nice sightseeing tour... In the evening I actually found the castle of what the city is famous for and wow, it definetily was worth a while! One of the finest castles I've ever visited. A future touist attraction for Ukraine?

Rest of the day tonight I've spent just charching batteries (machines and myself) and showering etc. I was death-tired today, too many nights in a row without proper sleep. But now I have a queen size bed all for myself, so I'm gonna enjoy it so much tonight!

Kiev

I arrived in Kiev at 7 am, and my plan was to find a hostel first. I had checked some places from internet in advance. The thing is, for some reason they seem to hide their hostels here as well as they can. Basically you have to know the exact address to the place you're going, then find some small door form the scariest and darkest corner from the backyard. After finding the supposedly right door, try to get inside the corridor, when starts the obstacle course where you try to avoid stepping on the passed out people lying around the stairs (true story). Don't excpect to find any numbers from the doors because that would be just too easy. So in the first hostel after finding it no-on came to open (tried to get in at 7.30 and 10 am..) the door, the second hostel offered me a dorm for 40 euros and the third one I couldn't even find. At this point I decided to quit. So back to the railway station to meet Mariusz, and next missions to get some food, train tickets and place to store the luggages. When we finally succeeded to leave the railway station, I noticed that I had spent the first nine hours in Kiev looking for a hostel (but not finding one) and in the rw-station. Cool.



Luckily now was the time to head for the Fan Zone! Huge area full of football fans having fun. I was actually a bit surprised how well everyone acted, there was no problems at all. Even the British fans just kept singing and having fun. So when entering the stadium, the atmosphere was already very good, and to see the game itself live at the stadium was awesome! Even though most of the spectators were Ukrainians, there were enough supporters for England and Italy to keep the atmosphere up. Almost the only disappointment was the result of the game: Italy won after penalty shootout.

We slept the night in railway station in a waiting area which had leather chairs and sofas. Unfortunetaly we weren't the only ones to get the same idea, so it was packed.of people trying to get sleep. In a sitting position it's a big challenge. During the night most of the people left, so we finally had space to lie down in the morning, but for some reason the steward kept waking everyone up whenever they looked like they might actually get some sleep. I guess the idea was not to courage people to use it as a ”hostel” as we did... or the steward was just a very mean person. Last day in Kiev we were joined by Manuel from Germany, who spent the game night with us in Lviv also. Again quite a lazy day, we took a small walking tour, otherwise just walked around and enjoyed the sun. 

Lviv

A lot has happened since my last post. A lot of planning, re-planning, changing plans and organizing stuff among other things. Travelling from Zakopane to Lviv I did as Mihal-the-hostel-man adviced me to: bus to Krakow, train to place X, bus to border, walking across the border, passing the cheating taxi drivers, and finally bus to Kiev. After arriving to Kiev I found my host Peter and we spent the rest of the night out with hi friends. Peter is living with his parents some 45 minutes away from the city centre. He has a big family, but no-one else than Peter speaks English, so it was wuite fun to try to communicate. But he's family was awesome and I felt really good staying there.



My second day in Lviv we spent first sightseeing everything important, and later going to different and very funny places, for example a cellar bar which was decorated as it was a secret place in WWII. They even ask you a secret password on door. Other places were for example a roof terrace with a car and a little chocolate factory. In the evening it was time for football, of course, because Germany was playing in the quarterfinals. Peter had a 5 meter-long German flag, and we were also accompanied by a few German guys, so the feeling in the Fan Zone was pretty good. Rest of the evening we naturally spent celebrating Germany's victory...

The last day was quite chilled out, just organizing train tickets and wandering around the city. Before midnight it was time to say goodbye. This time the night train was really good. It was exactly the same as in Trans-Siberia trains three years ago! So an open space with a lot of beds. But the important thing was that everyone actually had a bed.



Oh, forgot to tell why I changed my plans (originally I wasn't going to Kiev, because it means a lot more travelling, so I was supposed to go straight to Romania). Well, I met a Polish guy Mariusz on the train from Krakow, and he had some extra tickets. So after thinking about it for a couple of days, I decided to buy them and go to Kiev.

Basic fan group for Germany: Germans, Ukrainians, Finnish, Brazilians... 

Leaving Zakopane

Wednesday 20^th of June


So it happened that I wasn't able to do any more hiking in here because my ankle is not allowing me to. So today I spent planning the rest of my trip and doing laundry etc. Tomorrow I'll go to Lviv, Ukraine. So next time you'll hear from me it'll be from Ukraine or from Romania. Hauskaa Juhannusta Suomeen!!

Zakopane

Wednesday 20^th of June



I arrived in Zakopane on Monday morning and found my hostel easily. My right ankle was hurting after the huge amount of walking in Warsaw in my sandals last day, so I decided to start easily and only have a small sightseeing the first day. I climbed to the top of the closeby Gubalowka Hill. You have an option to go there with a kind of skilift, but I decided to walk. On top I was surprised to find a road full of restaurants and small shops and Sigulda-like adventure possibilities. Too touristic for me, so I decided to go back down quite quickly. The view from top was beautiful, in a clear weather it's a very good place to see the Tatra Mountains.
Zakopane is often called ”the winter capital of Poland” because of the excellent skiing opprtunities. It's located right next to the High Tatras, an area of 25 peaks exceeding 2500 meters, which Poland shares with Slovakia.

On Tuesday I went hiking with an Aussie Ash, and we started from our hostel before 8 am to have a full day for hiking. We took a minibus to Kuznice, where from we first hiked to a beatiful lake where we had a lunch break. Our destination was the highest peak in the area called Swinica, which we reached after five hours of hiking. The view was amazing! The feeling after reaching the peak is just always as amazing. I want to go to some hihger mountains one day... Our plan was to hike to another peak where we'd take a cable car back down. Good plan in theory, only problem was that the cable car was not working. So two more hours of hiking back down. At some point we got bored of walking so decided to run down, which was maybe not the best desicion. After 10 minutes I sprained my ankle and we had to walk the rest of the way. It wasn't anything serious, but now (next morning) the ankle is a bit swollen and stiff, so I'm not sure if I'm able to hike anymore. Let's see. Anyways, in total we hiked for nine hours and the difference in altitude was 1300 meters (from 1000m to 2300m). When we were in the bus back to Zakopane it suddenly started raining huge hails and when we reached Zakopane it was raining like crazy and all the streets were flooding. Yes, we got totally wet, but still we were very lucky that it did's start raining when we were on the mountains... Although we didn't meet any bears on the mountains, at least we saw a marmot (murmeli) taking it easy on a rock. Tuesday was a very good day!

Now I'll just have to see if I'm still able to do some more hiking or if I should just move on towards Ukraine.

Warsaw

Monday 18^th of June

Two more things I have to mention about Vilnus. First is the pet my host had. A small and lazy guy, a quinea pig, which I named Mr. Skinny. Just look at the picture, then you understand. The other thing was one crazy woman in a bus to Sigulda. The bus was full, so I gave my seat to one woman. So I was standing and Linda and Andreas were sitting behind this woman, and we were having a normal conversation with normal voices. The bus journey was in total about half an hour. So abuóut after 15 minutes, this woman turns around and says: ”Can you stop talking, you are disturbing me.” The same woman I gave my seat to. I'm glad she wasn't the only Latvian I've met.

Mr. Skinny

Okay, but long story short, after Vilnus happened as follows.

Friday. 22.30 Bus starts to Warsaw from Vilnus. 23.00. I've already had enough of the bus. Luckily only 7,5 hours to go. It was quite a long trip, I still don't like buses. 6.40 I arrive in Warsaw very tired, after slept some hours. I met a guy from Hong Kong in the bus, and we spent the morning together in Warsaw. I bought a ticket to a night train to Zakopane. It departed at 00.30 so I had 16 hours time to kill in Warsaw. I spent it mostly walking around. I was surprised how nice the city was, because I was there last time in 2005 and I remembered it being a boring city. Maybe it is because of the football games, maybe not, but there was a lot of happenings all around the city and the old town was lovely. Also the many parks around the city were great, so overall the city seemed to be a very enjoyable place to spend time. Maybe the biggest problem seemed to be too long distances inside the city. Anyways, I accidentally for example found a piano concert from a park. The pianist was really good (with my awesome Polish language skills I figured out he was probably a student in a local academy) and it was a very interesting setting, hundreds of people sitting in a park very quietly listening to the pianist playing. I also accidentally saw a football team which I think was Poland move out of their hotel, where a small but fanatic fan group was waiting for them. In the evening I watched Germany playing against Denmark in a huge fan area built in the centrum. Okay my Finnish friends, hear this out: no entry fee and beer costs 2 euros. Now what do you think how would this be arranged in Finland... 00.30 My train starts from Warsaw to Zakopane. 00.33 I know it's gonna be a looong ride. The train was totally packed, it was super hot and of course my place was in the middle of two overweighted gentlemen. In the end the trip turned out to be better than feared, many people left the train before Zakopane, so in the end there was only three of us in one cabin. 9.45 I'm in Zakopane, feeling very tired after two bad nights. Now I'm going to stay here for at least three nights. The mountains surrounding the town are already waiting for me, so the next days should be awesome!

Vilnus old town

Lisää kuvateksti

Vilnus

Friday 15^th of June



Yesterday morning I took a bus to Vilnius, accompanied by Akvile and her two friends. I have this small problem that I only have an ISIC which is not valid anymore. I didn't want to buy a new one because normally I've never needed it for anything. And I have my Finnish student card which still is valid so I thought that would be enough. Well, I found out that the bus prices in here are half of the normal prices for students. So yesterday I bought a ticket from a ticket office and got it for half the price and was very happy. Then I tried to get inside the bus but the driver didn't accept my card combination after all. I didn't get any refund and had to buy a new ticket and was quite pissed off because of that. But after we already took off, the driver came to us and he managed to sell my ticket to the next student who hopped in. So the story had a happy ending after all...


I arrived in Vilnius at 11am, and I had more than five hours before my host got free from her job. I spent the time really efficiently, because I basically managed to see all the sights in old town right away. I like the city a lot, it has the biggest baroque old town in Europe, and it's also in Unesco's World Heritage list. I find the old city in here as nice as the old city in Riga. I also saw one thing yesterday that made me think there should be one in each city. It was a restaurant table that got lifted up in the sky with people sitting around it and waitresses serving dinner. Everyone just had their own seat belts and safety ropes on, and then the table got lifted up. Now how cool is that?

Gates of Dawn, Vilnus old town

My host here in Vilnius is a really nice girl called Egle. First thing she did yesterday was to offer me a beer. Now that's what I call a warm welcoming! She's living with her friends who are away at the moment, so there is room for surfers. Her boyfriend Vaidas is also here at the moment, and yesterday we went out together, and it seems like they know half of the people in this city. We met many of their friends and had a really good time.

First thing I did today was to go to the bus station and buy a ticket for a night bus to Warsaw for tomorrow. I bought it from a private company outside the bus station and it was half the price they asked inside the station. It was only nine euros so I figured I even save money, because I can sleep on the bus and now I don't have to go to a hostel. After that we tried to go walking to the city with Vaidas, but it started to rain so we came back. I think we'll try again later. The weather in general so far hasn't been the best. It could've been worse also, I admit that, but still in many days it's been cloudy and even raining a little. I hope it gets better soon.

Cathedral Square, Vilnus old town

Restaurant up in the sky... :P

Saturday 16^th of June



Yesterday was a lazy day. The weather was bad so there wasn't so much to do. I did some more sightseeing with Vaidas and in the evening went to watch some football. Today I went to a nearby town called Trakai with Egle. We met an Amercan traveller in the bus and he joined us for the day. Trakai is a nice small summer city next to water and has a nice castle in an island. The weather was perfect today, so maybe the real summer now finally starts...

Island Castle of Trakai

Kaunas

Wednesday 13^th of June



Today I spent walking around Kaunas. I ate lunch in a very cosy local restaurant which Akvile had suggested for me to go eating, and I'm glad I did as she told me to because it was great. After that I just walked around. In the afternoon Kaunas got caught by a heavy rain, so I decided to wait inside and catch a movie. MIB3. It is what you can expect... After that I walked once more from one end to the other the 1,7 km pedestrian road. In my opinion every city should have one. Rest of the day I hung around in old town, watching some buildings, people and football. Now I'm back to Akvile's place, we had dinner and soon it's time to watch some NBA finals... Tomorrow morning I'll take either a train or a bus to Vilnius, where I'll probably spend two nights. After that my next destination will be Poland.

Curonian Spit and trip to Kaunas - perfect moments and "perfect" days...

Monday 11^th of June

Today morning I tríed to catch an early bus to Klaipeda and Curonian Spit. Unfortunetaly it was full, and I had to wait for a couple of hours for the next one. In Klaipeda I found the ferry to Smiltyne easily. In Smiltyne I had time to go to the beach for a while before catching a bus to Nida, my final destination today. Curonian Spit is listed as one of Unesco's World Heritage sites and is located in western part of Lithuania. It's famous mostly for it's vast sand dunes, surrounded by forests. It also has nice beaches and coastline, so all in all it's a very beautiful place. After getting here I rented a bike, and after few way too expensive offers found a reasonable place to stay. After eating some pasta, I was ready to do some speed tourism. I only had three hours before dark, so I tried to be effective. I climbed up to Parnidis Dune, which offered a very beatiful sight of the coastline, dunes and forest. Before going to bed I also spent the most relaxing moment on the beach, where I found more than ten swans chilling out and relaxing. So I joined them for a while, took some nice pictures and felt really peaceful and good. One of those moments when the time seems to stop... And then came an old guy out of the blue right next to me, stand there for a while, and made the loudest fart ever. So yes, it WAS a perfect moment. And they say it's the teenagers who behave badly? Actually now that I think of it, it was almost as I was travelling with Sampo once again... ;)

Curonian Spit in Nida. In the end is already Russian territory.

Sunrise in Nida

Tuesday 12^th of June

Okay, this was an... interesting day. I woke up at 7 am, to have some time to take the bike and go looking around. And I'm glad I did, because it was pretty awesome watching the sun rising on the beach and biking in the forest all by myself. It was another one of those moments. This time without the old guy (or Sampo). So I had a very good morning, and at 10.30 I took the bus back to Smiltyne. After the short ferry ride I walked around the Klaipeda old town for awhile before heading to highway leading to Kaunas. The highway was a bit further away than what it seemed to according to my map, so I had to walk some 7km with the 15kg on my back. Finally I got to a place where I thought I could catch a ride to Kaunas. After hour and a half the first car stopped and took me 4 km closer. What a great help it was. Only, I was running out of water, and there were no shops to be found in the neighbourhood. So after half an hour more I decided to give up. Honestly, in two hours one car stopped and basically all other just drove past full speed. So I went to the other side, started walking and lifted my finger. This time it was the first car that stopped, it was a local teacher who drove me all the way back to the bus station. So I bought a ticket to the next bus and went to an ATM to get some money. Well, today even that wasn't so easy, so the damn machine decided to confiscate my credit card. No other option than to call to Nordea and to kill my card. Nice. Luckily I do have my Visa Electron still with me. Right before my trip I almost cancelled it because I haven't used it in many years... now I'm very glad that I didn't. When sitting on the bus I had a thought that probably something else will go wrong today, otherwise it wouldn't be a perfect day. Five minutes later I found out that my sun classes were broken. The ones that I had bought from Riga, because the previous one got broken. Now I called it a perfect day!

A small mouse in Klaipeda

A big mouse in Klaipeda

After finally reaching Kaunas, I found my couch surfing host Akvile quite easily, her flat is located right in the old town. She showed me around the old town, we had a few beers and now it starts to be time to get some sleep, it's been a long day. The plan tomorrow is to call to Nordea and ask them if they can send me a new card to Bucharest, and playing tourist in Kaunas. On Thursday morning I'll continue to Vilnius, where I also have a coach waiting for me.

Riga

Sunday 10th of June

As mentioned earlier, on Thursday evening I went to play some ultimate frisbee with Peltsi and his friends. It felt very nice to run and play after a while. Hopefully I'll get similar opportunities along the way also in the coming weeks. On Friday I went walking around Riga, having a local ”guide” with me. One of Peltsi's coach surfing friends, Viktors from Sweden, gave me a walking tour in the city. It was very nice, because he actually knows the city really well and he showed many places I wouldn't have found by myself. In the evening he threw a house warming -party in his place, so itwas a good Friday.

On Saturday those of us who weren't too tired of the last day's party went to Sigulda. So actually that meant there was me, Linda from Latvia and Andreas from Germany. But we had an awesome day, so it was totally worth it waking up ”early”. I wrote earlier about the Tarzan adventure park in Sigulda, so luckily for me also other people wanted to get there so I had the chance to revisit the place. The basic idea is, that there is an adventure park in a forest, with different kind of routes with different difficulty levels you can choose from. The more difficult the skill level, the more power you need and the higher thr route takes you to the trees. Really, really much fun!

In the evening we came back to Riga and went to see football in a bar. The funny thing is that we didn't have time to go change clothes so we were wearing the same clothes as in the adventure parks. Not that anyone could notice anything, because the pubs were packed of football fans, but still. Esa, if you happen to be reading this, you must feel proud of me at the moment... Today I had a relaxed day with Linda, Peltsi and Kristine. I had an awesome time here in Riga, and actually spent here a bit longer than what originally planned. Thanks especially to Peltsi and Kristine, and also all other great people I met. Today wad time to say goodbye, and tomorrow morning it's time to head for Lithuania Klaipeda.

From this point on, I have no idea how often I manage to get in internet, so in case you don't hear anything from me even in a whole week, Äiti and Isä, don't worry, I'm okay. ;)

Sigulda and Jürmala

Thursday 7th of June

Yesterday I made a daytrip to Sigulda. It's a very atmospheric small town that has a variety of different things to offer to tourists. In additition to many parks the town has many different sights, for example statues, churches and monuments. One park was called a Walking-Stick park, as a tribute to Siguldas most popular souvenir. I spent half of the day walking around downtown, and after that I took a cable car up to a hill that offered some nice views and some trails. Sigulda is also famous for it's adventureous side. You can for example do a bungee jump from the cable car. Unfortunately it was only on weekends, so I couldn't do it. In the evening I also found the Tarzan Adventure Park. The only thing I had time and money to do was the monorail, where you go down a skiing hill in a one-man sled that lets you control the speed yourself. One thing I really wanted to try was a huge obstacle route on trees, which looked like loads of fun. I'm even considering if I should go back there tomorrow just for that... But maybe not, it was almost 1,5 hours in a bus both ways.

The Walking-Stick Park

Departure point of the "monorail".

This morning I went to Jürmala, which is said to be Baltic's own French Riviera, where the rich and the beautiful let themselves to be seen. Might as well be, but I was there early in the morning, and the place was deserted. The main walking street had a rich variety of different restaurants and shops, only thing was that they were all still closed and there were no people around. The vast beach had the exact same problem. The weather also isn't made for beach life yet. I.'m sure the place would've been more interesting in the evening, but I got bored quite quickly and headed back to Riga. Jürmala is of course also famous for it's huge amount of spas, but I didn't feel like that either.

So far I have averaged about 15 km of walking every day, and I can also feel it in my legs already. So I'll take the rest of the day off of walking and get some rest. In the evening I'll join Peltsi and his friends for some ultimate (frisbee).  

Tallin and Pärnu

Tuesday 5th of June

On Sunday the trip finally started. I went to Tallin with my brother Ville and his family, Liisa, Leevi and Elsa. The weather wasn't perfect for a day in Tallin, but we still had a good time. On the ferry we ate a huge breakfest buffet, and that gave enough strength even for the smallest of us to walk around Tallin. Even though Leevi was quite disappointed when he realised we weren't going to Merimuseo, I think he still had a fun day.

Elsa, Ville, Leevi and Liisa

After saying goodbye to Ville & co, I walked to the bus station and found a bus to Pärnu. And in the bus I finally got the feeling I've been waiting for. The realisation, that from this moment on the next six weeks is going to be awesome! The anticipation for the unknown and the feeling of freedom is something you urge for when you are in Finland. On the road again.

For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of couchsurfing, here is the basic idea in a nutshell. You take other visitors to your place overnight if someone needs a place to stay, and when you're travelling you find someone who takes you under his/her roof. No money is needed, so people do it for free. Normally the host also spends time with the surfer, and that's actually the whole point: you meet new peolple and get to know the local people and local habits, places, culture etc. much better than just staying in a hotel. Hostels are of course also good places to meet people, but then it's basically just meeting fellow travellers. When couchsurfing you get to meet local people.

Anyway, I decided to try couchsurfing at least in some places during this trip. In Pärnu my host was a great guy called Jan, and I stayed two nights at his place. I also met a few of his friends and we went to some nice restaurants and pubs. Monday was also the day of the Estonian flag, so there was a flag parade and a concert in the evening. The day before evening I had spent mainly just walking around the city. There's a big beach and the old town is really nice. Around the old town you can also find many parks, which were great. They say Pärnu is the summer capital of Estonia, and I can easily see why. For many people the spas and waterparks are reason enough to visit Pärnu.

A park in Pärnu

Pärnu Old Town

From Pärnu I needed to find a way to get to Riga. Jan showed me a good spot to go with my thumb up, because I decided to hitchhike. And he was right, only after less than half an hour I got lucky. A Belarussian guy called Ivan was driving home from Finland, where he is working in Forssa. So I got a ride to Riga and he didn't fall asleep on the way because he had some company. He left me 10 km away from Riga, and from there I took a bus to central. It costed one euro, so it was quite a fair price for a trip from Pärnu to Riga...

In Riga I went to get keys to Peltsi's place from his office. I had walked almost 10km already with my backback, so it felt really good when I finally get to a shower and to have a small rest. Later in the evening I went to a coachsurfing meeting in a pub with Peltsi. He normally goes there every week so he already knew everyone. So once again, I got to meet many nice people. Now my plan is to stay here in Peltsi's and Kristine's place maybe until Sunday, when I continue my trip to Klaipeda in Lithuania. This week I'll try to make some daytrips to Sigulda and Jürmala. So all in all I would say that the trip has started very well.