Snowy Seashore

Now that I'm settling in more, establishing patterns, and figuring out how to feed myself here, my life has begun to grow outside my apartment walls.  It's something I'm working on doing more often; Plovdiv and Batumi only really did it once each, and I don't know that Gqeberha ever did (at least, not in the same sense; Gqeberha was more of social reaches/excursions than scenic ones).

Admittedly, the first such outing was still a shopping trip, but a trip about 40 minutes away by bus to a mall where I met someone I'd encountered through a Facebook where I'd asked about board game meetups.  I had a short list of things the nearby grocery store wouldn't provide, and while there's a mall closer to me, meeting him still had value.  So I rode out across the town, getting a good chance to see more of the city (at least the more suburban-esque side of it).  The mall was relatively unremarkable (as was the IKEA), but I did find a small stand selling bread, including this traditional style of dark bread baked with a whole bulb of garlic in it.  I got a sample and it was kinda good, though in my cultural background it needed something.  Butter, maybe.

Yesterday, however, I went on a trip purely for the purpose of exploration and seeing something new; in this case, that was the beach of the Gulf of Riga during winter.  As often, the album link so you can look through it all, as I'll just be putting a few in here.

The trip began with a walk to the bus stop, seeing more of the architecture that dominates the city, particularly in the older parts of town.  The bus system in Riga, like many in Europe, puts the US generally to shame by having frequent routes with expansive reach.  In this case, buses from Riga run all the way out to the shore, as well as to several neighboring towns.  Northern Colorado has something like this in Bustang, which operates mostly on the highways between Fort Collins and...I think further south, like Colorado Springs maybe.  I haven't looked in a while.  But it's sort of a separate entity, whereas this is all under the same Rigas Satiksme operation.

The windows on the bus go round and round were unfortunately dirty as a result of road grime and splash, so I don't really have any pictures from the trip itself.  But after about an hour, I reached the trailhead (for lack of better word) to the beach.  An attempted snowman sorta-stood just off the path, which went by a farm and through a lagoon featuring a viewing platform and some informational signs that I couldn't read.  There was also this poster showing an experience I was quite sure I wouldn't have on this day (I believe it's an educational thing about trash and recycling).

The path then went through some forest that looked stark stripped of leaves.  I plan to come back in the spring before I depart and see how different it looks.  I was intrigued by some bird feeders hung here with some kind of fibrous stuff nailed to the trees.  I'm not sure what it is - if you know, do please comment.

Finally, the ocean came into view.  I walked up a ways, where the flat frozen sea was broken up (literally) by these large slabs of ice.  In a few places were ice stacks made by someone far braver than me.  I also found this boat beached, and couldn't tell if it was still in service or some kind of relic or display.

I've long loved cold, and this was no different.  The sea has a strange kind of beauty to me in this state, though that might in part be because I'm not miserable in the heat that most beaches tend to have.

By the time I started back, it had begun snowing, and when I reached the bus stop, my glasses were essentially covered in water and melting snow.  On the bus ride back, I passed the Latvian National Library which is just so extra that it demands I return to check it out sometime.  After I left the bus and began walking home, I was charmed by this gym's simple name.  Simple, but somehow loud at the same time.

There's still a few things I want to go see and do while I'm here, of course, but this large of an outing only two weeks into my stay does kind of indicate how my attitude towards exploration and living in the places I go is shifting.  Or, rather, demonstrates that my stability is increasing, and that means I have more spoons to get out of my apartment and exist in the worlds I'm choosing to occupy.

Hanoi-via

 The vaunted travel post begins!

And it's going to be shorter than these typically are.  Truth is, I left my apt at about 9:30pm when it was too dark to see anything of interest, bounced through three airports over 22-ish hours with less than 5 cumulative hours of layover, and then arrived in Riga, Latvia around 6pm when it was too dark to see anything of interest.  So the actual travel portion is basically nonexistent.  But I'll go in order.

When I left, Vietnam was gearing up for Tet, the lunar new year.  It's a huge event, on the order of Christmas in the US, and flowers are a huge part of the decorative styling.  As usual, Vietnamese people are rather adept at loading motorbikes.  I saw one that had a full freaking tree sapling, but failed to get a picture (mostly because I was on a bike myself at the time and did not entirely build up the confidence to be on my phone during bike rides).  The owner of the pole studio also had a cute gift for me before I left - flamingos being kind of the mascot/branding of the studio.  It's adorable, but I can now say from experience it isn't very *practical* - the plushie head and neck just kind of get in the way of use and I sorta worry about them getting soaked and moldy or something.  Still a kind gesture and an appreciated gift.

My Vietnamese partner also remarked that the humid spring season seemed to start early.  I didn't know that the spring was typically humid, but I did know that Hanoi had been frustratingly humid recently, a fact I can assert by how impossible it was to get my clothes actually dry after laundry.  I had to resort to inventive solutions to get the final load dry in time to pack.

With that, I was off.  From Hanoi to Dubai, where the airport is so sprawling that you have to take an actual bus to get between some terminals.  From Dubai to Amsterdam, I did take my first double-decker plane (or at least the first one I remember taking), which also had a wide gap between the windows and the seats.  Finally, Amsterdam to Riga.  I made my transfer; my suitcase did not.  Fortunately, another flight from Amsterdam was later that night, and my bag was back in my hands just the next afternoon.  It was one of those times where you think "Well, that was efficient."  And then you realize that the efficiency is so practiced and slick that it's only really possible after enough failures to train on.

Oh well.

I waited until the next day to take any pictures of the area around my new home.  There's a majesty to some of it, despite the age and general construction quality that comes with a developing nation that suffered Soviet occupation.  Despite looking a bit slummy with graffiti and a lot of shuttered doors and dead windows, the area actually feels fairly safe.  Maybe it's just that it's too cold (-10C today) for anyone to want to stand around watching for opportunities to mug each other.  But I've just heard generally good things about the safety in this country.

My apartment is a rather charming space, generally more roomy than I expected (with the exception of the shower which is definitely not comfortable for my frame). I have popcorn again, something I didn't really have in Hanoi due to the cultural approach of popcorn mostly being sweet (think kettle corn) or caramel corn.  The buttery salty goodness I grew up on, the delicious snack that served as one of my first three words (true story)...I was deprived in Vietnam, so it was one of the first things I bought here.

Latvia is in the Eurozone, so unlike Bulgaria there wasn't a new currency to acquire.  The Euro and the Dollar are almost 1:1 right now, which makes my financial navigating far easier.  It also means that I don't much need to explain how psychotically expensive Ben & Jerry's is here.  Food in general is on par with a lower COL part of America; loaf of bread is about $1, pasta and rice are similar, chicken and beef are a touch cheaper...well, all of this is relative to when I left, and I know things have changed since then.  It's not Hanoi cheap, but it's not Amsterdam expensive.  The shopping center with my new primary grocery store also has an indoor karting track which I found interesting.

My explorations will begin more in earnest in the coming week.  There's a small theatre nearby that does a pretty aggressive repertory of plays, predominantly in Russian, with a $15 ticket price.  So I'll be checking out at least one show there.  I've found a few restaurants in walking distance to try.  And of course old town Riga is well-known for its interesting mix of architecture and history; Riga's story is actually pretty interesting.

So as usual, you can look forward to more pictures and stories in the week or three after a new move, followed by a drop off to 1/month or so as I settle into the daily routines and stop tourist-ing. 

Assorted Explorations in Vietnam

 For the past month and change, I've been dating a Vietnamese woman I met on an app.  I haven't mentioned it because it wasn't really important at the time - it was part of my life, but rather a personal part and didn't directly impact my travels or produce general interest stories.

Well, that's not entirely true.  She was my company at Thang Long, providing some context and translation and also learning a bit from me.  But I'd likely have gone to Thang Long anyway so I didn't count it. Haha.

Whatever the case, she's become more of an active part of my explorations.

A couple weeks ago, we tried to visit a pagoda/temple. I say "tried" because for reasons we didn't understand (that weren't posted anywhere or commonly known to anything she could find online), it was closed.  Still, there was a neat sculpture near the entrance.  She told me there was a particular food popular near the pagoda that we should try, so we walked to a nearby shop famous for it.  Our route taking us along the lake, I happened to see this picturesque place and fail to capture it well on my little phone camera.

The dish in question is in the bottom center here: banh tom, or fried shrimp pancake.  Like many Vietnamese dishes, it's eaten by dipping into a sauce that's largely fish sauce-based with customization options at the table such as chilis and kumquat or lime.  The cups of sauce were placed on the table for us to tinker with well before the food arrived.  My date added a few things and then used a spoon to taste it.  I failed to fully understand what she was doing and thought this was a slightly thick soup, so after making some additions of my own, I just started spooning it down, even sipping straight from the cup at one point.  This drew a very confused look from her, and lead to a good laugh for both of us after she explained what it was.  Exploring new foods is sometimes an interesting adventure indeed.

I also learned that pho, which has become quite common in the US, actually refers not to the soup in general but to the kind of noodles it uses (sort of both, I suppose, in the way that a hamburger refers both to the sandwich and to the meat itself).  But this was drilled home by the other two dishes we ordered, rolled pho and fried pho (top left and top right, respectively).  Both were good in their own way.  It all made me think about Domino's and how they've elevated repackaging pizza to an art form.  "Here," the company says, "have pizza, and as a side, have pizza rolls.  As an appetizer, here's cheesy breadsticks that you dip in pizza sauce but definitely isn't just pizza again!"

Our visit to the pagoda wasn't successful insofar as we actually got to see the pagoda itself, but at least I discovered more foods.

Last weekend, my date and I planned a little getaway to Tam Dao, which is named for its elevation and the way it is often in the clouds.  Despite being only about an hour away, it didn't take long for the urban density of Hanoi to give way to more open spaces and rural lands.

Tam Dao is a mountain town, sort of a small resort - high tourism, lots of hotels and similar places, fairly small permanent population.  Our stay had a very cozy room, a swimming pool (we didn't use because it was cold and a little dirty), some really pretty landscaping and general integration with the terrain, and downright excellent food.  And, as always, I'm tall.

We stayed for two nights, but happened to both get sick in the day or two leading up to the trip.  We opted to go anyway as we have very limited time together, but it meant we didn't really go anywhere or see anything in the area.  Yesterday we returned, though we found this neat cafe with this huge, cool statue thing.  The whole town really leverages the views by building onto the hillsides.  It makes me think about Estes Park, where I've lived many years of my life, and how most of the shops and restaurants in town are in the valley of it, sort of squeezed together, and actually most of the mountainside space is residential.  So while Estes does have great scenery, it isn't really...*utilized* the same way.  And in some ways I think that is to its detriment...a missed opportunity of sorts.  

 I have less than two weeks left in Hanoi.  In many ways, it has felt, inexplicably, like the longest stay of my brief nomad life thus far.  The perception of time is a funny thing.  I've started dipping into Latvian.  The app I've used has a lot of phrases and words and such and it's a little overwhelming, and because I struggle with self-motivated learning, it can be hard to get a lot of the value that it has.  However, it did have one phrase I've decided I need to learn everywhere I go: "What do you recommend?"
For Latvian, this is "ko jus varetu ieteikt?"  I'm missing some accent markers but that's close enough.  It's a really cool sounding language to me for some reason, kind of a mix between Russian or Polish and Italian.
The thing is, when living in a new place with no real food familiarity, I often wind up not going anywhere or trying anything due largely to choice paralysis.  It's daunting to look at a menu of unfamiliar words, particularly if there are no or few pictures, and just...choose something.  Even running it through translation doesn't always help.  But now, I can learn a phrase that just requests specific assistance in making that choice, and maybe lets someone feel like they're doing a good thing or introducing someone to a thing they like.  And most people, I've found, will appreciate that opportunity.

And maybe some will use it to screw with me and order me something horrible.  And then I'll know not to go back and not to get that thing again.  I'll be a little hungry but I'll try to laugh at being "gotten."  Laugh at yourself before anyone else can.

I assume I won't post again until I've left Hanoi.  I expect my last two weeks to be relatively mundane, largely preparing for the move and such.  But I reserve the right to change my mind 😉