Other Countries
Part 2
by Kali Herbst
I only mentioned a few. There are many more stories I want to tell.
Thank you for continuing to read!
Enjoy!
Cesis
I didn’t think Cesis would be amazing. I had never heard of it, and couldn’t find any good information online. I was wrong to think that. Cesis was tiny, but it was one of the best towns in Latvia.
During the night they had all their old lanterns lit up. There were no hotels or campgrounds in town, so we stealth camped. (Stealth Camping : A form of possibly illegal camping in a yard, ruins, etc.) We stealth camped underneath an old castle.
Stealth Camping
We did a lot of stealth camping. One time there were castle ruins with a stage. Behind the stage there were multiple small “rooms” separated by curtains. We couldn’t find a decently priced hotel, so we decided to sleep there.
We sat down on the stage back for a while and woke up in the morning. It wasn’t exactly a delightful wake-up call. All you could hear was the janitor sweeping up garbage on the ground as he gradually got closer to you. We quickly packed up our tent, and the man pulled the curtain to start cleaning that section of backstage. He stared at us for a few seconds. My dad smiled and gave him a quick hello as we took down the tent. The man rolled his eyes, and continued on. We were able to load our bikes and get out of there before anything happened. That is known as the luck of the Herbst family.
Cheapy Hostel
Cheapy Hostel was an… interesting experience. We were tired from stealth camping and we decided to take a break from biking in Riga, Latvia. It’s run by two really rich college students.
The sign on the front door said “no photos” (which we delightfully ignored). It should have been a huge sign of having to get out of there fast. Well, us, being our good old selves, decided to stay there. We got in there and he took us up probably… well… seven flights of stairs to get to our room. When we got there we saw another flight of stairs to the actual room. There was a shadow of a man with a gun painted into the wall, so every time I walked down the stairs I had a mini heart-attack. The room itself had a towel covering up the door’s window. A towel. You could easily reach your hand through the towel and unlock the door.
They had a clothes washing service, so we thought five dollars for laundry was good enough. They took our clothing, and threw them in the dryer. You heard me right. They didn’t even attempt to wash the clothes. They took our money and put our clothes in the dryer.
Kefir
Kefir can be bought in local stores. It’s a drink that’s almost like a yogurt that you can drink. My mom walked into a restaurant and thought she had to try this “Kefir.” There were two kinds of Kefir on the menu “Spicy Kefir” and “Kefir.” My mom ordered the spicy Kefir, and so did the rest of us. Now to give you a quick view of Spicy Kefir imagine a bottle of ranch salad dressing. Now pour the ranch salad dressing into a cup. Now sell it for two dollars a cup to unknowing tourists.
And now you’ve got Kefir.
Enjoy!
Excitement
(Where the Nobel Literature Prize is given out.)
I got really excited to see this. (Mostly because I want to become an author when I’m older.)
It was raining and the benches were wet, so we sat on… you guessed it… trash bags. We walked right into the groups of tourists with trash bags on our heads and my sister wrapped up in a trash bag.
Even seeing the place was pretty cool.
Sleeping In Mcdonald’s
Yes. We slept in a Mcdonald’s. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Why didn’t you just stealth camp as usual?” or “Why didn’t you get a hotel if you were that desperate?” The answer is, we couldn’t. Straight up couldn’t. Everything was closed except for the 24-hour McDonald’s. We were in a huge town so we couldn’t find a “safe” place to stealth camp. So we sat around, and my dad bought a coffee every hour to keep them from kicking us out. I didn’t sleep at all, but the rest of my family seemed to do fine.
I finished a book while staring down all the pit pocketers that tried to approach our table.
Biking Trail
There was one bike trail on the entire trip. It was probably the most amazing bike trail I’ve ever been on. We came to a stop on the way and it was a biker’s campground. Some people on motorcycles came in, and we were all feeling really good about our pocket knives to cut our fruit… we were feeling good about ourselves and our set up. Then these guys on motorcycles come in and bring out a knife that looks like a sword. One of them brought out a watermelon and the other cut it with one slice while all of them cheered in some foreign language.
The entire campsite went silent.
English Grammar Of Europe
Do not Entry…
Fishes of the gulf of mexico..
Budapest
Budapest was fun.
Biking in 100 degree weather at night and in the morning.
You know all those sleeping bags you packed?
useless
You know that tent you packed?
useless
I think I would have loved Budapest if it weren’t so hot. Maybe it was because I was raised in the cold my entire life or maybe I just don’t like the hot weather.
(I was biking while I took this photo. Pardon the blurriness)
Vikings of Sweden
One night in Sweden we stopped at a small hut on the side of the road. The hut was made for anyone on a boat, but was free to the public. We decided to sleep in the attic for the night. We set up our tent when we see this huge viking boat come into the “Dock,” a wooden slab that tipped if you stepped on it.
We ignored it, thinking that there was someone who was just really into painting viking symbols on boats. It wasn’t the first time we had seen a boat like that. As I said before, the place was meant as a rest stop for sailors. It had showers, a bathroom, a kitchen anything you would need to spend the night.
My mom and I started cooking dinner. (I had volunteered to make dinner most nights after the pickled beets.) These five men came running through the door. They started yelling and screaming in a foreign language. They all went to one side of the hut, and took out some kind of cooking device. (I have no Idea what it actually was.)
While I was cutting vegetables my mom decided to leave for second. I sat there with my pocket knife cutting vegetables. After a few minutes of silence I heard a huge crash and then all five men started laughing. They even sounded like the vikings you would read about in books. One of them stood right next to me and cut a piece of meat. Blood from the meat got onto the vegetables. (Which I was deeply angry about.)
The men invited my dad to their “Village.” We ended up going the next day. They were reenacting a viking village. They used animal skins for multiple different uses and they slept in really tiny houses. Everything, from hunting arrows to beds, was handmade. It was pretty impressive.
(Not worth getting blood all over the vegetables though.)
Hide and Seek
We were in a small abandoned ghost town, and we didn’t want to bike ten more miles to the next town. We decided to stealth camp in a city park. We set up our tent behind some bushes, and started cooking dinner on our stove. My dad planned out the route for the next day. About ten high schoolers came into the park as soon as it got dark. One of them seemed to start speaking to my dad. (He was the only one in this group that seemed to know fluent English.) He started to speak to my dad about the history of the town and a few other things. Two other people stood behind him. My dad pointed out the route he wanted us to take. It was actually kind of funny. They all started laughing, and then one of them suddenly became serious. He muttered a quick “You die if you take highway.”
After they finished pointing out to my dad the best route to take, and we finished eating,
I got ready to sleep in the tent. It had been a good 40 mile day. I was woken up by my mom laughing. She pointed at the few people who were hiding in trees. It took me a while to figure it out, but they were playing hide and seek. They apparently got together every day to play hide and seek.
Castles
I went to a few castles in Europe. Some were more fixed up then others, but they were equally interesting. Below, you will see some photos.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!