Emaciation has Begun

When traveling through an unknown country, even the most commonplace social transactions can be burdensome if you aren't familiar with "the way"; in other words, how things are done in that culture, things we take for granted. In the US, going to a deli and taking a number could be a complicated transaction if one did not speak English or know "the way".

Take my trip to Liepaja, the self-proclaimed hippest city in Latvija, in which I type this report in an internet cafe where all the versions of Windows are inexplicably in French. I borded the bus from Riga with no incident and watched four hours of green greenery pass me by, evoking thoughts of road trips in northern Missouri or across Pennsylvania, although stamped here with unmistakable Soviet relics of industrialized farming. Some of my fellow teenage passengers have apparently not yet learned that annoying and obnoxious blasting popculture mobile ringtones are no longer cool, so any chance of this light sleeper catching any zZz's was out of the question.

Now, in most of my travels through the world, a bus takes you from point A to point B, sometimes stopping at points C or D in between -- but you will definitely get to point B if you wait long enough. This is not "the way" in Latvija. As we get closer to Liepaja (and mind you, I have no idea what this place looks like at all)... Are these scary places that people are getting off at "run down" or is that term even applicable in the wilds of Latvija? So, people are getting off at corner after corner, as if this thing has turned into a local bus all of a sudden. No one speaks English and I ask a tiny college-aged femme, pa-russkie, "Where is the bus station". The chilling answer was that there was none.

Okay, now the question is, where do you jump off? I had made a reservation at the Hotel Brize electronically (thank you god/superman/jesus/santa claus for inventing the internet) but, of course, I had no map in hand. I didn't even know how to tell the grumpy bus driver, throttling and braking simultaneously through the "city" of Liepaja, how to get off. So, I waited until someone else debussed and ran off with them.

First goal/ordeal, find a map so I can get my bearings. After a mini-safari, I get one and the street I need is nowhere to be found on it. Now, I don't want to get all jingoistic, but what is the deal with the Latvian language? It is only spoken in Latvia (and parts of Tobaga, a former Latvian colony -- bet you didn't know that!) and the closest language is Lithuanian, which is similarly linguistically secluded. And these two langauges are unlike anything else on earth and knowledge of Latin or German or Spanish or Swahili or French or Arabic or Japanese or whatever you've got in your toolbox is going to be useless here. And only about half the populace speak Russian, and when they don't, they get bitter at you for trying.

Second goal/ordeal, just find a cab and show him the address and he'll take me to the hotel. But in the meantime I'll just walk north cause I at least remember that the sun sets in the west and hopefully I'll see a cab on my way. Suffice to say that I walk four miles, with the stupid rolling bag bouncing up and down on cobbled streets before I get to a hotel in which I can even ask someone directions. At this time of the year, the Baltic States experience extremely long days, which messes with your mind because you're thinking its 7:30 pm and it's actually 10:30 pm (with the sun setting at about 11:30 pm).

I finally get to the hotel and it looks like a bombed out shelter from the outside, but sorta nice on the inside, but after five miles afoot, three blisters and likely five pounds of body weight, I collapse on the bed and fall asleep. Breakfast will have to be my dinner.