despite my mediocre looks...

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well, its certainly been a pleasant few days. as im walking around these wide streets i always think of a million and one things to write about, but then sit me in front of a computer and my mind goes blank, only thinking about really menial things. but then all of my blogs are centered around menial things, so maybe that isnt so bad. anyway, if i remember correctly there were 3 things i wanted to go on about, so lets get cracking.

first of all, a pretty lovely human interchange that happened on wednesday afternoon. i went to sigulda, which is probably the quietest place i have been on my travels, especially in october. that isnt the good part though, heh. got the bus back to riga, and that was all fine. anyway, the girl in front of me got off the bus a few stops before me. as i went to get off, i realised that she had left her phone on the bus. now, normally i would leave it and go on with the case of working my around a foreign city, but alas no, hero bills does no such thing. so i picked it up, changed the language from russian to english, and sent the poor girls mum a text. i didnt really know what was going to happen with all of this, i had planned to just leave it with the information people at the bus station. to my horror, the phone started ringing. it was mama. i answered with a little trepidation, like i do with my phonecalls, only with added knowledge of language problems ahead. so it turns out mama cant speak english, woo. i explained to her in my best (therefore worst possible) russian that i was at the bus station with the phone. i considered a ransom, but im just not that cool. i was told to wait there for 20minutes (im pretty sure thats what she said, and it turned out so), and mama would come to the station and pick up the phone. sure enough, 20minutes later mama and daughter turned up to collect said phone. in a gesture of east west love, they also bought me chocolates as a thank you! awesome! needless to say the chocolates were mediocre, but then i dont really like chocolate anyway. basically, i did a good deed and felt good about myself.

second second second, i made another stop today on the john bills tour of europes most depressing museums. todays beauty was the museum of lithuanian genocide victims, or the kgb museum as the locals call it. it was pretty harrowing, truth be told, and after the grace of the russians on wednesday, they came back to ground with a bang, now firmly implanted in my mind as being naughty boys. the museum was really well done, not quite as fundamentally terrifying as its estonian counterpart in tartu, but still, crikey. anyway, what i wanted to whinge about here was the general ignorance of people. well, 2 people. as anyone who has been to a museum will know, you tend to get stuck with a few people as you go around, such is the pace. me, and these 2 fools eventually made our way to the old kgb cells that can be found in the basement of the museum. there are many little rooms here, each depicting one part of the old set up. anyway, in one of the many prisoner cells i was with these chimps, and captain fool proceeded to lie down on one of the beds and get his friend gitbrain to take a photo, complete with thumbs up and laughs. now, i enjoy a genocide joke as much as anyone, we all know that, but still, have some dignity chaps. im sure lameface and mister idiot had a fun time in the kgb cells, good for them.

and finally, vilnius. the old town here is actually pretty perfect, and its convinced me that i would like to live in an eastern european old town myself one day. so you hear that future wife, its going to happen. at night especially, the entire area is lit up and its nothing short of magical. awesome. in other, less interesting news, the girl at this hostel thinks i have a lovely singing voice, so take that andrew neve! hah!

this keyboard is irritating.

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