Lithuania: A Fate Worse Than Serbia

Hello, dammit, from the same interminable day.

Lithuania has sunk even lower in my estimation since my last entry. If that's even possible.

This is a country full of boring landscapes, unpronounceable words, cold weather, dull old towns, mediocre food and people who would rather scowl than smile. 90% apparently don't know how to say Hello to foreigners, and 100% find the mere sound of English infuriating.

The ride to Siauliai took four hours. I got there and figured I might have to head all the way to Kaunas tonight as Siauliai looked pretty small and shitty with no hotels around. But I wanted to see the Hill of Crosses first, and I'd figure it out later.

I caught the bus at 15:40 to the Hill of Crosses (pissed off, once again, at the horrible Tourist Info bitch who looked annoyed at the mere notion that she might try to attempt speaking English).

The bus let me off 2km from the Hill so I walked there.

It was just okay.

(Certainly not worth the full day of travel that I spent getting there!)

I spoke to a little lamb (the nicest being I've met since I've been here), and caught the bus back to Siauliai centre.

I tried my best to find a hotel as all I really wanted was to treat myself to a nice bed rather than a pod, have a nice dinner and several drinks and end this awful day.

But the 2 hotels I found didn't appear to actually function anymore, so I had no choice but to catch the bus to Kaunas, which I'm on now, armed with a disgusting kebab and a beer.


This experience has really got me thinking.

I, who spout the advantages of solo travel at any given opportunity, have realized that travelling alone is only a good thing when you're in a place you love. The location becomes your friend, and happiness with your surroundings fills the space of companionship. You're happy to be alone with your place, so no one can distract you from admiring it.

But when you're somewhere that you hate, like I am right now, being alone just makes you angry. And anger needs to be laughed at.

In my previously darkest hour of travelling, on the million-hour bus ride into Nis, I had Mike with me and we laughed about it together.

But laughing when you're miserable AND alone makes you something completely different: a crazy person. Lithuania has not only turned me into a bored, miserable and angry person, but now it's also made me into a crazy person. And the worst part about it: I'm STILL HERE!

It's a funny thing, travelling. You feel the need to see as many new parts of the world as possible. You want to add to your list of places you've been, add another pin into the map. You want to one-up people at dinner parties, so that when your friend Alice says: "I had this amazing massage in Hungary!", you can come back with: "Oh, let me tell you about the most AMAZING spa I went to in Finland!".

Young travellers like myself should take a good, hard look at our elders and notice that they no longer hop from country to country every year. For the most part, they've left their tourism promiscuity behind, chosen a few places they like, and stuck with them.


It makes sense, of course, to see as many places as you can while you're young, because youth is all about experimenting, finding out what you like and what you don't, blah blah blah.

But when you get to the point, like I have, when you're hurtling through the barren Lithuanian countryside and you've spent a total of 6 hours on a bus just to spend 45 minutes looking at a bunch of wooden crosses on a hill, it's time to re-evaluate your travel decisions.

I'm now officially out of places to visit in Europe.

Unless I want to go to Moldova or Luxembourg, which I don't, I need to either leave the continent, or choose my favourite place and stick with it.

And that's possibly what hurts the most about this trip: the fact that I could be in Croatia right now. I love it there. I lvoe the food, the people, the sea, the language, the music, the men, the gemist.

But it was the thought of changing my Facebook status, for the 5th time this year, to "Andrea is off to Croatia!", felt a little embarrassing. I'm supposed to be this world traveller, after all, I figured I can't keep going back to the same place time after time.


But guess what: YES I FUCKING CAN!!

In fact, this experience is probably Croatia sending me bad vibes from down the continent for thinking I might enjoy another country.

Something, somewhere, has it out for me. Surely, it can't be Lithuania itself: we've only just met What did I do to make enemies with it so quickly?

I don't think I've ever given Lithuania a moment's thought before this trip, much like most other sane people along the backpacker trail.

And now I realize there's a reason for that.

It's a squalid rathole and the only people who wind up here are people like me with pretentious notions of trying something new, wanting to be different and original, smugly saying the words "Latvia" and "Lithuania" and watching people's eyes widen in admiration, thinking I'm the bravest and coolest girl in the world.

Now, I've spent the entire day on a cold, slow bus to Kaunas.

Tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be freezing to death, attacked by a crazy man in the street, with a case of the runs from the kebab I had for dinner. At least I'll have my originality to keep me warm.