Advancing to Baltic Avenue

After the excitement of the tractor factory wore down I made my way back to the flat and planned my escape from Belarus.  Okay, I know what you're thinking--"you've only been there 3 days!" and it's true and no one's fault but my one.  I had purchased a ticket from Riga to Belgrade on AirBaltic and I thought it was for the Friday but turned out to be for the Wednesday.  The good news is that I didn't have to go through the absolutely horrifying prospect of registering, but the bad news was that I was leaving Belarus later that evening.  

$4 rent.  Baltic Avenue is pretty raw.

I purchased a ticket from the bus depot after doing a dry run to the station and calculating my route., and then returned later in the evening to board the night bus to Latvia, which crossed at Lithuania.  We stopped in Vilnius but I didn't get off the bus to smoke a cigarette like everyone else, so I have never actually set foot on Lithuanian soil and if I try to tell you at any time that I have then I am lying.  I also might be lying when I say that we passed through Vilnius because I don't even know if it was Vilnius or Kaunas.  But, like, we've all been there, and how many of you are able to distinguish the two by the cloak of darkness?  I'm also just not that into amber but this is hardly the place to start talking about that.  I've already insulted the Lithuanians enough with this post and by confusing Vilnius and Kaunas (because, as I am sure you know, there are also differences between Regina and Saskatoon). 

lawlz this is me at the Belarusian border because registration is an outdated bureaucratic construct designed to demobilize a population and no one is the boss of me.

It was really hard to sleep on the bus, partly due to it being a bus, partly due to the man behind me who took off his shoes and put his outrageously smelly feet up, partly from the guy across watching some Second World War documentary, and partly (mostly) due to the fact that I was approaching the border and had no idea what would happen.  At the border to Lithuania I was absolutely terrified that for some reason I should have registered, or that someone had planted pounds and pounds of cocaine in my backpack, and I was going to end up in a gulag-like situation.  Or at least have to fill out a lot of paperwork.  But alas I was free to pass without hindrance.  No customs, no questions, no trouble, no explaining myself frantically in broken, tear-choked Russian.  I can only imagine how ridiculous and incoherent I sound trying to articulate myself in Russian, and what people must think: "who IS this idiot-savant?"  In any case I had broken through the lines and was to reach Riga and the mighty Baltic by sun up.

Did you know you can Google Image search almost anything?    Apparently there is no Chance card that allows you to advance your token to Baltic Avenue, but Baltic is pretty close to GO and I'm pretty sure you "get it," you know?