Mental times!

So, here's the story from yesterday......

So, after going to bed at 4am the night before, I got up and out of the flat by 6.30 and was on the 7.20 train to Sestokai, from where I'd have to change for the final leg to Vilnius.
For a long part of the journey I had no room at all as my compartment was full of people. When they all got off at a place close to Belarus (I know we were close to Belarus because I got 2 text messages on my phone welcoming me to Belarus) I was able to spread out a bit and get comfy.
I was kind of drifting in and out of naps, and so I set my alarm for 2.30 as we were due to arrive in Sestokai at 2.40 and I wanted to be awake and ready to change.
I was woken a bit earlier than I had expected. 12.30 actually. Woken by a guy speaking Polish and asking me if I was heading for Sestokai.
"Tak." That means 'yes' in Polish.
The guy laughed and pointed to the back of the train whilst saying something I didn't understand. I guessed I had to move carriage, so I picked up my stuff and came out of my compartment only to find there was no back of the train anymore. It had gone and nobody had told me. I was stuck in a shit-hole called Suwalki.
I swore loudly a few times and jumped off the train, trying to find someone who could give me information about the next train.
I found one guy only (this station was tiny and in the middle of nowhere) who could speak no English at all, so through a mixed conversation of Slovene and Polish I found out that the next train wasn't until 'jutro' or 'tomorrow'.
Shit!
The guy then walked me for about 10 minutes to a main road where a lot of the vehicles were lorries with LV plates heading for Lithuania. He stood with me for about 10 minutes trying to hitch-hike, but everyone was just driving past and waving or giving the finger and laughing.
It was freezing, like -1 degree, and remember I don't even have a coat.
The guy left me and I carried on for about another 20 minutes, then I saw a bus station. Light-bulb above head time.
I went in to the the information centre and asked if the woman spoke English.
"No." She said, and then turned to the guy behind me in the queue, just dismissing before I'd even attempted to ask her anything. He bought his ticket then I made sure I got back in before the next person.
"Vilnius" I said.
"No." She shook her head and turned to the next customer.
What the fuck?
After she'd served her, I got back in again and said "When can I go to Vilnius?"
She just laughed and turned to the next customer. I was getting nowhere. Then a voice to my right said "maybe I can help."
It was a girl, a bit junkie-looking, but friendly enough to want to translate for me.
"I hate these people in these kind of towns." She said. "They're so rude if you can't speak Polish."
"Ah well" I said "it's fair enough, I guess. I don't know many people in England who would be too helpful to a Pole who spoke no English."
Her name was Oija and she was from Warsaw, she explained this was why she could speak English. The original woman wasn't very helpful even to a Polish speaker, so we went to the other side of the building and asked another woman for some info. There were no buses to Lithuania today or tomorrow (because of the Easter holiday) so the best thing she could think of was to somehow make it to the Lithuanian side of the border then see what I could get.
The border, I was told, was 30 kilometres away.
I thanked the girl, and told her I'd sort something out.

By now, I couldn't feel my hands from the cold, so I had the idea to go to the police station to find out if they could suggest anything.
I found the station and had to wait 10 minutes for them to find an English-speaking cop for me. He came and I told him the story of the train and asked if he could think of any solution.
"There's a sleeping centre for the homeless. You can sleep there tonight, I'll take you."
"I don't know. Is it safe?" I wondered.
"Hmmm. Have you got anything valuable?"
"Not really."
"Then you should be OK. The homeless guys will go through your bags when you're asleep, but if there's nothing worth taking, you'll be fine." He grinned. This was funny to him.

I really wasn't up for staying there, but figured it might be my only option. At least I could stay in the warm for the night, I wouldn't close my eyes, and I'd leave first thing in the morning to get to Vilnius, using the ticket I already had and explaining why I was travelling a day later.
He took my passport details and phoned ahead to book me into the centre, then he told me to wait for him for 10 minutes and he'd drive me there.

As I sat waiting, I began having serious second thoughts about the whole situation. It was like 2.30 in the afternoon and I really didn't want to be at the homeless centre so early without trying other things first.
By the time the policeman pulled up outside in the big van and came in to get me, I had well and truly talked myself out of going to any centre. It became even clearer that I couldn't go there when he said to me "I've called the railway company and there's no train tomorrow because of the holiday."
"Well, that's just fucking marvelous." I said. "look, there's no way I'm spending 2 nights in a homeless centre where they're gonna have the English non-Polish speaking guy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I need to get back to Warsaw to assess my options."
"So, you wanna go to the train and bus stations to see the possibilities?" He asked.
"Yea!"
I got into the van and found that I'd been right with my guess that he wasn't too satisfied when taking my passport details earlier. I'd seen it in his face. That look I'd seen on a hundred other border guards and policemen every time one of them handles my document.
"Can I see your passport again?" He asked.
I gave it to him, then sat locked in the back of the police van for 10 minutes while he ran the check over the radio and waited for the all clear. He gave it back to me, then drove first to the bus station. He left me locked in the back while he went inside. I sat there looking every bit the criminal as curious Polish eyes watched the bearded stranger in the back of the wagon, wondering what act of terrorism he'd been prevented from commiting.
he came back to the van and smiled as he said "No buses to Warsaw today, and no buses to Lithuania tomorrow. You wanna try the train station?"
"Yea."
The same again, I sat and waited while he went inside.
"No trains to Warsaw til tomorrow." he said. "So, shall I take you to the centre?"
"No. Take me to a good place for hitch-hiking out of the city to Lithuania. I'm gonna have to give it a go."
And so he did. "This is where you wanna be, Kris." he told me as he let me out at a bus stop on a road leading towards Lithuania. "Just try to wave down a truck."
We shook hands, I thanked him, and he wished me good luck. The cold air slapped me in the face hard as I got out of the wagon.

There I was, standing on this street in front of a bus stop, freezing to death (slight exaggeration), being watched and laughed at by all the locals as they walked past, and having all the drivers just grinning at me as they passed.
I stood there in the cold air for about an hour and in that time at least 40 Lithuanian lorries passed me and not one stopped.
I looked around and wondered what I was going to do. I felt like dropping to my knees and just lying in the cold, I couldn't go on anymore. I can't put into words there despair I was feeling as I stood there in this little town where no one spoke English and where I had no food and was literally freezing.
I'd have to go back to the police and ask to be taken to the homeless centre, and that was only if they'd still have me after I'd decided to snub them already.
I ran everything through my head. How would the reaction be if I gave up now? Would I be ridiculed? Would I hate myself for not seeing it through to the end? Would the people that have already sponsored me feel let down? Would I bring shame to myself and to my family? Did I really care? After all, surely all of that would be better than what I was feeling at that precise moment in time. Saying all that, though, what the hell could I do? How could I just quit? How would I get home anyway?
Then just like that, something changed. I said to myself "Hang on. How many times has something come along when you needed it most? Didn't you say that you'd sooner die in the cold than give up and go home a loser? Start thinking positively again and you will get yourself out of the shit!"
And so I did. It was fucking hard to switch the mentality back to a positive way of looking at things, but I managed to do it, first by laughing at the fact that all week I've been happy thinking about the stress-free trip I was going to have to the Baltics, with a train ticket in my hand. And now here I was, a few hours after leaving Warsaw care-free, stuck in arguably the toughest situation so far on the journey.

Just then a car pulled over and asked if I wanted to be dropped off at the border where it would surely be easier to find a ride. I got in, feeling optimistic again.
At the border, the sun started shining all of a sudden and took the chill out of the air. If it was a film, there would've been that kind of 'aaaaaa' sound that accompanies religious miracles and stuff as the light rises in the distance. you know what I mean? :-)
I walked across the border, it was quite a distance between the two sides. I kept my thump out for any lorry that passed but still nothing.
"Fuck it. I'll walk the 105 miles to Vilnius. I won't be beaten!" I shouted it out loud. No one heard me (otherwise I might've got embarrassed).
I showed my passport and walked until there were no more polish flags to be seen.
As I walked, defiantly, I still got laughed at and waved to by every Lithuanian driver that rolled past. I've never met any Lithuanians in my life, so this was my first impression and it wasn't filling me with love.
I came to a parked lorry and as I walked past, had to wait because the driver was blocking my path as he had a piss up against a fence. I stood there and waited for him (I would've felt uncomfortable in his position, but he seemed not to notice). When he'd finished I asked him where he was going. He told me in German that he was waiting here for an hour.
"Then what?" I asked. Actually I just kind of pointed to my wrist to indicate an hour, and then said "und?"
"Und Kaunas." He told me.
Great, at least if I got to Kaunas it would be easier to find a way to Vilnius, and if not, I could find a station to sleep in in the city.
"Bitte!" I pointed to myself.
"OK" He said.

I did a little dance and said "Danke schon!" In an hour I'd be on my way to a big city, and I was gonna have my first hitch-hiking experience.
As he sat in his cab reading a porno mag and smoking, I sat on the kerb in front, playing with my phone.
I sat in between his lorry and another one that I didn't think had a driver.
It did. I found out when the driver came to ask me to move a bit so that he could reverse before pulling out. Then, my driver called him over, spoke in Lithuanian, and then called me over. The new driver was asking where I wanted to go, so I said "Kaunas."
"OK" he said, and indicated for me to get in.

He started trying to explain something in German, but his was only marginally better than mine, and the conversation resembled a year-8 aural exam in Deutsch. I got that he wasn't exactly going to Kaunas, and I told him it was OK to drop me anywhere on the motorway because then I'd try to get to Vilnius.
"Vilnius? Ich gehe Vilnius." He said. I could've kissed him (another slight exaggeration).
And just like that I was on my way.

The conversation didn't exactly flow, but we got along some how. His name was Alek and he worked for a Lithuanian company driving over Germany, Poland, Belgium and Holland. He spoke no English and had only learned basic German to make it possible to work. He worked 17 days of the month and earned 1000 Euros for it, good money to a Lithuanian, especially when you add on the extra 400 or so that he makes on the side by stealing petrol that the company pays for and then sucking it out through a tube and selling it to other drivers on the street. As proof, he showed my the big plastic container full of his loot. He was quite proud.
He let me use his phone to call my host in Vilnius, Cori, to let her know that I was on my way. Nobody was answering the phone, so I sent a text message. Later, I tried calling again, this time there was an answer but it wasn't an American girl called Cori, it was a Lithuanian who couldn't speak English and asked me in German "Ist das Kris?"
What???
Then I remembered that I'd sent a text so he got my name from that.

I was starting to get worried that I'd be in Vilnius after such a day and then not have anywhere to sleep. Alek was worried too, and was asking if I needed to stay at his place.
I said no, because I was pretty sure that all I needed to do was get access to the internet somewhere and check my email for the address, and I'd probably find that I'd just copied the phone number wrongly.
After about a 3-hour drive I was in Vilnius. Alek dropped me off at the train station and it was actually an emotional farewell. We shook hands and he drove off, beeping and waving as he went. Through 3 hours of broken German, we'd bonded, and I as so grateful for the big part he'd played in me getting to Lithuania's capital.

Into a hotel, politely asked the girl behind the desk if I could use the net for a couple of minutes. No problem. I'd been ringing the wrong number, but I now had the right one and also the address. The girl showed me on a map how to get there, and 20 minutes later I was walking in to the flat of a surprised Cori who had given up hope of me making it.
It was 9pm, and only then did I realise that I was in a different time zone to the one I'd left earlier in the day. it's an hour in front here.

Cori is an American student, studying Slavic languages and linguistics. Something that I really wanted to study myself, before I found out that it would mean going to university in Nottingham. Cold villages in Poland I can just about handle, the north of England, that's a different story. No thank you.

I had a hot bowl of soup, the very first thing I'd eaten in the whole day, as well as a cup of tea. A proper cup of tea! Her boyfriend is English and so she's been able to learn that there is only one kind of tea worthy of the name tea.
I went to a bar to meet some of her friends and had a few beers, before just crashing out like a baby on the couch-bed.
That's my host, Cori.

Today, after spending 40 minutes of tedium shaving off my beard with a blunt razor, I had a kind of tour of the city, although I had to walk through sleet, snow, rain, and hail to see it. Vilnius is beautiful. It reminds me so much of Ljubljana, with the style of buildings and churches, the paved roads in the old town, the market stalls, and the weather! If I can tell you how beautiful it is even after only seeing it in this shitty weather, then that to me means that it really passes the test and can officially be put on to my list of favourite European cities.
It also has a sense of humour. There's a small part of the city called Uzupio, that in 1991 declared itself an independent republic. Of course it wasn't a serious declaration, it was just a piss-take of the situation of the time when so many republics were declaring independence. The place has it's own constitution, signs welcoming you to the republic, and even ministers. If you go there on the 1st of April (Uzivo's independence day) you can even get your passport stamped. I had to take a picture at the 'border'.

I've managed to lose the ticket I won from Vilnius to Riga, meaning that I'm probably going to have to have another hitch-hiking experience on Tuesday when I leave here. Not looking forward to standing in the snow and sleet, but I'm feeling optimistic. I'm so close to the end, I can smell the fish and chips.

A few pics taken in Vilnius today;

Days on the road (without any money); 146
Capitals visited; 22 (3 non-EU)
Distance covered; 7841 miles (12655 km)
Capitals left to visit; Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki, Athens