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LAG International Traveling Report 2005 |
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Notes
from the Field (Edited
by Julienne Gard) Kris
Jones June
13, 2005 Greetings
from Germany regarding Iceland Iceland
was a very busy trip with limited Internet access so I am writing to you
from Germany. I will keep
this message short as there is limited time available. We
have just spent four days in Germany visiting friends who are wine makers
on the Mosel River. We will be leaving for Riga, Latvia this evening. We
booked a 2 ¼ hour flight on Ryan Air for €15 ($20) online.
On 20th June we will fly on Ryan Air from Riga to Stockholm for 3
cents. Yes, I do not believe it either.
Since deregulation of the airlines there are good deals for flying
in Europe. These flights are to secondary airports of course, similar to
Jet Blue out of Long Beach Airport. Check
out ryanair.com for yourself. Iceland
was great, although I recommend that you take more than a week to circle
the island. It is larger than it looks on a map of the North Atlantic,
many of the roads are small and gravel. We travelled 2300km (1500mi) in 6
days. Having to go to the head of the fjord and back would sometimes take
40 minutes to travel 2 miles. Most people were taking 2 weeks to do the
trip, which is better. Iceland
Air would only allow a week on a free stopover. Some
impressions from Iceland: 1.
One of the hardest things to find in Iceland was ice for the
cooler, go figure. It took me half an hour and visits to 3 stores to find
ice. I ended up having to go to a restaurant where they gave me ice from
the drink dispenser. 2.
No US beef. When we arrived we went to the NATO base store to
purchase cheap American food for the week. One of the rules is that US
beef cannot go into the Icelandic economy. They do not want our GM-fed,
hormone laden, potentially Mad Cow disease infected beef.
Think about that the next time you have a hamburger. 3.
Notorious nightlife without night. Reykjavik is famous for its
nightlife. We went out at midnight, just after sunset. It never got dark
and the sun rose again at 2:30AM. There were a lot of really drunk people.
You do not see that much in California since we have to drive. ¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤
Kris
Jones
Hi
Everyone: June
14, was the Latvian memorial day for victims of communist oppression. The
President and most of the government brought flowers and gave speeches in
front of the memorial to freedom. They were remembering those that were
lost. Very moving. The President made sure she talked to as many people in
the audience as she could, I think in an attempt to show that the
government is now free and open. We decided to stay in Latvia for this
week and not travel to other Baltic States. A week is too short to get to
know more than one country and have time to relax also. After a couple of
days in Riga, we took the train to Sigulda to see a National Park and some
castles. On Friday we went to Jarmulda, which means seashore in Latvian,
and includes a string of seaside resorts along 20km of beautiful beach
west of Riga. This is not only the main seaside resort for Latvia but also
for much of western Russia. Most of the people there were speaking
Russian. It is hard to tell who are Russians from Latvia and who are from
Russia. One of the legacies from Soviet occupation 1942-1992 is a more
than 50% Russian population. The Latvians feel that the Russians are
invaders and make it difficult to get citizenship, even if they were born
here. So the Russians born here since 1942 do not have a country since
they are not Russian citizens. The Latvian Russians feel robbed since they
argue they are Latvians also and helped in the fight for independence form
the Soviet Union. This situation is easing as Latvia is gradually allowing
more Latvian Russians to become citizens. Latvia seems to be a place in
transition: between the east and the west with German and other western
tourists along with tourists from Russia and other parts of the East. It
is also in transition between its communist occupied past and its western
capitalist future. It joined the European Union just last year. There is
construction everywhere and property values are climbing. I talked with an
American Latvian man from Indiana yesterday. He has visited Latvia almost
every year since 1992. He said that in 1992 there were very few stores and
petrol stations and that especially in the last 5 years many new
businesses have opened, making prices also increase. As I noticed in
Berlin when I visited in 1990, freedom is for the young people while the
older people are trying to survive on their $160 a month pensions. I am
now in a large Internet cafe with over 100 computers in central Riga.
Almost everyone here is in their 20s. The next few days will be busy in
the Oslo/Bergen area looking at fjords. The weather report is for rain in
Bergen so this section may not work. Of the next 4 nights, 3 will be spent
on trains and 1 in Bergen. Midsummer will then be spent with friends in
central Sweden. ¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤¤¤~~¤¤~~¤¤
Kris
Jones Greetings
from 62 49.9" N & 15 18.5E: We
are staying with friends in central Sweden
with friends near Östersund. It is a bit rainy today so we are waiting for
the weather to clear so that we can hopefully put the boat in the nearby lake
later. There are many lakes here but not many jobs, so the real estate is
cheap. Some Germans bought a nearby fixer upper house for less than $10,000.
The winters are cold and dark though. The lake freezes to one meter depth so
that cars can drive across it for most of the winter. There are roads and road
signs on the lake. The trees have just grown their new leaves for summer in
the past few weeks, June!! There is no darkness just dusk, but it does get
colder near midnight. It is hard to judge what time it is when you wake up at
night. You can wake up and see light outside the window and it is only 2AM.
My friend Lotta remarked that when she visited California as a
teenager, she was surprised to see darkness when it was warm because here it
is always light during the short warm season.
Sometimes the summer can be cold. They call that the green winter, as
opposed to the white winter. When we crossed from Norway to Sweden we knew we
were in Sweden when we saw more Volvos. In fact we saw a Volvo flag before we
saw a Swedish flag. IKEA started
here in the 1940’s. IKEA is an acronym for Ingvar Kamprad (the founder’s
name) Elmtaryd (his farm) Agunnaryd (his village,) so this global corporation
has a very local name. Update
from last letter: We
left Latvia on the 3 cent Ryan Air flight across the Baltic Sea to Stockholm.
A warning about Ryan Air: They only have a 15 kilogram weight limit on
checked baggage and they charge 10 dollars for every kilo over. They say they
have a 10 kilo limit for hand baggage, but they never weigh the hand baggage
so we had to put all the high density lenses cameras etc. in the hand baggage
and the light clothes in the checked baggage. Next time I will pack light for
Ryan Air. What a hassle. The airport Ryan Air uses for Stockholm is 100km from
the city’s center, so we had to pay $20 for a bus which was a thousand times
the cost of the flight. Sweden and Norway are VERY expensive, especially Norway. Even the Swedes think Norway is too expensive, which is why we spent 3 nights on the train instead of staying in hotels. Train travel at night, when there is no night, is exhausting. We spent one night in hostel private room in Bergen for $130, which was not worth it. We leave for Stockholm tomorrow for 2 nights then we fly to San Francisco via Iceland on June 30. I will try to write again soon. I have learned a few interesting facts about the Nordics. |
