BWI

Marijampole – Kaunas, Lithuania

There will be no novel tonight. 

Not feeling good enough for that.

Still, a few items worth noting.

First off, it is just not that fun to be sick. Even with Dr. Liu around. Yes, she’s keeping me medicated with Aleve and Tylenol. And I’ve found some Lithuanian cough drops as well. But, as it turns out, I think I would rather be healthy. All other things being equal . . .

Nonetheless, we managed to have a pretty good day. Two roadside purchases. One for chanterelle mushrooms, and one for a little pork belly to cook with the chanterelles. 

Note that this section of the post is dedicated to Reader Marie-Luise – one of Diana’s favorite patients. (I would say that I was Diana’s favorite patient, but, sadly, I’ve been told it’s a bad idea to lie in blog posts…)

Marie-Luise shared with us that as a little girl she lived in a German town in what is now western Poland. At the end of the war, when she was nine years old, her family was told they had two hours to vacate their home. Must have been confusing and traumatic. But, like so many people who have been through difficult times, Diana reports that Marie-Luise is a happy and well-adjusted person. 

Evidence of that is Marie-Luise’s two requests for us. For Diana: take an extra swim in the Baltic Sea because Marie-Luise had such fond memories of frolicking in the water as a child. And for me: enjoy some extra chanterelles. 

As it turns out, Marie-Luise’s requests were a blessing in disguise. Without her directive, we likely would have biked right past the mushroom guy today. As it was, we ended up enjoying a wonderful dinner: pasta with sautéed chanterelles and pork belly,

along with another exquisite Dr. Liu salad.

Seriously, Diana has been making some fantastic salad lately. I’m not just saying that so she’ll keep giving me my medications. I mean, I’ll admit that is a factor. But the combination of the arugula, the feta, the sweet lemon dressing and the candied nuts and cucumbers – I would love that salad even if she wasn’t giving me my meds.

Oh, and without Marie-Luise’s chanterelle directive we wouldn’t have ended up stopping at Milda’s stand. Milda is our new Lithuanian friend. She worked in the UK for a number of years, so her English is great. She opened her little roadside truck about three years ago; she sells smoked fish and pork products. Kind of like the little place along the North Shore between Two Harbors and Duluth. We connected with her just in time – before she closed up shop for a few days to escape to the Baltic herself. 

It was like this:

I go up to the stand, see some fish that look smoked, but want to make sure.

I go back to my bike, grab my phone, type: “Is it smoked?” into Google Translate, and show the resulting translation to the lady. 

“I speak English,” came the reply. 

That will teach me to assume . . . Ended up having a very nice conversation . . .

We met a couple other interesting folks as well. 

A very tall couple from the Netherlands (which is maybe redundant – everyone from the Netherlands seems to be tall – maybe it’s the water?) 

Didn’t actually get their names – they were too difficult for me – but they’ve been together 25 years. She’s Dutch through and through, he’s originally a Sikh from South India. They both run small businesses, and they spent considerable time commenting on the wave of Moroccan and Syrian immigrants that Holland is experiencing right now. 

“We don’t hire them. They don’t want to work. They collect monthly checks just for being in the country.”

Or:

”The Muslims don’t want to work.”

I just thought this was interesting to hear from this particular couple because they were friendly and kind, and the guy is obviously an immigrant himself. Bottom line, the whole West seems to be in the same place; there’s a ton of immigration and people the world over are just not that comfortable with it. 

Walter from South Tyrol, Italy. 

He’s a ski instructor in the Dolomites who apparently loves biking the world. He’s cycled part of Africa, the United States, and all over Europe. He’s seventy years old and still going strong. He’s heading the same general direction we are – toward Finland. But then he’s planning to continue on through Sweden and Denmark – basically on the route we were planning to do before we realized we were out of Schengen time. 

You may have noticed that Walter is not a particularly Italian name. He explained that the area used to be German (Austrian?), but came under Italian control in the last hundred years.

Lots of this land trading going around in Europe …

(Late addition … We ran into Walter again before we published this post. Turns out that Walter was able to help us with another puzzle. Janik Sinner, the professional tennis player, is his neighbor – and, like Walter, he is culturally Austrian and his primary language is German. We were pretty confused about this because he doesn’t look very Italian. That clears that up…)

As far as Lithuania goes, we’re still just getting a feel for the place. But other than the campground host last night everyone has been warm and friendly. We ended up arriving in the second biggest city in Lithuania today: Kaunas. Quite a contrast to the rural areas. Fancy suburban housing developments. Swanky grocery stores. Kind of leads one to believe that Lithuania is more like today’s America: the urban areas are doing well, the rural areas are moldering away. At least that’s what it looks like . . .

One last thing I wanted to mention . . . We are finally (FINALLY!) in the land of clean lakes and rivers. Two days in a row we’ve been able to swim and bathe in the lakes. Once healthy again, I’ll really be loving this area . . .

As for a BWI – Biking While Ill – I haven’t been pulled over yet . . . Though if they brought me to a jail cell with a bed I might actually be happy to lie down.

It bears noting that Dr. Liu does not consider a BWI to be an offense at all. In fact, in her mind the worst crime is “letting the illness win.” She is also highly suspect of the related crime: napping. But I am happy to report that I enjoyed an hour or so of afternoon shut eye while she swan to Latvia and back…