Die Hard Three

The primary motivation behind my decision to visit Vilnius is that it happens to be the real-life birthplace of my fictional hero: legendary submarine captain Marko Ramius. This may seem like an unusual reason to fly halfway across the planet but it most definitely is not.

I remember traveling to the UK back in ’97 and going to visit Stratford to see the birth town of William Shakespeare. If I recall correctly, their entire economy was built around this one guy – and they seemed to be doing pretty well. And in 2009 I went to Tunisia to see the hotel where Luke Skywalker lived with his aunt and uncle before they were brutally killed by Stormtroopers, in what I recognize now to be, hands down, the most violent scene in Star Wars (1977).

Now I’m not suggesting that Lithuania re-vector their entire economy to one that is based *entirely* on the life and teachings of Marko Ramius, but maybe, just maybe they could set up a statue or possibly a small museum that is dedicated to this important fictional character. A character, I might add, who helped make The Hunt for Red October (1990) the current Pinnacle of Human Achievement.

The City of Vilnius (view from the Castle)

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the list of places I would disappear to in the event I had to fake my own death.

Coming in at number seventeen is Lithuania! I was thinking the exact same thing – are you for reals? Yup, there are dozens of reasons why one would want to live in Vilnius. Here are the best ones I’ve come up with so far in the eight hours I’ve been here.

First up they have a crazy alphabet. So many new letters to make fun of. There’s this one accent I’ve never seen before – it’s a half circle that can be found floating above many s’s and z’s (both upper and lowercase). Incredible.

Just like the second season of Parks and Recreation (2009-2015) so many hilarious new characters…

Next, the girl working the tourist information kiosk at the airport totally made fun of me in a mean and sarcastic manner when I tried (unsuccessfully) to locate the (obviously) English pile of city maps from amongst all the other languages. This speaks volumes to confidence, I mean, how cock-sure must this country be to assign the vital task of greeting new visitors to a brooding, angst-filled, sixteen year-old girl? Lithuania is going places and I want to get in on the ground floor.

Also, there’s no election going on over here. You know what would ruin my vacation – if the visuals of my walking tour of Vilnius were marred by posters of political candidates trying desperately to get me to vote. I mean, who wants to see another ad from incumbent leader Steponas Arparuskas talking up his endorsement by Dainius Zubrus (a guy who has lived outside the country for so long he’s not even allowed to vote in the election) or fourth-party candidate Elzbieta Mačiulis protesting her not being invited to the most recent debate?

Not me. This I know for sure.

And finally, in Lithuania I can continue my boycott of Hesburger – a task that, while technically possible if one resides in Sydney Australia, is much more effective if one lives within driving distance of at least one of their crappy restaurants.

I do have to say it is nice to visit a place where the natives use as few words as possible when trying to communicate. The English speaking peoples are always filling their sentences with unnecessary adverbs, superfluous adjectives, and redundant examples.

The old saying that “less is more” has never been so true as it is here in Finland. Before I visited Helsinki back in 2011, I emailed the Vantaa Bauhaus (Finland’s answer to Home Depot) to ask about their toilets.

Can you tell me how much it would cost to purchase a wall toilet at your store? I do not need the part that goes behind the wall, just the part in front.

And the response I got:

Look page 21 enclosed Bauhaus Finland magazine.

Isn’t that just great? Seven words, zero prepositions, and I got the information I was looking for!

What did I find? Well I’m pretty sure Finland is not a “barren hellscape”. It’s more of an urban centre with good beers on tap. Also, this bar we went to had the neatest faucets in the bathrooms. The drying system was built right into the spout. Check this out.

They didn’t work very well but I think it’s a good start. I’m sure the company will improve on the design.

I also found a small caché of boardgames on my way back from the WC. Usually if a bar has just a couple of games it’s the crappy ones like Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly so I was quite surprised to see they had a Finnish copy of my favourite: Ticket to Ride.

My Finnish speaking friends tell me that the original name “Ticket to Ride” is untranslatable so the good people at Days of Wonder decided to call it “Menolippu” which means “One-way Ticket”.

I think this is another one of those examples of how language is reflective of culture. Any Finns out there should understand what I’m talking about.

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Yes a Finland. So I’m back in the north yet again. I think this is the fifth time I’ve been here.

Passing through immigration was interesting. While waiting my turn, I noticed that the agent serving the line next to the one I was in asked to see the return tickets for four non-olde-stock Canadians (an asian couple and two young Arab guys). The officer that served me, well, he just laughed at my jokes and waved me through.

Under normal conditions I might not have noticed the slight difference between how white me was treated compared to these other Canadians, but lately Finland and immigration have been making big news headlines.

The main story that’s been clogging up my Facebook feed is about this group of Iraqis who were trying to immigrate and when they arrived in Finland they claim to have found a “barren hellscape, suitable only for simulating the conditions astronauts would need to train to survive on Mars”. According to the article a bunch of them left the country to try their luck in Sweden.

It was their description of Finland caught my attention. Had things really changed that much in the twenty-eight months since my last visit? Well, as an official, self-accredited journalist it is my duty, neigh, my responsibility, to investigate their claims and report back what I find. My plan is to look around, take some pictures, and conduct some interviews at the pub tonight.

More to follow.

Things are not starting off well. In addition to signing up for a mobile Internet plan that has so far cost me $400 since I left home nine hours ago, I just realized that I forgot to pack my Japanese sleeping pillow. Ugh. Not a good scene.

Most people would call it quits after a setback like this but not me. You see I’m not afraid of diversity. From trying exotic new foods containing onions to falling asleep without an adequate number of pillows (three), I can power through almost anything.

But I will admit that it is pretty tempting – to cancel everything and stay comfortable, surrounded by the familiar of my homeland. At this exact moment the temptation is doubly strong because technically I still haven’t left Canada. I’m in Toronto waiting for my flight (which leaves tomorrow evening).

I still have a few hours to kill so I thought I would fill the void with some practice words before the real typing begins.

With each post I try to include (for my illiterate readers) at least one photo of my adventures. I don’t have any good photos of Toronto so here’s one I took last week during Killarney Hike 2015.

The original plan was to hike (with Steve) sixty-five kilometres over five days / four nights but bad weather forced us to make a new hike that was thirty-five kilometres and two-days / one night. After about five clicks on day one my left knee started to get sore and after two hours on day two (about twelve kilometres from the car) each step was like being stabbed in the knee with a thousand knives of fire.

So with nine kilometres left I was hobbling along at about half of my normal pace when we encountered a couple of Germans who were doing a day hike. I asked if they had any drugs and they responded in the positive! So these lovely Germans gave me two Ibuprofen 600s which made the pain go away.

Like I needed another reason to love the Germans.

Thanks guys! You never told us your names but statistically you’re Anna and Julia.

Normally when blogging one of my trips I like to give my readers a preview of my adventures with some sort of travel roadmap or, depending on how I’m getting around, skymap. But today I decided against providing any clues, hints, inklings, or innuendo as to where I’m going or what I have planned.

While the absence of any detailed spoilers will terrify my mother, I think my blogging will be better for it. I came across a famous quote the other day that illustrates what I’m trying to accomplish:

 “Brevity is the soul of wit”.

I have no idea what it means and I can’t even look it up on the Google because it’s too expensive to open any unnecessary tabs in my browser – my new mobile Internet plan has me paying by the packet. One hundred thousand packets for ten dollars may sound impressive but it is not.

Anyway, what I think that William Shakesman was trying to tell us is that no one wants to read anything any more. But this isn’t my problem – if you want to find out where I am and what I’m up to you’re going to have to click through or try and guess from the preview pictures.

It’s still not entirely clear to me exactly what a bucket list is, but yesterday here in Los Angeles I completed an “action” item that’ve had for almost 27 years.

“Taking procrastination to a new level, Jason?”

Not exactly. It’s more a case of fourteen-year-old me not knowing the commonly understood definition the term “action item”. From Wikipedia:

In management, an action item is a documented event, task, activity, or action that needs to take place. Action items are discrete units that can be handled by a single person.

This thing I did yesterday was not part of any management. It was not documented anywhere (save my brain) and the “need” for it to take place, well – it was more a desire than a need.

Anyway, whatever you want to call it, it’s nice to finally have this one thing out of the way. Thanks to Shaheen for driving – getting there by bus would have been an ordeal of epic proportions. Here’s the photographic evidence showing that I’ve completed another one of my outstanding “action” items from 1988 – only six more to go!

Me (finally) visiting Nakatomi Plaza

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As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of trying new things. But unlike the extreme sports enthusiast who subsists on a daily diet of varied experiences, my preference is to schedule the new things I try at a rate of one per week. Some people think I should be doing new things more frequently than just once every seven days. When this comes up in conversation I usually have to remind Sarah of my family’s motto “Routine is good. Change is bad.” I credit my strict adherence to this maxim as the main reason I have yet to lose a pet after almost two dozen hours dog and cat sitting.

The thing is, trying something new takes a lot of planning and preparation. One can’t just wake up one morning and say, “Hey I’m going to try this new type of food I’ve never eaten before” (especially if that food is peanut butter – you have to consult your physician first). With that in mind, you’re probably quite excited to read about which “adventure” I’ve got lined up for this trip to the desert.

Will I attempt a Goldeneye-style bungee jump from the top of the Hoover Dam? Will I audition for a non-speaking role in an upcoming episode of CSI: Las Vegas? Maybe I’ll jump off the diving board into the deep end of the hotel pool.

Well, the truth is, for this week, my plan is to not plan anything new. I want to be spontaneous so right now I don’t know what my new thing will be.

Or maybe, wait a second, let me think about this. Maybe my not planning my new thing, this is the new thing I’m going to try. It is something I haven’t done before.

Yes, I think this qualifies. There, checkbox that action item done!

Staying at a new hotel does not count as a new experience.

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gets reported on my blog!

Yes, hello everyone. I’m back on the road again (actually in the air) traveling across the country to a place I’ve only ever read about in online movie reviews. This time the GF and I are heading to Las Vegas (aka the Sinful Apple, aka DryDock One, aka the Thirsty Cactus, aka Gamblor’s Lair, aka l’Affront du Nature) for a few days of conferencing (for Sarah) and total-body sunblock application (for me).

Right now we’re about an hour into the flight from YUL to LAS and the cabin crew is trying to find out if there’s a doctor on board. One of the passengers (a fifteen-year-old boy) is hyperventilating or something and the only medical professional they can find is a dentist. She’s back there with him now.

As an Engineer I very much enjoy problem solving, but I’m more than happy to sit this one out. I like working on non-living projects (like the gas lines I’m running for the new fireplace) where if I make a mistake it won’t result in someones death. Pipe fitting is so much more straightforward than trying to reattach a severed foot.

Anyway, I hope he’s going to be okay. I just saw a flight attendant carrying a large bottle of compressed gas (I assume oxygen) to the back of the plane. We land in a couple of hours.