Hypertravel with Hardie #6: UK and North Europe

Welcome to the Sixth episode of my Hypertravel with Hardie video series here and on YouTube. This episode corresponds most closely with Chapter 8 of the original Hypertrvel book, that inspired and defines these videos, but we’re slowly drifting away from that model. So this episode begins with Chapter 4, which also closely corresponds to Episode 4. Got it? I doubt it, because the book depicted an actual travel narrative, while these video are more encyclopedic, in an effort to facilitate travel by any others interested in ‘seeing it all’ methodically. Because, whether you cross every border or not, to see 150 or more countries in your lifetime will take some effort and coordination. This series shows how I went about it methodically, and hopefully can be a guide to others, eventually on VR, Virtual Reality. This is all backpack-style traveling, too, so anyone can do it. I did it all alone, with no guides or special skills, and at costs that would be no more than the typical US apartment in the typical US city. This trip will concentrate mostly on North Europe, first in June 2009 and then again in April 2010. Are you ready? Let’s go! It’s sometimes fun to mix and match regions if the timing is convenient, so after my previous trip to the Horn of Africa and the Caucasus, I continued to Scandinavia, where I’d never been, up until then. It’s generally expensive, so a bit antithetical to the concept of backpack travel, but still rewarding nonetheless. Budget flights are good for that. So, I flew in from Istanbul to Stockholm late at night and then made my way to a place called the Boatel? Can you guess the rest? Yes, it floats. Which was all very cool, and so was Stockholm, but the place fills up on weekends, so I was off quickly to Goteborg (Gothenburg) to bide some time. My digital nomad inclinations were given a boost there, too, since it’s all remote and digital, even e-tickets for the Eurolines bus long before China and its fans started bragging about WeChat and Alipay and the QR code of life fulfillment. So, what if the cashless country used credit cards to beat China by a decade? If the average Chinese person had any credit, then they’d be using them, too. Sweden even prohibits smoking. Try that in China. Bhutan is better. Drinking Is ubiquitous. Look it up. Copenhagen, Denmark is cool, too, if you can afford it, Tivoli Gardens and all, kinda like Disneyland for semi-adults. At least you can walk to it. Oslo, Norway, is also okay, but I’d really like to head up the peninsula to see more, so this is just the warm-up. Everybody speaks English, it seems. But it’s pricey, so I beat a hasty retreat to Helsinki by night flight, and dig in a bit more there, with its cheaper digs and all. They have Euros, too, so that’s a convenient way to spend money, and with many street markets there, also. They even have reindeer burgers! But they don’t have an Indo-European language, so any further involvement would be challenging. They’ve got a close cousin across the way, though, that’s Estonia, so that’s my next stop, arrival there by ferry to the cute capital Tallinn. The proximity to Russia seems to be calling me, though, so I make a mental note of that for future reference. They even have gingerbread houses and the munchies to match, any hour of the day, so that’s not a bad way to play, if your budget can handle it. I finally took a bus straight through Riga and Vilnius, Latvia and Lithuania, on to Warsaw, Poland. It’s defined by its contradictions, but I’ll be back. This trip got re-ignited almost a year later, with Russia as the locus. I’d already been to Ukraine by that point, so the north was now the focus, even crossing tracks with some of the previous trip some nine months before. This segment even envisioned a continuing trip to west Africa, but that had some surprises, to be mentioned later. But Russia was the juggernaut, Russia and Moscow, especially, complete with $400 visa charge, which I did in LA, and which included LOI, Letter of Invitation, old-fashioned visa BS. West Africa was a pain, too, visas necessaary for every tiny country, but that’s another story, almost. The high charge for Russia is worth it, maybe, if you are taking the Orient Express to Mongolia and China, but I had no intention of that, though details were left flexible. I only knew that I’d be visiting Moscow and St. Petersburg, and possibly more, with Belarus as dessert, if at all possible. But almost all of these trips include London, either as stopover or connection, even if seldom worth the mention. But this time would be the exception. A half day in LHR at the beginning seemed to confirm that, almost ominous. Even more ominous would be the female suicide bombers on the Moscow subway on March 29, 2010, the same day that I would later saunter in, this only a few months after the Yemen-based Christmas Bomber shot his wad on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. But those two Muslim girls in Moscow killed 38 at two separate stations during rush hour, apparently for the Islamic cause in the Caucasus. So, I come strolling in later the same day with no Russian lingo, and no English to be found, hardly. But I knew some Cyrillic alphabet by then, so that helps, since many of the words are the same in their Greek and our Latin etymologies. It’s 2010, though, and Russia was still Communist in many ways, bureaucratic BS the least of it, registering anything and everything all the time. So, I’m quickly looking for an exit after the tourist sites of Red Square and St. Basil’s cathedral. I even considered heading straight thru Belarus to Poland, but I ended up in St. Petersburg, instead, a more rational decision. So, I caught the train to St. Pete, and that’s very nice, well worth the wait. The scenery from the train isn’t bad, either, straight from the Old West, it seems, so I feel right at home. The Hermitage Museum downtown is the big deal, though, relics from ancient Russia, the steppe lands, and Asia to boot, kinda like strolling through the pages of history. Mostly, though, modern Russia is ready to rock, and if the rock band Mumiy Troll isn’t enough for you, then ageing classic rockers from the US and UK are ready to fill the bill. This was 2010, remember, before Ukraine in 2014, and Russia waas still opening up to the West, before its current tilt to China. St. Pete is the most western city of Russia, with extensive connections to Europe, so that’s gold for indie travel, and means that I can catch a train stright to Vilnius, Lithuania, the same city I briefly saw on the bus from Tallinn, Estonia to Warsaw, Poland, so this time I plan a few days. It’s nice, too, old-fashioned Baltic, with some nice modern flourishes thrown in, like a statue of Frank Zappa! Cool. I see the Belarus consulate, but they don’t look too encouraging for travel. Ex-KGB headquarters is interesting, though, aka the Genocide Museum, and the National Museum is not bad, either. I walk my little feet off, but things are changing all the time. I need to get back early to London to do my visa for Ghana, so I blow off my Warsaw stay and head straight to the airport from Vilnius. Wizz Air charges for everything, so I’m wearing half my luggage with the rest stuffed i my pockets as I board the plane to London. The visa will take a few days, so I now have time to kill and that means Scotland, specifically Loch Ness, since I’d already done Stonehenge the year before, almost lost a bag there, even, so this is good timing. I even hung out in London then, for a film festival and music, so time to revisit the north, which I aborted only a few years before. This was my UK decade, after all, after I almost settled into some business there, based in Hounslow, which I ultimately gave up. The north country is nice, though, Inverness included, pub central. Then the volcano in iceland erupted and the drifting ash is closing airports all over, including London. So, my passport is ready, but the skies are not. So, this is now a UK trip, and thousands of travelers are stuck. I catch a bus to Belfast, though, and take it from there. No one’s going there, except me. And it’s not Dublin, but it’s not bad. I even got to see London Derry, too, on my hostel’s free tour. I’m a confirmed hostel guy by now, for the wifi, if nothing else, but the low prices and travel vibe are nice, too. There was no 5G then, remember, just laptops in the transition from desktops to smart phones, so right up my alley, writer’s alley, camera optional. Finally, the skies clear, and that means I need to re-book my Air Afriqiyah flight from London via Libya to Ghana. Yep, that’s correct. And Ghana’s okay, but Burkina Faso is not, through no fault of its own, my laptop broken into squiggles and giggles just at the thought of my half-baked travel narratives. I can’t travel a month without my laptop. This trip is over. Africa bites the dust, once again, just like my kidney stones in Mali two years ago, thieves in South Africa last year, and now this. If you like the content, please like and subscribe. We’ll have a successful trip to Africa next time, I promise. Bye now.