I was among, apparently, around 170 people who signed up for a free tour by Nature Trust Malta to explore Babu valley (Wied Babu). When people sign up to an event on Facebook, one must divide the number by three and extract a square root to know the realistic number of attendees, but hiking tours in Malta are different. When …
Two carnivals, a year apart
It has become a tradition for me to seek a Mediterranean escape around this time, when Southern countries get ready for the carnival. I did not grow up with a similar tradition. There is a festival (called Užgavėnės) with scary masks and pancakes, but it is very different from the colorful costumes and street music of the South. I grew …
Prague, second attempt
“…And if you′re planning a stag party, have a nice stag party,” a flight attendant said on my Amsterdam-Prague flight. To me, putting the words ′nice′ and ′stag night′ in one sentence is a sign of out-of-the-box thinking taken to the extremes, but I smiled to myself. This sounds very Dutch. After all, Amsterdam ran an information campaign for purchasers …
Always on alert, or A few observations about sidewalks in Malta
I like my cities walkable, so as much as , sidewalks are something I still cannot get used to. Not only because they are often sloping – this is not different from Vilnius old town. In British English they call them pavements, so there is not even a promise of walk as in ‘sidewalk’. My experience on the island reminded …
Travels and reflections of this year
My first year in review post on this blog was weaved of songs, the second one was written as an ABC, later two – as questionnaires, and this year I published it as a . Yet I could still spare some words about what the year was like beyond trying to ‘make it’ as a freelance journalist.
How to survive the cold in the Baltics
Two annoying cliches I keep hearing in my travels are: “Are you saying you’re cold? But you must be used to it!” and “Lithuania? Is it cold over there?” Northern location plus climate change mean that it may or may not be cold in the Baltics. It depends on winds. I never ask Americans if they have tornadoes all the …
5 reasons why hotels don’t make sense (and tips for fixing them)
Over the past decade I had a chance to go on many business trips, where staying in hotels (from fancy ones in Japan and Slovenia to a shockingly bad one in Cambridge) was either inevitable or preferred by the company or institution that paid the trip. My own favorite way is to stay with people, but unless I have close …
Thailand mourns its king
After 70 years of rule and a long illness, King Bhumibol Adulyadej passed away on Thursday. He has witnessed 19 coup attempts and a multitude of electoral swings. Educated in Switzerland, the king was fond of arts and deeply interested in the welfare of his subjects, whom he supported through various Royal Projects. These are celebrated by various UN agencies, …