Crosstoberfest - HTD/5 Interesting - Liepaja!

1) Basically the coolest place in Latvia.

2) One district, Karosta, is the site of a ruined Tsarist naval fortress falling into the sea, the most haunted building in Latvia (a prison), and a gargantuan Orthodox cathedral entirely ringed in ugly, decaying Soviet apartments. It's basically the coolest place in the coolest place in Latvia.

3) I walked barefoot over a couple of kilometers of broken concrete. Twice. While incredibly painful and incredibly stupid, it did provide an incredibly mystifying Facebook status update.

4) The beach at Karosta is fantastic. The fortress isn't falling into the sea. It has fallen into the sea. All that's left is a jumble of broken concrete across the beach. Exploring the main site of the fortress, you can see identifiable bits of stairs and parts of building among the rubble like the remains of a giant's Lego house after the giant's mom tripped over it and bits went all over the giant family's living room and she didn't care even though the giant spent, like, all day working on that house and he was going to show it to his best giant friend when he came over on Thursday after giant school.

5) Liepaja is the rock and roll capital of Latvia. The 'official' rock cafe wasn't really happenin', so we spent the evening listening to a sloppy-yet-energetic Latvian ska band at the 'other' nightspot. Yeah, not a big town.

Crosstoberfest - HTD/5 Interesting - Vilnius!

1) Hope you like churches.

2) The Soviets turned this giant Orthodox cathedral into their Museum of Atheism. There's being a repressive, intolerant, genocidal occupying foreign power, and then there's being a dick about it.

3) More places should be able to pull off having something called the Gates of Dawn with a straight face.

4) Of the places I visited, I was most excited about eating lunch at a cafe called the Graf Zeppelin, surprising exactly no one.

5) The Lithuanians put their Museum of Occupation in the former KGB building in Vilnius. There's throwing off the shackles of a repressive, intolerant, genocidal occupying foreign power, and then there's being respectful about it.

Five Interesting Places - Snooty Sounding Words!

The esplanade.

The opera house.

The plaza.

The veranda.

The vestibule.

Five Interesting Places: Modern!

A freighter dry-dock.

A stopped elevator.

A waterfront mansion miles from civilization.

A CDC hot lab chock full o' eradicated diseases.

The grocery store.