PSA: you can download maps for offline use to your smartphone. Please do this before you take a trip to anywhere outside your normal stomping grounds. Especially when there is a war going on, but also if it’s just a region you don’t know very well. Oh, and always be honest with rental car company workers. Yeah, let’s go with that.
I made a reservation online with EuropCar and wandered into their office in the old town of Riga the following morning. It’s difficult to discern that an actual business functions there, as it looks like every other residential building. The single gentleman inside was perfunctory and asked us, “are you driving internationally? because if so there is an extra charge.”
I looked at TJ. TJ looked at me. Both of us knowing full well that we have ridden motorcycles onto foreign soil with “drive to the ocean. we’re on the left when you get there” as perfectly solid directions. Given our risk tolerance, knowing full well the consequences, I turned back to the agent.
“No,” I lied.
The agent genially tossed me the keys, and TJ and I were off to break traffic laws in entirely new countries!
Google maps, and their offline mode, may have saved our lives, or at least our wallets. We got lost a fair bit, found a castle, made some U-turns, and looked at rental properties. Rather than take the route or common traffic to the capital of nearby Lithuania, we decided to wing it on some back roads into the heart of Lithuania and see how far we could get.
We made it as far as a town named after a casserole.
Panevėžys (pronounced roughly “Pan o’ Veggies”) inhabitants were as surprised to see us as we were to be there in one piece. The few people we spoke to in our trip told us we were the first Americans that they had ever met.
One can always find reasons to NOT do something. Global Pandemic, war, scarcity, stupidity, fear… and I’m not saying that one should ignore these reasons. They are very real, and life-altering, for some. I am fortunate, and stupid, enough to be insulated enough against many of these things that I continue to buy the ticket and take the ride. I hope that, within your capacity and to your great enrichment, you may do so, also.
Given my driving skills, and our general confidence in making it back to Riga alive, we didn’t have long to spend in the Pan of Veggies, but it was a great outing. The people were warm and interested/ing even when we had to use sign language and cobbled together words from a smattering of languages to communicate. The food we shared was delicious, and I would totally go back again.
TL;DR: If you get the chance to get lost in Lithuania, don’t let it pass you by!
