My Travel Adventures

It is a strange time to be in the Baltics, as the normality of everyday life belies the concerning headlines in international relations. Just yesterday, for example, I read that Russia has been stirring up trouble at the border with Estonia by removing demarcation buoys from the Narva River. What complicates matters even further is that due to the USSR’s Russification policies, about a fifth of Estonia’s current population is ethnically Russian. This makes it difficult to gauge how much of the Russian I hear around here is being spoken by Russian emigres, refugees from Eastern Ukraine, or locals.

Having finally found a job, I realised I do not need to spend all my days searching for one. My new posting will begin in June, and until then I will be using this suddenly brief period of freedom to travel and visit friends. Thinking of where to go, I remembered that I thoroughly enjoyed my travels last summer, when my wanderings took me to Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It was warm but not hot, the days overflowed with many golden hours, and the weather mostly stayed sunny. Since I have not yet been to the Baltics, the concrete choice of destination was easy.