People keep hounding me from all sides asking when I'm going to tell you guys about my latest getaway. And I just can't seem to get around to it because I'm bogged down with things — either something's brewing over at the Radio Archive, or my stupidphone won't work on the cellular network. Yeah, you heard that right, I bought myself an Apple contraption — much to my sorrow. It's got the latest firmware, so I had to also buy a card to unlock it from the carrier — TurboSIM, or rather a clone of it. The sorrow lies in the fact that the card doesn't work. And now I'm sitting here like a total idiot with a phone that cost crazy money, and I'm using it only as an iPod (if I wanted an iPod, it would have cost me two hundred bucks less).
Jerzy has nothing to do with our getaway, but he looks pretty good in photos
Anyway, regarding the trip to Riga. The apocalypse is coming, truly I tell you! I've been haunted for a long time by the thought that everything is heading towards its twilight. By "everything" I mean the processes surrounding me, and the ones happening to me too. For example, my shoulder still hurts to this day. Knyaz's cat died. The crisis isn't even worth mentioning. Later on I will provide more signs so you can see for yourselves that the end is closer than ever.
An attentive reader might say that we (meaning the participants of the getaway) were the cause of the misfortunes described below ourselves, but they wouldn't be entirely right.
Specifically in our case, it all started with Knyaz's lady friend not being able to make up her mind — whether she should go to a private party in Daugavpils, or come with us. "Private party" sounds somehow completely uncharacteristic for our province, so I would have gone there — what if they host orgies there, I'd be curious to take a look. In any case, the girl somewhat delayed our purchase of tickets for entertainment events, because she only let us know her decision on Wednesday. Strictly in the framework of the apocalypse, it was negative for us. Thursday had already rolled around. We were just about ready to organize everything, when Vasya, the guy whose place we were planning to go to for a dinner party (see earlier) bummed us out with the news that his difficult life circumstances had backed him into such a corner that he wouldn't let us in for dinner. We timidly tried to dig up some info on what we were supposed to do then, but Vasya kept proudly silent all the way until Friday.
And this is a nasty bug on Knyaz's cactus
So, on Friday we finally got our act together to buy the tickets. And while there were no problems with the bus, for the opera — where I was dragging Knyaz under the pretext of raising our cultural level — there were only completely useless seats left, and at opposite ends of the hall to boot. Thus, the apocalypse truly revealed its terrible face for the first time during our getaway.
At this point we started looking at what we could replace the opera with: we found a belly dancing competition Miss oriental 2009 and the circus on Sunday, with a new program “Stars on Ice”. While we were figuring out which of the Riga locals would go with us, and where, on the website www.bilesuserviss.lv, where you can usually buy tickets, the Miss oriental 2009 competition section lit up with a bad sign: "Tickets are sold out on the internet, and can only be purchased at retail locations." But we had a bus to catch, not go hunting for retail locations! Thus the apocalypse reared its head a second time.
And my iPhone also arrived, which on the whole was very timely — I didn't have to lug along my bulky Sony Reader with a flashlight, plus a half-broken mp3 player. But on the flip side, I had to urgently jailbreak it and load it up with software, as well as the book "Arch of Triumph" by Remarque, which I happened to be reading at the time. This isn't very difficult in general, but it requires some concentration, and achieving that while expecting to be late for the bus is problematic. However, I tried and rushed for nothing — our bus was a whole hour late. This was the third manifestation of the apocalypse. (Three and a half — the delay forced me to eat the second hot dog of my life at Narvesen. It's garbage, just like their hamburgers). You might say: "How is that even a problem?". Well, it depends how you look at it: the bus arrives in Riga right in the nick of time for the departure of the last normal means of transportation to rk13's habitat.
A bus that is an hour late means choosing between two unpleasant alternatives: paying 8 lats for a taxi ($16) or taking the tram. I have nothing against the tram, except for the fact that it stops 2 km away from the beaver's lodge, aka the dwelling of haxxor rk13 and his wife. 2 km wouldn't be a problem either, if this natural habitat wasn't abundantly breeding with cute little animals called gopniks. I had been so spooked by stories about smashed up bus stops and rising crime statistics that I was already ripe for a taxi. Fortunately for me, the driver of the Daugavpils-Riga bus sympathized with our (meaning the passengers') situation, and skipped the usual 15-minute stops in three places, as a result of which I made it to the last transport to rk13 with 5 minutes to spare.
rk13 messed with my head, which wasn't used to being awake at 1 AM, and with my eyes barely open, I bought movie tickets for the cartoon Bolt instead of Madagascar 2, which Knyaz and I had intended to go to at first. And that's how the day ended.