cod tow ahsh‑ease k'ellneh‑say eezhdeakoo

//let the hedgehog appear in your pants (lithuanian saying)

Like most parts of the world, the Baltics are characterised by a few things unique to this area. Shops sell amber trinkets, knitted handicrafts, mittens, linen and rag dolls. Outside of the cities, the landscape is covered with lush green and red grasses, yet somehow in winter it comes across as barren. The trees have long shed their leaves and the paddocks are unfenced; crops abound here but there is very little livestock. Billboards dot the landscape along major highways, advertising products that belong in another world. The cemeteries you see are the most colourful part of the view, perhaps because so many of the graves are relatively new they are scattered with bright flowers. House loom out of the mist and people sit at unsheltered bus stops, braving the freezing wind. Frost adorns the grass and a heavy mist can persist well past noon. The country is flat and frankly, while it is interesting I wouldn't call it beautiful.

I've seen this from various bus windows, but noticed it most on one particular trip in a car, hitching with Taro and bound for Lithuania's Hill of Crosses.

Taro and I had planned to stay a night in Liepaja, visit Karosta and then catch an evening bus to Siaolaiai. We wandered the town, played some pool, ate dinner and killed time until it was time to catch the bus... which we missed. Let's not go into that, suffice to say that trams do NOT come every 5 minutes as advertised.

So, after another night in Liepaja we headed out bright and early to the southbound road, our hitching thumbs at the ready. Taro had hitched in the Baltics with locals and was confident that we'd get a ride fairly soon. We passed the time by listening to music and compiling very scientific statistics on how many cars stop for hitchers in the Baltics ‑ one in ten! Many Baltic locals hitch as students and as a result they are always willing to take travellers with them. We had 8 cars stop for us in 45 minutes and the last car was going our way ‑ he ended up taking us all the way to the Hill of Crosses once we mentioned that we wanted to see it. He told us about Lithuanian food, taught us some basic words and answered all our curious questions, so very kind but apparently not rare in this area.

It's strange here. People don't look at you when you hold doors open for them ‑ the best you can hope for is a muttered thank you. They won't return any smiles and the locals can sometimes seem a bit faceless; yet they'll pick you up and take you across international borders before dropping you right at the gate of your chosen destination. When it comes down to it, even the coldest people seem to have a soft spot if you know where to find it.

We jumped, warm hearted but cold fingered, out of the car and into the icy windscape of the Hill of Crosses (don't look it up, windscape isn't a real world, but it's an accurate description).

The Hill of Crosses is a persistent sign of Christianity in a country that held on to paganism for much longer than those around it. It means many things to the people who pilgramage here, but most of all it's testament to the strength of the human spirit. Bulldozed by the Soviets at least 4 times, the hill never remained without her adornments for long. People risked being shot to plant their crosses here all throughout Soviet occupation and the tradition continues today. The two mounds that make up the 'hill' are resplendent with shining silver, burnished wood, faded paint, tinkling rosaries and a single 'no candles' sign. The chill and the mist made an already unreal place seem like something straight from the realms of magic. If a medieval Christian crusader knight in full armour and shining sword materialised in this place you'd simply shrug and think "well of course". Even an atheist can respect the ferver and faith that has driven people to place crosses here since the 1800s, undeterred by any force of man or nature.

Well, we were deterred by nature. It was bloody freezing out there so we took some photos, mumbled something about how amazing it all was, then hitched our way to the nearest bus station, this time bound for the bustling and bubbly university town of Kaunas.