A walking tour of Vilnius, including the independent Republic of Uzupis, which has lots of art, its own parliament and a constitution printed in many different languages on the wall, and a general hippie vibe. Then I walked around the castle and nearby hills, including the Hill of Crosses, before lunch in Rosehip Cafe.
I detoured through some gardens on the way home, where I met an old lady (70, 75, she couldn't remember) who has lived her whole life in Vilnius and was delighted to have someone to talk to for a while (3 hours). She used to be an English teacher, and soon start repeating her stories and the questions she was asking me. She was a bit muddled too about whether her parents were dead, or if she still lived with them. She said she lived in her house in Vilnius her whole life, her parents had, and her grandparents before them. Her brother and sister had families and moved out, but still live in Vilnius. We had delightful chatter about dogs, the Pope, and Vilnius in general, on something of a loop. She invited me into her house when we got there, but I declined. She took out a hairpin instead of a key when it came time to lock the door. She wanted to walk me home too, and we went a bit further, but I managed to persuade her to go home before it got too dark and cold. She wrote down her name and address for me, and made me promise to call her without giving me a phone number. Her name is Dalia. You know, the same as Dahlia, the main character in my current nanowrimo novel who I named in January and isn't exactly a common name. Coincidence? Divine intervention?
Missing the little chart that appears in November on my nanowrimo profile, I made a NaNoWriMo progress page on my site. Obviously I got carried away and embellished it with all my past attempts, too.
A weekend in Riga with Claire, touristing and eating. We saw the old town, spent too much time in the market, and took a train for an evening stroll along the beach in Jurmala.
Food at Bhajan (wholefoods, custom cakes), Wok n Kurry (emergency Indian food, exceptionally helpful staff for gluten-free options) and Terepija (astonishing Sunday brunch buffet).
Where do I buy (with money!) DRM-free ebooks that I can put on my not-amazon-linked Kindle? (If it needs converting to a Kindle-friendly format that's fine). Somewhere with new releases and stuff. Specifically The Expanse Book 8 next March.
Update: Okay, looks like Calibre can remove most DRM which is awesome, just need to test it out before I throw money at a DRM version.
I picked up my e-residency from the Estonian Embassy this morning, and now I'm in a proper hipster cafe to work and eat vegan cake and drink flat white with quinoa milk surrounded by other cool lookin' laptop people, I'm at peak digital nomad today.
I just passed 30k words and I am ON TRACK for the FIRST TIME EVER.
Even the year I passed 50k by month end only happened because of a huge push in the last couple of days, rather than keeping a consistent pace throughout.
I've definitely had low days, and high ones to compensate, but nothing extreme. It just sort of feels much more doable this year. Not sure what's different. Well, lots of things are different; not sure which is the cause.
I'm writing a totally different genre to what I'm used to: Earth, presentish day (near future, perhaps), humans and parrots (and a dog); familiar setting, regular people, no aliens, no epic journeys. I was very worried about this actually, but things are flowing well, and I don't feel like I have written any absolute garbage purely for wordcount yet.
I've travelled, socialised and worked probably about the same amount as I did last year, though at different velocities. Not any less busy, particularly. I was free of all PhD concerns before last year's. Maybe my head is just in a better place. Maybe I'm becoming better at writing. Maybe October is better for writing than November. Who knows.
Coffee and cake and laptop time at Miit Coffee, which is a fantastic space, plenty of room to work, welcoming to hipsters and digital nomads, and serving fantastic vegan cakes and veg*n lunch offers, and pure coffee snobbery. They have quinoa milk for lattes too.
I went to a very small flea market in some reclaimed abandoned space, hosted by Free Riga. The market wasn't very exciting, but the buildings and area were cool.
The War Museum turns out to be free, and is very detailed and I spent a good two hours there. A great way to spend a rainy afternoon.
The sun came out in time for me to cross over the bridge by the Castle, then walk along the river and return over the one near the library. The former has a terrifying/hilarious tiny lift which you control by holding down a button. I didn't know what would happen if I let go, and was scared to find out.
Week in review: 15 - 21 October
Bussed from Dortmund to Berlin and Berlin to Riga.
Day job..
Still on top of nanowrimo somehow, and really enjoying writing.
Crashed slightly from not having had a real break in two weeks.
Wandering and eating in the Old Town... food at Rama (cheap hearty veggie Hare Krishna buffet), Bahjan (high quality super delicious vegan food in a calm environment), Miit (hipster coffeeshop chic; cracking vegan burgers and pizzas in the evenings), and Fat Pumpkin (slightly overpriced upscale vegan dining).
Library tourism in the National Library of Latvia, which is full of interesting stuff and has great views. Probably better on a sunny day. Fantastic place to work, and not too busy either.
Then pizza at L'Acquerello, a cake break in Salada Terepija, and some cathedral interiors.
Love github emoji reactions for enabling passive agressiveness in issue comments. Makes the world a better place.
I bought a bunch of different types of mushrooms from the giant market, all new to me, in various states of decay. Some were bizarrely cheap, some were shockingly expensive. Obviously I had no idea what to expect, so maybe this was all perfectly normal.
When I got home I discovered one batch had some teeny tiny larvae crawling around on them. I rehomed them in the plumbing system, where I am sure they will thrive, and threw out any mushrooms they had thoroughly moved inside of, which was fortunately few.
The giant one is a bolete, and I think the smaller ones that look the same must be as well. I sorted out all of the small probably-boletes and halved them. I threw them in a pan and added naught but heat, and they soon turned into soup all by themselves. I'd rinsed them to try to get rid of some slime, and they just sucked the water right up. It was impossible to remove. See also: photo of me trying to try the big one out with a hair dryer (not successful).
I let them simmer for an hour or more, until they were thoroughly mush, then stuck them in the fridge when they were cool cos I had plans to eat out that night.
When I finally got around to consuming them as soup, they had reduced and gelled up a bit. I reheated them, and added a drizzle of soya sauce, almond milk and a handful of nutritional yeast. The soup was delicious. When I'd been preparing them, the texture and sounds started to really weird me out - I'm not usually squeamish. Fortunately they were just soft and melty in the soup and not weird at all.
The giant bolete, I sliced and fast-fried in vegetable oil. The internet advised me to cook it quick so the outside would go crispy but retain the moisture on the inside. It wasn't really like this; the result was preeetty slimy. It definitely resembled some kind of seafood, not that I know much about that. I could see it as a substitute though.
The more solid mushrooms, a mix of yellow, grey (beautiful grey) and a lonely red one, I lightly sauteed in oil with some salt and pepper. I wanted to keep them pretty unadorned, to taste the mushrooms properly. They made a delicious rich side to seitan sausages and potatoes.
Lunch and extended laptop time at delicious Bahjan Cafe. Great breakfast plate. Extreme cake.
Last minute walk to the TV Tower as the sun came out, which turns out to close at 1900! Lucky. Only €3.70 to enter, and a friendly tour guide escorts you up. It's going to be closed for renovation soon and will reopen in a few years as a totally new beast. For now, there's nothing up there except for the views.
As the weather is getting colder and wetter, I've started to miss having boots. Lace up or zip up mid-calf or almost knee-high waterproof boots. Boots that look nice over tights or jeans and are also practical. I can't have boots because I just don't have space to pack them, and I don't always want to wear them while on the road. If I'm on a bus, I want shoes I can kick off or slip back on quickly. It's very not practical to attach them to the outside of my backpack. And I would never wear them in hot weather and I'm really trying to keep the contents of my backpack to all-weather clothes. Sigh.
I'm wrapping up this year's National Novel Writing Month attempt after 30 days with 43,996 words. Shy of 50k, but a new second place.
I feel like I'm about half way through Birds and I'm going to try to keep up a pace of at least 750 words per day (thanks 750words.com) for days I can - the only real excuse not to being Vipassana meditation courses - until it's done.
In a way, doing nanowrimo in a different month has reminded me that I can write during months that aren't November. Usually, on the 1st of December I decide I'll take a break, recharge, it's been crazy.. but I'll get back to it. I'll write the ending, I'll edit. And I haven't, yet. This time should be different. For a start, I don't feel burnt out on the story. I haven't had a single day of writing words for the sake of words. It's all been to advance the plot or develop the characters, moving ever forwards. This month it didn't feel crazy.
This is a mean of 1,466 words per day.
Only on one day I wrote 0 words (the 26th).
Apart from that, the least I wrote in a day was 16 words (the 21st).
The most I wrote in a day was 3,410 (on the 10th).
