Alas, the story has me returning to Western culture. I woke up and headed to the Delhi airport. I hailed a tuk tuk, only to find out that tuk tuks can’t actually go all the way to the airport, forcing me to take a shuttle bus the remainder of the way. At this point, I have been in a lot of airports around the world and I currently consider the Delhi airport the least efficient one I have ever been to. To enter the airport, you wait in a line where they check your boarding pass and passport/id. I am not sure how you get in if you need to check in there, because you would have to get through the doors for that. Throughout the whole process, they checked my boarding pass nine times. They were checking my boarding pass in areas that required checking my boarding pass to enter. Oh well, a bit of annoyance later and I was on my flight. My seven hour flight turned into over eight due to issues between India and Pakistan and us having to go around, but otherwise an easy flight.

A five hour layover in Kiev, Ukraine saw me have my first taste of beef in over a month, an underwhelming burger. I’m not particularly fond of beer, but it’s such a staple of Eastern European culture, it seemed wrong not to have one. Also, there’s not much to do in the Kiev airport. A short flight later on the tiniest plane I have ever been on and I was in Riga, Latvia.

Latvia Is Not Latveria

I landed in Riga around nine thirty at night. Oddly enough, th sun still had not set. I was told it would be cold, but it still felt like tank top and shorts weather to me. Sandra, one of the people from the Beachbox Camp in Thailand, was nice enough to come get me from the airport and let me crash in her apartment. The next morning, the weather was not so nice. It was gloomy and raining pretty consistently. As I have been in hot weather since Christmas, I have no jeans or anything else to wear for cold weather, so I did some Riga sight seeing while checking out some stores. Found a pair of jeans after a bit and met Sandra at Lido’s, a buffet style Latvian restaurant. Latvian food is what you would expect from an Eastern European country, heavy food, potatoes, good food for the cold weather. This style of food is pretty much non existent in Asia, so I was more than looking forward to it.

After a month of sitting around India, I was not quite in volleyball shape. Sandra took me to see the indoor sand facility run by our other friend from Beachbox Camps, Renars. After a few hours of playing, I was feeling a bit more like myself. As tiring as doing several hours of yoga in one hundred degree weather was, it never gave me the level of exhaustion that a few hours of volleyball does. A little food after and I slept like a baby. The following day, we got lunch in Riga’s central market before I went and finished the post about Dharamshala. Then I got the chance to do some more volleyball training.

I was easily the weakest player and the shortest person in the training group. Usually, I make up for any shortfalls with endurance and defensive skills, but a month of yoga killed my endurance and lack of reps had diminished my defense skills. We spent the training doing a good amount of drills, some focused on advanced hitting techniques. Hitting is my least used skill, since it’s a new one and I prefer to shoot. We did a drill that required me to hit cross body, which loses height from a normal swing, really showing off my lack of height and my legs’ current state of weakness. Following the training, we played some pickup and I got some confidence back being able to shoot the ball and play defense like I never took a break. After playing, I remembered how bad my endurance was after a month of sitting in the yogashala and kind of wanted to die. Some food and another good night’s sleep before my last full day in Riga.

Luckily, Sandra convinced me to buy a hoodie, because she took me to the beach and the wind off sea was freezing cold. I don’t know too many people with sponsorships, so the idea of it is still a bit foreign to me, but it was weird to find out that Samoilovs is sponsored by the municipality of Jurmala, a very popular beach area of Latvia. We made a walk down the beach to see where the FIVB held an event and where Samoilovs trains when the weather is nice. After that, we walked through the beautiful park near the Jurmala beach. Adding Riga to my travel recommendations list. After the super long beach walk, we took the train back to Riga and grabbed some Indian food (because I didn’t have enough of it apparently) and I attempted to give my tired legs a break. Sandra had other ideas.

She had borrowed a bike from a friend and hade her own so we rode around Riga to see some of the areas I didn’t get a chance to see on foot. We made a pitstop to see one of her friends that was attending a Nike group fitness event in the park. Over fifty people were there going through an interval style workout run by a few trainers. The personal trainer part of my brain exploded as they had people of all skill levels attempted exercises that you should likely refrain from using with the beginner crowd. Oh well, better than nothing. We biked a bit more before stopping at a bridge to watch the sunset. Day total ended up being over fifteen kilometers walking and over ten kilometers biking on a city bike. My poor legs never get any rest.

Back to Berlin

After an awesome breakfast at Big Bad Bagels, I carried my fifteen kilos worth of stuff to say goodbye to Sandra and catch a bus to the airport. A painless flight to Berlin and then to make it to another friend’s place. Berlin is the first place I have traveled back to, but after visiting the first time, I decided I could live there. It is pretty much the Austin, Texas of Europe. Tons to do, plenty of people doing all sorts of crazy stuff and not as expensive as you would expect. I was amazed at how much of the city I remembered exactly, but I guess that’s the benefit of a photographic memory. Even the airport had changed dramatically since I was there over two years ago. Interestingly enough, Germany was my second country I traveled to, two months after my first time leaving the US. It was also my first solo travel, an attempt to tackle my anxiety. I was a nervous wreck when I landed the first time, having already made travel mistakes and arriving with dead electronics. Fast forward two and a half years later and I was arriving solo again, this time much more comfortable traveling and being alone. I took the train to a coffee shop near where Julia, another volleyball player I met in Thailand(Thanks, Beachbox!) lived.

I got to stay in an extra room in Julia’s flat, which was likely one of the nicest places I have stayed since I left America, much better than my hostel bed from my first trip to Berlin. After getting settled, she took me to a cool artsy area called Holzmarkt to check out a coffee shop. I have been attracting horrible weather to every city, so we got to do some walking in the rain after this. Our walk brought us to a length of the Berlin Wall that is regularly painted with different art. As we walked, I fully remembered where I was and was able to describe where other things were in relation, which was a really weird feeling for a place I was at over two years prior and only for three days. We grabbed some currywurst so I could check that off of my food list and headed home for some much needed sleep.

The following day, we did some more roaming of Berlin and grabbed some lunch at a place that grew their salads inside of the restaurant using hydroponics. Following that, we grabbed some ice cream, because ice cream in Berlin is all delicious and super cheap. While finishing my cone, we passed another highly recommended ice cream place…so we had second cones. My addiction knows no bounds. Julia showed me a really cool park near where the lives where every weekend people sign up to do karaoke and hundreds of people watch before heading home to do some work. While she worked, I hid in a coffee shop and worked on some code.

Following the little coding session, we caught the train to go check out some 3D blacklight minigolf. Walking around with alcohol is a legal and common occurence in Germany, so we grabbed some drinks for the long ride and made our way to the golf place. For an extra euro, we got 3D glasses and played two rounds of mini golf. It’s been a long time since I’ve done minigolf, but most of these holes were pretty intense. The blacklight art was all well done, and the 3D glasses made putting a mental struggle, so we played one game without them on. On the ride back, I grabbed a bratwurst to knock another German food off of the list and then we headed home.

The following morning, we were signed up for a volleyball tournament. The biggest tournament in the Cleveland area happens twice a summer and has thirty or forty courts set up. Several places in Berlin have over forty courts set up permanently and are in daily use. Absolutely madness. I got a chance to play at one of those places for this tournament and it was great to play outdoors again.

When playing mixed tournaments, most places have an unwritten courtesy rule that men serve the ball to the other men and other places have other variations of the courtesy rule. I usually tend to avoid playing mixed due to varying adherence to this courtesy rule. Berlin plays that the men should serve each other and they actually lower the net to between men and women’s height, so it is even easier for the guys. Surprisingly, Julia has been playing for less time than me, so it was cool to get to play with her. The weirdest thing about the tournament was that teams were allowed to sign up with two men, playing on the lower net. Of course, most of the men didn’t adhere to serving the guy, even when they had two guys on their team. Not my favorite occurence, especially with both of us getting used to playing together and getting used to playing outside. After the first few matches, we got our act together and pulled out some wins, finishing four and eight. Twelve games is a solid amount of play for a tournament, especially for one that only cost ten euros per player, and playing with Julia was a lot of fun, so it was a good day. After playing, the hunger was real, so we went and ate some delicious burgers (because I have missed burgers so much) and hit another ice cream place on the way home.

Following some relaxation, Berlin had more in store for me. On the way to our first destination we had a conversation with a drunk Russian group who were in Berlin to watch Russia play Germany in indoor volleyball. The conversation was part English, part German and part Russian and ended in one of the guys giving both of us commemorative 2018 FIFA World Cup coins from Moscow. Life is pretty cool.

Julia got us on the list for a “Summer Love” party at a place called Birgit & Bier, which had a cool open space area that reminded me almost of a carnival, which was insanely decorated with hearts. After hitting up a little stand with kettle corn and heart shaped candies, we hit up the different bar areas. There was 90’s pop, Hip hop & RnB, Techno and another one that wasn’t open yet while we were there. After roaming around that bar, we made our way over to the Soho House. Apparently, Soho Houses are members clubs around the world for creatives to work out, hang out, relax and attend events and most of the bigger cities have them. By bigger cities, I mean London, New York, Berlin, etc. Due to their membership including celebrities, they have a no photos policy. We went to a “Gods of Hip Hop” event that was being djed by DJ Lord from Public Enemy and had a number of people in attendance from Public Enemy and Wu Tang Clan. The mixes were all awesome and the atmosphere was cool as well, even though it was weird to watch well dressed white people dance to remixes of ODB and DMX. After a few hours there, the exhaustion from several hours of volleyball in the sun set in and I made my way home.

My last day in Berlin was spent roaming around, as Julia had to work. I did what I always do and popped my headphones in and began randomly walking around. I hit a nearby fleamarket and walked around before grabbing some ice cream and heading over to another part of the Berlin Wall and some other monuments I wanted to see again. As I got to the monument areas, the streets were filled with a Pride Parade. As I made my way around the city, I kept hitting filled streets, so I am not sure if it happened to be moving in accordance with me or there were multiple areas doing it. I found another one of the volleyball places and sat down to watch some people play for a bit. Afterwards, I made my way back to Holzmarkt to take some pictures of the area as I didn’t have my phone with me the first time and to say goodbye to Julia, as she would be working still when I left. I hopped over to a burger place to use the wifi to watch my new buddy, Chaim Schalk, kill it with one of my other favorite players to make it to the finals of the AVP Austin Open. Then I made it back to Julia’s apartment to get all of my stuff together.

A few delayed train rides later and I was at the bus station waiting for my bus to Vienna and watching Chaim play my other favorite AVP team in the finals. Next up, I roam around Vienna looking at statues and eating strudels and get used to speaking to native English speakers again.