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The Rough Guide to Backpackers Services - Internet Cafes

It is nice when an hostel offers internet access for free, when they have a computer available for the guests. However this computer should have a restricted account, an updated anti-virus and not be used by the hostel personnel to download movies. Else in few weeks, as was often the case, computer is slow and infects any memory card connected to and annoys more than it serves.

All this is also true for internet cafes, where furthermore, you pay for. And when you pay for a service, good condition keyboard, mouse and screen are the only way to make the client to stay longer and come back. In Gdansk they even offered a coffee! And as everything was working well and was comfortable, we paid and stayed an extra hour. Even if this was the most expensive internet place we have been in Poland. You feel efficient when you have work conditions and one hour there was, at the end, cheaper than hour and half elsewhere with worst computers and less comfort.

One idea(l) internet cafe would be with rental laptops, not very big, that probably run Linux (or windows at extra charge) and that you attach with a security cable to the table, not only for safety but also not to fall off the table. And the table would have the electricity plug of course. Just wi-fi access (your own laptop) would have an hourly price convertible in drinks that day.

The Rough Guide to Backpackers Services - Overview

Yesterday I rented the best bike ever rented. It was not perfect but almost.
Business is not one of my skills even though, during this trip, several times I felt tempted to open one. This mostly because I feel in Portugal is now the time to invest in a real bike shop/service, just before people adhere massively to bikes.
For Eva and me the important backpackers services we use are internet cafe, bike rental and laundry.

The Centre of Europe Park

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Originally uploaded by eva_p

This park is near Vilnius, the lituanian capital. The geographical centre of Europe is supposed to be somewhere there. The park actually has nothing to do with it (except the name), it's just like a small forest with lots of sculptures of all kinds. Maybe you have heard of the biggest sculpture of TV sets that got into the Guinness book. Well, this sculpture is not complete anymore but there's a lot of other interesting stuff, like this wheel that you can make turn by walking inside it.

Please scroll down!

For those of you who don't follow our blog with an RSS feed (like Google Reader or so): There might be new posts further down, as we don't have time and opportunity to update the blog regularly, so we use our oldfashioned notebooks to write down our ideas. In order to keep the logic and correct timeline in the blog, we backdate the posts to when the fact actually happened, and not when we typed it. There might also photos be added to ancient posts.
So, please, scroll down to discover!

O dia em que a Eva perdeu o guia de viagem

Pousou a seu lado num banco para buscar outra coisa no saco e la ficou, mas menos que os 20 minutos que demoramos ate regressar ao banco depois de, no topo da colina com vistas sobre Kaunas, nos termos apercebidos das poucas gramas que o saco da Eva pesava. Eva pontapeou repetidas vezes o banco como a lamparina do genio dos desejos mas nao funcionou. Teremos assim a oportunidade de fazer busca ao tesouro de um guia em ingles. Felizmente parece ser mais facil no Baltico que no Joao-Paulo-2-landia.

Sunday late morning in Kaunas, Lithuania

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Originally uploaded by eva_p

Forgot my brain in Poland?

After leaving Poland we spent a weekend in Kaunas, a small but nice city in Lithuania. It was yet another sunny day so we set off to explore the old town. At some point we sat down for a few minutes to look something up in the guidebook, then we continued. At some point I noticed that my bag was funnily light... and the guidebook gone. I had no memory of having left it somewhere or lost it.... By logical thinking I must have left it at the spot where we had been sitting, just putting it down next to me instead of in my bag. So we went back to the spot... the book was not there anymore. I got pretty angry at myself (also because the guidebook was a present to Miguel from some friends, with their signatures inside) and even tried to make it appear by kicking very hard into a wooden board, but with no success :-)
Finally we went to a bookshop which had all possible guidebooks in english (to our positive surprise, as in Poland this would have been close to impossible...) and bought a new guide (which is even more recent than the one we lost).
But - where did I leave my brain??

Computer all night

Bogdan knew I was computer scientist and that we wanted to use internet. In the evening he told we could use and we went to the private part of the house - his kitchen, living and sleeping room, all-in-one. "The cable does not arrive further away". "No problem", we said. For 10 minutes we checked emails and he says "Maybe you can make router back to work". Since he changed provider it did not work and the computer was cable connected to a restaurant 100meters away where cable modem served internet. "If you solve problem, you can have my laptop whole night". After 5 minutes the confliting IP problem was solved and he had now wireless internet on his and on his daughter laptops. I used the computer in the public area part of the house until 1am. Everyone was happy.

Poste restante

On the road we have almost everywhere a way to access the internet, it can be an internet cafe or at our host or hostel. However in most of these places the time we can access the internet is limited (also because of the good weather outside). Thus we do not as much time as we would like to read, write and reply emails, neither to post here.

But we do not want to cut personal contact with you, neither that you cut it with us, so we propose to come back to old methods, meaning pen friend and exchange letters (or post cards, or exibithion tickets...) using the Poste Restante.

We have put on the right column a new section where we will put destinations we will certainly pass in the near future and you can address letters to us, which for sure we will reply sooner than email. In the link you can see how to address letters and you know our names: Miguel Anjo / Eva Pfarrwaller. Just send to the city and we will go to the main post office to pick them up. Remind that international letters take usually between 1 and 2 weeks to arrive. No need to email confirm, we will go to ask for Poste restante in any case, so we will be happy for any surprise letter.