Villinus – Lithuania (maybe)

“Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream, exhale, release life’s rapture.”

Vladimir Nabokov

Overcast but not raining.

We head to Lithuania today. Chopin Airport for the whip.

The last time we entered Lithuania, our car mysteriously stopped at an intersection. The hiring company has a kill switch. The car was a Mini, owned by the BMW company, and considered a luxury vehicle—insurance problems in the Baltic countries.

Today we have a Hyundai.

First, I need some breakfast. I am starving.

We walk to breakfast. Coffee gives me some life.

Does anyone read the fine print?

I don’t.

We arrive at our car rental place and produce the required documentation. Unfortunately, the required documentation includes an international driver’s license.

When we first moved overseas, almost ten years ago, obtaining an international driver’s license was a high priority. I had convinced myself it was an essential document. You could not possibly get by in a foreign country without it.

I have never needed it.

Until today.

It is in the fine print.

Bureaucracy at its best. A document is produced from an existing document. The new document has all the information from the old document, from the same department that produced the original. A different name, nothing new. The same document, from the same place, with the same information, for a price, is required even when you have the original document.

We have cancelled our car and I am hopeful for a refund.

Flights booked for Budapest later today.

It has been fun, Warsaw, but I have no time for your fine print.

“Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms.”

William S. Burroughs

I am sitting in Chopin Airport. It is 10.00 am and our flight is not until 3.35 pm.

I read and watch the footy.

Lunch in the terminal. Schnitzel and dumplings.