10:30-18:30…waiting,waiting, waiting. One hour, two hours, three hours – the hours just seem to pass feeling like in the most surreal dream. The sun is burning, we are changing places from the sun to the shadow from the highway to the meadow. There is absolutely nothing to do, just waiting in front of the gas station next to the customs office, while two of us do the custom clearance for all our equipment. We keep ourselves busy by paying a visit to the tiny café every hour, making plans for Riga and future projects and planing the roads we could take, reading the lonely planet from page 1 to 479 and back again.
Janosch and Sasha (our russian speaking support) are passing by now and then with the newest update from the inside of the scary customs office. “And finished?” “No, not yet!” “And finally finished?” “No, not yet…”
One day never seemed so long to us before, at least when you have anything to do except for waiting. On the TV news they say that there is a lack of officials in Russia, we must laugh because its probably due to the complicated burauecratic system they constructed. The aim of the day for us is to get one stamp after the other, but I still don´t understand why this takes 8 hours. Surprisingly they never checked the bus itself, they seemed too busy with all the papers (the so called Carnet Ata, which they probably had never seen before), so we did not have to unpack everything again (although that would have been something to do at least).

18:30 – 4:00…at the end we made it and go on the one and a half hour way to th erussian-lithuanian border. It’s a beautifull trip into the sunset, and a different expertience to travel by land then by the boat. Memories of the past moviemiento trip live in the bus and are getting back to us…In a small village with a huge war monument we stop for dinner and find the best food I remember having eaten on the trip:a very well spiced shashlik grilled with lots of love on the fire. Arriving at the border it takes us a while understanding the procedure. The gate is locked and once in while a truck enters, but not from the cue we are waiting in. SO how does it work ? After one hour waiting and the truck in front of us hasn´t moved yet, we do a little research , talk to the guy at th egate and like magic and with a little trick we are in after 10 mor minutes….Inside we find very friendly russian custom officers, trying to manage our Canet and bravely going through their paperwork. Nevertheless it takes another two hours and if it wouldn´t have been for the flirty custom officer lady checking our passports, garen would have sent to Moscow to get a new version of his russian passport, that is slowly but surely falling apart.
We cross the bridge and are waiting to enter the lithuanian border checkpoint, and suddenly get aware that there are documents missing: the drivers licence and the car papers haven´t been put back with our papers. Did it fall out on the way from one stamp to another or did the russian custom guys made some kind of business with it? The bus can´t turn on the bridge so one has to walk back to Russia, wjhere we just were so happy to have checked out after a whole day of waiting….
Meanwhile the lithuanin border gate opens for us and a comedian style little garden dwarf with a big hat welcomes us in a Louis Defunes manner, making signs with his arms and using his pipe to undeline his not understandable communication. Finally we find out that the other guys talk perfectly english which makes the procedure for us a lot more easier and clear…Nvertheless it takes another two hours of waiting, but then the lithuaniens seem more familiar with our paper mountain and put the stamps exactly on the right place….With the sunrise we enter Lithuania and finally made it back to No Border Area….There are definitely some good things about the EU!