Back to the good old Litinterp hostel in Vilnius. Not for a lot of sleep, though, as always.

At Riga airport, airBaltic proves us that language can still be a difficult thing to handle. Hope their pilots speak English in a slightly more comprehensible way than this poster.

Not to mention the inflation of scary angel-winged vehicles... and the humble attitude expressed by the "probably". Well, here's to "probably", airBaltic: Your super-special bus is crap. It costs 3 Lats, has a random schedule, is hard to use during the airport's rush hours, and it stops at all sorts of hotels on a round trip through the city centre, creating all sorts of confusion. I wonder why the usually well-visited airport express bus 22a ceased to exist per 1.1.2009... and hope this wasn't any of your making, airBaltic.

Traveling around the galaxy in Star Wars, and Star Trek, and most other Sci-Fi stories for that matter, is a lot like driving a car in Switzerland: No matter where you go, it never really takes longer than a few hours.

If you want to have a truly functioning international (!) spelling alphabet, the current solutions aren't really working very well.

Either they are local and will only work reliable in one particular language (and even in their native language, some people would misspell words, so it's not entirely reliable - especially given that a main place of use is the army, and at least in my humble personal experience, soldiers aren't exactly in the top 10 of "social groups with the best spelling").

Or if a spelling alphabet claims to be international, it's actually English in most cases (or outdated French). The international aviation version of a spelling alphabet seems pretty alright, but I bet even this one offers plenty of space for error among those who haven't learned it.

A simple solution: Use global brand names. You get the advantage that people don't actually need to be good at spelling foreign words at all - it only matters that the brands chosen must have a high global visibility, so that people will have seen their names printed on T-Shirts, electronic appliances, billboards, and so on.

Care to work on a proposal?

Poster of U-Cell at Tashkent airport.

On the same island as "Bed 0189", but in the wind-protected corner of the entrance of a school building next to the harbour. No picture of that one unfortunately.

On a small basketball court on the island of Bozcaada in Turkey, behind the two gentlemen seen in the picture.

At good old Dedeman Hotel in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Looks the same as always.

Back to Istanbul, funnily with exactly the same arrival and departure dates as last year on our fabulous trip with Karmen, Kristiina, and Rein. And almost like last year, it's the time of the year when I move between Riga and Istanbul a lot... last year, I had to fly from Tashkent to Istanbul and on to Riga, left the terminal, went back inside, met my three travel mates, and flew back to Istanbul with the same plane (much to the amusement of the cabin crew...). This year, it's a little better, and I have about 36 hours in Riga after returning from Istanbul - before flying to Tashkent via Istanbul. Turkey times.

Anyway, the Istanbul trip version 2009 was again amazing. We came in groups of two, namely two Estonians, two Latvians, two Lithuanians, two Swiss, and most of the time we went around with two Turks. Had the big flood begun during our stay, we would have considered building a boat; reproduction would have led to some problems though.

Well: Nice restaurants, interesting conversations, a great group of people, some nice clubs and places (some old favorites and some new loves), a football which Besiktas unfortunately lost, and more. Note to self: Bring such kinds of people together more often. It's stunning how apparently they just got along very well (or maybe I just haven't noticed some fistfight), even though most had never met before. A pleasure and a privilege.

No photo. Anyway, some hotel in Istanbul.