Jon and I have hosted many Couchsurfing guests in our apartment in San Francisco, but I had never stayed with a host before I went to Kiev. In fact, I originally hadn’t planned to spend time outside of Kiev proper. But my first host Andrey contacted me after he saw a public trip I’d posted about when I’d be in Kiev and offered to host me for as long as I wanted in a small city about 1 hour and 15 minutes outside of Kiev called Malyn. Going with my sense of adventure, I agreed to be his guest for two days.

Taste Map Coffee Roasters was my first destination this morning. They’re really close to my hostel, which helped immensely with waking up. The staff spoke fluent English and was able to answer all my questions about their coffee.

Instead of doors, I more frequently spotted interesting street art in Vilnius. (I broadened the definition to include signs outside bars and restaurants.) Which ones bring the biggest smile to your face?

Since the free walking tours in Tallinn and Riga were such great ways to get a bigger picture of each city, I opted to do another one in Vilnius on my first full day. But first, breakfast. I ran into these friendly kids on the way.

In front of the Town Hall at noon, our mob of 60 tourists was split up into smaller clusters of 20 by three different guides. Our guide’s name was Martina, and she was energetic and knew everything there was to know about Vilnius and Lithuanian history.

The Riga Bus Station was not hard to get to this time, now that I’d navigated the pedestrian tunnels a couple of times before. Unlike the Tallinn Bus Station, I didn’t see a self-service kiosk from which to print out your ticket. No matter: I already had mine printed out from before I left the States.

My bus for Vilnius wouldn’t leave until 3:30pm, so I had a good amount of time remaining in Riga to see a few more things. Per local Rigan Kristine’s recommendation, I went to Innocent Cafe for coffee and their brunch buffet (€6). The food was okay but not mind-blowing or necessarily a reflection of Latvian cuisine. I filled up on the available options anyway so that I could avoid having to eat lunch.

Though I didn’t notice as many interesting doors in Riga as I did in Tallinn, I thought they deserved a post of their own. Plus, you can compare the doors between the Baltic capitals and decide which city you like better based on their door designs.

It was with some trepidation that I approached my first mixed gender dorm hostel experience: I had only stayed in female dorm rooms before. But Do Re Mi Vilnius Hostel has rid me of any fears I once had about sharing a room with strangers, independent of gender. Plus, the friendly staff helped immensely with everything, from providing a map and writing down what they recommended. They even let me move to a lower bunk after my first night because a couple of them opened up.

I loved this pub so much that I went two nights in a row. Kaspars, our tour guide from the Riga free walking tour, recommended Folkklubs Ala Pagrabs since it’s one of the 50 microbreweries of Latvia that’s located in Old Town. When you arrive, you walk down the stairs into the basement, then make your way deep into the building, past the smaller bar to get to the large, main bar.