Fateuser Eats: Ze Donats (Rīga, Latvia)

11 de diciembre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

Location: Kr.Valdemāra iela 18, Rīga, Latvia.
Price: Each donuts from 0.69€.
Hours: Mon-Fri: 08:00 – 20:00 | Sat: 10:00 – 20:00 | Sun: 10:00 – 18:00
Cuisine: Donuts and sweets.
Website | Facebook
Review: Back in November 2014 my friends and I had the opportunity to spend a long weekend in Rīga. We’ve heard of Ze Donats before from other friends but we wanted to experience it by ourselves. The first sensation when you get inside is of a sweet smell (not to sweet, the nice sweet) and such a great atmosphere accompanied with newly roasted coffee. There are plenty of board games that you can ask too, and the music is not too loud, which makes of it a perfect place to relax, have fun with friends, read and/or study plus enjoy amazing Donuts. They are quite tasty and they have an amazing variety. They are in the Top 3 donuts I’ve tried in my life (and trust me here, I’m a donut-holic). I would totally recommend you to go there if you are into sweet things and would like to have a break or are looking for a refuge to spend few hours away from the cold winter in Latvia.
The Final Mark: ✌✌✌✌✌✌✌ (7/10)

The Aurora

9 de diciembre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

Just imagine this for a second. We were driving through the middle of Finland after our bus’ tire broke (and later was repaired) and suddenly we noticed something out there in the sky. Someone started screaming it’s the Aurora! it’s the Aurora! so we begged-yelled the bus driver to stop the bus so that we could go outside and experience it with our own eyes.

That was one of the most (or better said, the most) majestic thing I’ve ever experienced nature-wise. On the bad side of this awesome experience is that I didn’t have my tripod with me (I had it in the big luggage) so basically I needed to find the way to be as stable as humanly possible, with freezing cold outside (and thus shaking a bit) and try to get a long exposure picture.

As you see the pictures are a bit shaky and not so good focused. I was way too excited. And it’s quite hard to focus on something when it’s quite dark outside. Nevertheless I’m very happy with the result.

When we saw the Aurora again, I had my tripod with me so everything went smoother. It was a pity that this time it wasn’t so spectacular. It’s important to note that what you get to see with your eyes isn’t as full of colour as it shows the photograph but in any case, I’d love to see it again. Or better said, I’ll see it again 🙂 .

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Roll #2. Overexposed.

29 de noviembre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

Remember how not long time ago I told you that I was Going Analogue? Well, since then I have shot few rolls and I’m sort of getting more experienced.

See, I started taking pictures almost 10 years ago but I’ve always shot digital. Even though for the last 2-3 years I was trying to shoot as much manual as I could, there were so many times that I was taking pictures on automatic mode (shame on me, but when you are doing street photography or action and you just get one chance… well, I want the picture to be perfect 🙂 ).

Few weeks ago my friend Carl, who, by the way, is a photography expert, medical student and has this awesome blog, gave me a Kodak 400 film. It was my first time shooting at ISO 400 which was a completely new challenge I was more than happy to face.

The problem came when I still had «my chip» in the ISO 200. I forgot to adjust the shutter speed to the proper ISO and many pictures came way too over exposed.

I managed to get some nice shots, even there’s one I’m really glad about, that I took on low light conditions and the film reacted very very good.

Nevertheless, here are the rest of the pictures that I could save from the roll. Hope you will enjoy them 🙂

All the pictures were taking between Vilnius and Kaunas in the month of October 2015.

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THE KOREAN YEOHANG

7 de noviembre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

Yeohang means Journey in Korean.

In the summer of 2014 I was lucky enough to be able to go and visit one of my best friends, Jae, who happens to be a Korean dude who lives in Seoul. That was my very first time in Asia (another thing I did cross off my ‘bucket list‘).

It was by far one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life. South Korea is a magic country. Unique and vibrant. I spent 18 days there that totally changed my life.

I was filming during the whole journey and put together a mini-documentary that I called The Korean Yeohang (Yeohang means journey in Korean) and in total is around 25 minutes on how my adventures went over there. It’s divided in 5 parts and if you’ve got some time to spare, here’s the link :).

I hope you will like it!

[powr-video-slider label=»2432008″]

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GOING ANALOGUE

6 de noviembre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

Few months ago I was lucky enough to find a Zenit E second hand camera for 16€. Yes, you read that right, 16€. My camera was built in the year 1970 (approximately) and was being sold at a second hand shop here in Kaunas. It needed to be serviced, but at that time when I bought it I didn’t have the cash to get it repaired.

Last June I bought this camera. A Zenit E from the mid 70’s. I didn’t have the money to repair it then but a couple of weeks ago I brought it to a camera master and he fixed it. Finally. Yay! This is the first time (in about 9 years taking pictures) that I’m shooting film in 35mm format. The results of the first roll came out. Can’t wait to show them to you 😊📷✌🏻️ #Zenit #analogue #vsco #film

A photo posted by Pau Mateo (@fateuser) on Oct 25, 2015 at 4:57am PDT

After I got it fixed I bought a Fujifilm c200 with 24 pictures in it and started shooting like there was no tomorrow. A week and and a trip to Tallinn later, I brought the film roll to the lab, and I got the result. A couple of pictures were over exposed and two of them were under exposed. Nevertheless, I’m mega happy with the result. So happy that I’m considering going analogue more often. Here are some of the pictures I took with my Zenit E. Hope you will like’em 🙂

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WHAT IS KANDOENTHANG?

29 de octubre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

KANDOENTHANG BIGGE

Dude, what in the seven worlds does Kandoenthang mean? As you probably know, on this summer (summer of 2015, just in case you are reading this in 2016 or 2014 😀 ) I spent 3 weeks traveling around South East Asia with my best friend.

Kandoenthang means journey in Khmer (the language they speak in Cambodia, or this is what google translator told me 🙂 ). In addition to all the stuff I brought over (clothes, medicines, shoes, and, ehm… books) I brought my cameras along with me to try to document almost everything, so that after the journey I could show you guys how was it. So that’s what’s all about. A short documentary of few parts (haven’t decided how many yet) in which I will show you how was the whole trip around South East Asia 🙂

I have recently released the first part of the Documentary Kandoenthang.

Let me know what you think!

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How to visit Tallinn for less than 80€.

26 de octubre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

If you follow me on Instagram you will probably know by now that a couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. As always, I’m a student. In approximately 8 months I’ll finally finish my university studies, but I guess I will be still broke by then. Which means that I will still have to travel on the low budget side of life. But hey! Less is more right? (Meh, sometimes is not 😀 ).

Following the same philosophy of my post ‘How to visit Riga for less than 100€’ I decided to give you few tips about how to visit the biggest city in Estonia for what I would consider a low budget for a weekend.

*Disclaimer: the prices may vary according to the season and availability of services. If you are traveling from other city that is not Kaunas it might be a bit more expensive or cheaper. Also I’m not getting sponsored by sharing anything of this, it’s just all from my own opinion and belief.The trip I’m presenting here is a weekend trip: leaving Kaunas on Friday and coming back on Sunday, 2 nights and 3 days.

1. Bus from Kaunas to Vilnius and back: 6€

The buses we will be taking this time depart from Vilnius. When I went to Tallinn I was traveling with Ecolines but researching a bit on the net and talking to other travellers I found PolskiBus, which happens to be a cheap bus company from Poland and from now on, your best friend to travel around the Baltic States.

You will need to get to Vilnius if you live in Kaunas, but if you are living already in the capital of Lithuania, well, you can save up those 6€!

2. Bus from Vilnius to Tallinn and back: 24€

Yes. Unbelievable right? Even cheaper than going to Riga. And this is the normal price. I’m not really sure if you can get student discount but, you will be paying 100 zloty (the currency they have in Poland) which is actually 23.42€ to travel more than 1100km by bus.

The journey is a bit long, it takes about 9.15 hours in total, but still faster than with Ecolines, which is 11 hours.

3. Place to sleep for 2 nights: 0€

Now this is something very personal. When I went to Tallinn I decided to try CouchSurfing for the first time. It was a really great experience. If you’d like some more privacy (with CouchSurfing you get basically none, but hey! you meet interesting people and travelling is all about that right) there are some nice hostels and hotels. For me I rarely pay lots of money to sleep. I sort of feel that I’m committing a crime. If you would like to CouchSurf, we stayed with Rainu and Andres, they have hosted more than 1,000 people (not at the same time of course) and they have such a cozy and nice flat. And they have a dog too!

4. Breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2-3 days: 36€

This is a very approximate price. Of course it all depends about how much you like to eat and how many beers you like to drink while having dinner. But for 4€/day you can easily have breakfast (a nice coffee and some croissant) and for 7€/day/meal you can get through lunch and dinner without starving.

5. Tour around the city: 0€

They do this tour once per day and it leaves at 12:00 from the city centre. We didn’t join it but from what I could research is a total blast of a tour. Great info, free (of course if you liked it very much you should support them with some tips, but if you don’t want to, you are free) and most important, in English. 2 hours walking around Tallinn and getting great information and history straight from a local.

6. Museums and towers: 10€

It’s up to you. If you are not into visiting the heritage of one city you will probably spend nothing here. My favourite tower and attraction to visit in Tallinn were Kiek in de Kök and walking the City Wall of Tallinn. Both of them are 10€ without student discount. With the ISIC you can get them for 6€. (Really, get that card right now!).

And if you prefer not paying for this sort of things, there is many and plenty of free stuff to do around Tallinn too.

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Overall the price for the proposed plan is 70€ per person and per weekend. If you add 30€ for emergencies or munchies or some souvenirs, you can get a really good deal to visit Tallinn.

If you finally decide to go visit this city, let me know on the comments! 🙂

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GIVEAWAY! – AZUON – CHEAPEST FLIGHTS ANYWHERE!

6 de octubre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

As you probably know (since this is a travel blog) I love to travel. So so very very much. As you probably know too, I’m still a student. Which basically means that my budget is quite small. One of the things that used to be very expensive to buy were the plane tickets. And I say used because I found Azuon.

This is my favourite Software to find the cheapest flights ever. There’s even a function that you can just choose where you are flying from, let’s say in my case Kaunas or Vilnius, the dates and as destination you choose Europe. Then the software is going to find the cheapest place to travel to. Amazing. This is actually how I managed to pay just 30€ for both of my tickets (back and forth) to Norway at the beginning of this year.

The Startup based in Indonesia and I are partnering up to bring you guys the possibility to try their services free for a month! Nevertheless, if you decide to buy their services it’s only 23,04€ for a whole year! And trust me, investing those euros will make you save more in the future!

To participate in the Giveaway of 5 one-month codes, all that you have to do is:

Go like their Facebook Page.
Go like my Facebook Page.
Share it on Facebook by clicking here!
Write a comment down below telling me where you’d like to travel next!

The winners will be announced via my Facebook Page within a month! So make sure you wrote your comment by then! 🙂

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The Amsterdam Adventures.

2 de octubre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

Back in 2009 I did my first big trip. 5 friends and I went on a month-long-trip around Europe. One thing that we call InterRail. Which basically is getting a train ticket and traveling around Europe by train. We went to Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium.

Amsterdam was by far one of my favourite cities.

We spent there 5 days. Amsterdam was our base and we went to Utretch and Marken. I was 18 at that time and I had completely fallen in love with the city. The vibes, the people, the multiculturality, the music, the scents and the food were ‘mindblasting mate’.

I liked it so much that 2 years after, on my first year living abroad in Lithuania, I decided to come back.

I was almost 20 years old at that time. It was me who planned the whole trip. Why? Because I love to do this. It’s kind of a ritual. The excitement increases, you read and read more about the city that you are planning to ‘conquer’ and the more you read the more you want to go. You know what I’m talking about right?

I’ll walk you step by step on How to spend a good and affordable few days in Amsterdam.

1. Dates.

One of the most important things you should know is when you are planning to visit the city. I’ve been there both in March and August and trust me, the humid cold winter in Amsterdam can get into your bones and never leave. But if you are totally okay with that, you get a whole different picture of the city during ‘low season’. Theoretically, the best season to go to Amsterdam is during Autumn. Haven’t tried that yet. I should go back then!

2. Good and affordable place to stay.

Since I’m a student, I’m always traveling on a budget. But I like it. Makes the journey more interesting. It’s very important to make an exhaustive research on where to stay. You have to decide what’s more important for you, paying less and being far from the centre, or investing more money and being closer to the heart of the city. Me personally I like to save up on this. That’s why I usually spend most of the planning time looking for the perfect place to stay.

3. What to see.

Are you into art? Are you into underground scene? Are you into ‘special cookies’? Are you into historical things? Well, good news is that you can find all of those things in the capital of the Netherlands. There are few websites where they give you recommendations on what to see in Amsterdam.

For me, my favourite things were:

But if you really are on a budget (as I was) here’s a video of free things to do in Amsterdam.

4. Enjoy.

That’s the most important thing you have to do. You will encounter such a magical city.

Did you know that Amsterdam is the most multicultural city in the whole world? 178 different nationalities were recorded as living there in 2011. Another thing that you probably know is that there are lots of canals. But did you know that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice? It has 165 canals forming 100 km of waterways as compared with 150 in Venice. Amsterdam also has 1,200 bridges, about three times as 409 in Venice.

If you’d like to visit Amsterdam, be sure to check this amazing post of 35 Things to Do in Amsterdam!

Have fun!

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Flying Through Cleaner Air

10 de septiembre de 2015 by fateuser.com Leave a comment

Many years ago, taking the time off to travel was a pipedream for many people. With cheaper flights now being made available, it seems many people have started living the dream and traveling all over the world. But then, with so many chartered flights now going from country to country and continent to continent, many fear that all this traveling is doing more harm than good… to the environment, at least. Air travel is the world’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gases, which cause climate change, and this has become quite the hot button topic among the general populace as well, particularly in light of the whole global warming debate.

Whatever your stance on that issue, it’s undeniable that airlines do tend to consume quite an amount of fossil fuels, severely depleting one of the world’s most limited and valuable natural resources. Of course, the carbon emissions they produce are also significantly high. According to an article on environmentalism campaign website FlyingClean.com, “long haul flights produce on average twice as much emissions per mile traveled per passenger than cars.” More alarmingly, “short haul flights produce three times as much.”

Thankfully, a good number of major international airports have since taken it upon themselves to do what they can to reduce generated pollution and improve sustainability; and in the process, hopefully blaze the trail for other airports to follow.

Among these airports is Logan International in Boston. Being one of the world’s busiest airports, Logan was well aware of the scale of environmental damage it could create. To that end, the airport saw fit to undergo an overhaul dedicated to greener operations; a move that has subsequently made it one of the world’s most environmentally conscious airports. All of its terminals have been LEED-certified, its public utilities are energy-efficient, and it’s the first airport in the US to use eco-friendly construction materials for their runways. Furthermore, its employees are all required to use public transportation when going to work.

Another noteworthy green airport is London Heathrow in the UK. As UK’s busiest and the world’s third busiest airport operating more than 90 airlines, according to Parking4Less, environmental impacts have always been a major concern, but in the past several years, the aviation facility has managed to rack up several accolades for their green initiatives and exceeding biodiversity benchmarks. The airport continues to amaze as they implement more strategies in their Responsible Heathrow 2020 Plan to reduce carbon emissions, noise, water and waste production, and ground based nitrogen oxide emissions.

There are many more airports gradually adjusting to become more environmentally conscious, such as Denver International in Colorado, Zurich Airport in Switzerland, and Helsinki Airport in Finland. Hopefully, we might yet see them give a significant enough impact in reducing our carbon footprints. Of course, you could take matters into your own hands and try backpacking instead!

This was a contributed post, the article wasn’t written by me.