The smartphone sends you straight to Jim Morrison, Gilbert Bécaud and Gerda Taro. Very handy

The current war in Ukraine brings back bad memories for older Lithuanians, and very strong sentiments for the younger ones. Lithuanians were deported to Russia in great numbers between 1945 and 1952. About 280.000 were deported, or well over 10% of the total population. Most older Lithuanians have friends, neighbors or family member that were deported, and the younger Lithuanians grew up with the idea that Russia is not a friendly neighbor.

Flying a kite. Photo taken by my sister with a phone.

This is the German graveyard from WW-I, near Nantillois in France. Allied graveyards are perfect displays of well-kept lawns and marble,especially the American graveyards. But the German graveyards look a bit delapidated. I have seen German graveyards from WW-II in the Ukraine and they look much better, very well maintained.

My mother’s hands.

Patiently sitting and watching his mother… Photo taken with a Huawei P30 phone… Yes people, throw your DSLR in the trash.

My daughter is an experienced sailer. A few weeks ago, while sailing in Friesland, she spotted a sailboat for sale. She knows market prices and it took her less than five minutes to make, what she thought, a good deal. And she was right. It needs some minor repairs, a little paint here and there and she has installed an autopilot, but otherwise this boat is nice. Perfect one cylinder diesel, it goes plop-plop-plop.

Nieuwe Waterweg next to the Maerlantkering.

Is it possible to report your location from OsmAnd? Instead of using dedicated equipment for navigation such as a Garmin eTrex or something comparable, I use a smartphone. A phone I will have with me anyways, so it saves me bringing another piece of equipment. Also a phone usually has a much better interface than the Garmins, it integrates better with other navigation stuff such as websites where I download tracks or Google KML files that I get via email.

Biking long distances means you will need some kind of navigation aid. Paper maps are mostly gone except as a backup measure. Some people use TomTom-like systems specially designed for bikes, but nowadays you don’t need these special tools anymore: your smartphone will do just fine. And it doesn’t have to be the latest 700 euro supersmartphone, personally I use a Samsung Galaxy S4 from 2013 which my kids say is antiquated.