Days 24-25 – At home for the holidays

Monday and Tuesday were national holidays – sort of extended eclipse celebration. So we mostly stayed at home and nothing much happened. On Monday it was raining in the morning. We sat on the windowsill and counted different colored umbrellas. Black was predominant.

Georgia still had a bit of the runny nose so I gave her some honey. She said “Nichego” (not bad). This is new. Usually she says “Daa” with a sigh. Asked for more.

During the rain break we went out for lunch and looked for new restaurant that’s open. The one on Voikecu 4 seems small on the outside and has a lunch specials menu hanging outsite It is enormous inside. It is made to look like a saloon, including the smell. We've managed through the tea and soup but asked to pack our meat-potato pancakes to go.

In the afternoon there was intense thunderstorm. It looked like we were in the rainforest. Barely anything was visible through the sheet of rain. But the good thing about Lithuanian rain is when it stops, it stops – and sun comes out and sky clears out like the rain never happened. It rained so hard that it washed up the sand between the cobblestones. There are piles of sand around and some cobblestones were washed up too.

Walking around we met Len and Susan and went to Bistro 18 for dinner. Half-way through Georgia got really bored and Dan ran home (less than 1 block through our backyard) and brought his laptop so she could watch her cartoons. So we were able to have the desert we’ve missed last time. Just great.

Len and Susan finished their 13th annual tandem bike ride to raise money for Lou Gehrig’s disease (http://community.alsphiladelphia.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=364&srcid=7070&srctid=1&erid=125900). This one was through Baltics starting from Tallinn. They had some really bad luck with the weather on the way and must have brought the storm in the afternoon :). They will be here for two days.

On Tuesday morning Dan and Georgia headed to the youth park, while I walked around with Len and Susan. It was a beautiful day.

We went to Uzupis first. There is a beautiful mermaid statue on one of Vilnyale banks. Went in St.Anne, St.Bernadine, Cathedral. Took funicular to go to the upper castle. They went up the tower and I’ve stayed down and counted the churches I still don’t know the names of. Saw the opera house, the green bridge, and looked at the museum of Genocide building of We walked till 12:30 and then I met up with Dan and Georgia and we went Amatininku Uzeiga for lunch.

The place is enormous inside as yesterday's lunch place. However the bathroom is a hole in the ground type and apparently a lot of people miss the hole. The food was OK. What was nice is that they seem to make a lot of staple dishes themselves: kvas, pig ears appetizer. Can’t say that it tastes any better than the supermarket version but it was nice to try another variety. Incidentally Len and Susan said they were there as well for lunch.

I have to warn that the next paragraphs is pretty mean. So if you want to retain the same image of me as you always had you don’t have to read them.

I had a bitching match with 3 people with a count 2:1. First it was with the bar waitress who refused to break 10LT note so we could leave a tip to our waitress (lost that one - she walked away). Next was with the cleaning woman who came today to fix the areas she's missed (1:1). And the final one was with the cashier in Hyper Maxima. I asked her to be more careful in throwing my packages in Russian and she said she is not required to speak Russian to me. I was pretty sure it would happen at least once this summer so here it was. After a short exchange, I looked up her name Diana Mitskevich and went to look for administrator.

Administrator was really professional: she apologized, went to speak with her, and asked me to make a written complaint for a different kind of administrative punishment. She also said was that Diana is not even Lithuanian. I decided not to do it – it may potentially mess up her work history and she is young, stupid, and hopefully will learn from experience. Plus I’ll try to go to her again in the future.

I guess that’s it. Georgia and I have this game. She taps me on the shoulder and turns me into the animal that I then impersonate. Georgia does not turn into any animal because she is “Maria-Tzarevna.” She like to turn me into the wolf the most. I wonder why :)

At home we had a feast – potato blinies with meat, chicken Kiev, kibenai. Georgia really enjoyed herself. Tomorrow night we may go out with Len and Susan since it is their last night, on Thursday with Sergey Glebov, Dan’s former classmate, and on Friday with Dima Khitrov.

Not sure where to stick this pic. Len had a picture of a similar bio-tualetos with the side panel still attached with a comment that Baltic countries beat China with regard to the public bathrooms. Well, Vilnius public bathrooms beat the Baltic bathrooms in general because they are are truly public.