Day 11 - Refining Palanga plans and a day trip for tomorrow

In the morning we walked to the playground next to the building where we used to live. Georgia recognized it and our building too. The playground had suffered some damage in the past year. One of the swings is done, the little merry-go-around sounds like a dental drill, and the sand is all kitty litter. But Georgia enjoyed hanging out with other kinds. That's one thing she seems to be really missing. None of them seem to understand each other but they don't seem to mind.

After that we went to the market and got greedy from all the smells. We got strawberries, sour cherries, grapes, and thin little sausages - thinner than a pinky. And we also got 3 bouquets of daisies. Georgia was very happy about that. She carried the whole bunch and was very pround. Tourists made comments. As we walked we identified three more potential eateries for lunch in the days ahead. And disqualified a few too.

At home Georgia set out to systematically consume the fruit. It was worth it to be consumed this fast. Next time I will put plastic bags all around her though, and keep her away from the wall paper.

On the way out to lunch we saw an incredible thing. There is a theater large poster stand on Pilies. They decided to advertise the upcoming performance of the Romanov ballet and put a live ballerina into the glass stand. She was dancing with the music and everything. It was like watching a human sized ballerina toy in a musical box. This was incredibly creative.

Then we walked out to Tomazz'Inn - a new eatery on Pilies that promised 9LT pasta in 3 minutes. First we panicked because the waitress said there are no menus in Russian and she seemed unwilling to translate the list from the blackboard. But then she suggested an English menu (oh, the savior). The food did not come in 3 minutes but came in faster than we had expected. We went back and forth with the waitress because they did not have the advertised dumplings in Bolognese sauce, so I ended up getting sweet cheese ravioli in spinach sauce. With some extra salt it is not a bad combination. Dan had a pasta dish that was OK.

During the afternoon we exchanged a few chats with Dina and finalized our Palanga hotel. Really looking forward to it. We will be staying right next to the main street in 2 little apartments next to each other.

Alicia came a little later and we went out together to Cilli Kaima's for dinner. The food was great and the service was excellent - the waitress perfectly emulated the English lady brought up in the best bordering schools. We walked around and saw resident snake and a chicken and a rooster. The only thing, the little brown crawly friend who shall not be named appeared towards the end of the dinner on my table, and ruined the fun. Yak. Never again. I did not want to tell anyone but Dan noticed my change in mood and suggested to move to a cake place next door to finish off our dinner. There, again everything started great, but I got a rotten green hazelnut in my hazelnut cake. It is definitely not my day when it comes to eating. But at least the nut was not crawling.. yet.

We dropped off Alicia at home and Georgia got to see her friends from last year on the playground. Everyone has grown. It is really neat. Not to say that the parties expressed tremedous interest in each other. They looked at each other and went their separate ways. You just don't know with kids..

Georgia said something really funny today. I asked if she wants to grow a really long hair, all the way to the floor like those princesses in the Russian fairytales. She said "No" because she would constantly get it dirty by pooping on it - because it is goes right past her butt. Makes sense.

BTW, "In your pocket" review of Zoe's is downright trippy. Should have given us some clues.