Day 13 - The streets behind the post office

In the morning we continued our exploring. We found a bookstore that sold large books in English - mostly photo, art, travel, and cooking. It is on Traku and is called Humanatas or something. There were lots of people inside.

On the way we looked inside the courtyard on Ogminiu gatve. There was a little airplane hanging in the air. We walked inside to see more, but it was the usual courtyard with crumbing walls, some decaying sheds, and patches of peony bushes. Maybe the plane belongs to the gallery that is located there.

We ended up covering the streets behind the post office and up to the opera therater. Buildings are less well repaired and less nicer looking than in the old city. There was noticeable quantity of the private objyn/urology offices compared to the other places.

We did find an interesting restaurant for lunch on Syrvido. Don't know about the food quality but it is set on the first floor in a really beautiful building. We saw the chalkboard menu but no other signs. We walked through the two sets of very heavy doors at the entrance and then hit a building receptioninst booth. The setting inside was heavy duty luxury of the before the war type - guilded wall decorations, opera house quality chandeliers, and a massive wrought iron staircase. Pretending to look like the belong we went behind the staircase, and, at the end of the corridor, having passed some offices with buzzing computers and copymachines found another heavy door. There was a sign of in "Kavine ... Clubas" and some other word in the middle. We walked inside and saw a pretty comfortable eatery with few remaining signs of luxury including the large mirrors and large windows with excellent views of the back of the post office. I asked the bartentender lady whether the Kavine was only for the club members and she said no, anyone can come. Hurray, we will be back.

We noticed people walking around with produce bags from the little valley on the Vienuolio Gatve. Turns out that in addition to the regular flower market they also had some farmer mini-buses come in and sell their wares. There was one of each - raw meat, cheeses, sausages, fruit, and vegetables. City folk were responding gloriously to it. There were long lines to each bus. What a good idea. I wonder if they do it every day. We never ventured this far on Gediminas during lunch, would be nice to check it out.

We made our orders at the Wok to Walk - Georgia wanted rice for lunch. Dan joined us in a few minutes and we had a nice lunch there. They had another guy from Asia and the same girl operate the woks. They still had not resolved the speed issue but we got lucky. When we came in, there was a bunch of girls studying the food ordering plan in front of us and several people waiting for their food. As we stood there contemplating leaving because the wait would translate into at least a half an hour, the girls decided against Wok and walked out. Within minutes the waiting crowd got their orders and so it was just us :) As we ate, we watched another marvel of efficiency - a Coca Cola truck came and their delivery guy must have made 15 trips back, and forth each time carrying one case of Coke products.

The number of tourists seems higher than last year. There are especially many tourist groups from Poland.

At the Cathedral square they had set up a small stage and chairs getting ready to make the presentation of something related to the lower castle. Possibly a dedication. There was a sign in Lithuanian on the wall. That might explain why they had tried to finish at least the front of the building so frantically in the 2 weeks prior.

In the afternoon we walked up to Subaciaus gatve to take a look at the contruction progress. Last year they were rebuilding the Subaciaus gate at it was beginning to look very beautiful. However, unfortunately no further progress had been made, at least on the outside. It is very sad - this is the year of the Vilnius Culture and crisis had interfered with the conclusion of these projects that would make the city even better looking.

It was raining and we were hoping to walk to Carskoje Selo on Savanoriu. But we did not get very far - Georgia was starting to get cold. So we looked for the pizza place on Gedimino. Cilli Pica and Cancan Pizza were full so that left Pizza Jazz, the place where we last were on the girls night out. This time the place had plenty of men and children too. Right away Georgia got hot chocolate to warm up. It was more like a hot dark chocolate mousse, similar to the one they have in the tiny place on the Harvard square, and totally awesome when we were allowed a quick supervised tasting. Dan and I got our pizza, and Georgia got hers - with a smilie face done in ketchup. It sounds a bit like a sin, but we seem OK here eating pizza with ketchup and salsa.

There was not a lot to do in the rain so we returned home. Our apartment owners were still there finishing their cleaning. They've brought two brand new garbage cans for the bathrooms when they had noticed that we were using adopted water bottles there. Very attentive. Nona said that they are strugging to find enough people to stay in the apartment. 2-3 year rentals to the embassy employees is a thing of the past. She is advertising in the "In Your Pocket" and it seems to be bringing back some short term summer leads, but nothing solid for the fall and winter months.