Day 31 - Kazio museum and the photo shoot

Georgia woke up really early today. We were not prepared for that. So we rushed through the morning activities and got out to the market. We figured we have a chance to get some genuine fruit from Lithuanian babushkas before they sell out.

Babushkas were still in business. We got some sour cherries, strawberries, and blueberries. Georgia carried the blueberries and did not allow me to take over. On the way we stopped to take some pictures and play in the square behind the church of all saints.

Then we picked up some orphan kibinai. The good thing about them is that they have three distribution points in the city and they drop off fresh ones every morning to every location. So you can get freshly hot kibinai at 8am (we were there a bit later though). Or if you go to the original point on Kalvariu market, you get them straight out of the oven. In general, the number of places that serve kibinai had increased since last year. But the orphan ones are the best and cheapest. And, on somewhat unrelated note, there is Heinz ketchup served everywhere - did not used to be like that last year. Lithuanian ketchup is more like a super sweet tomato sauce and not a good replacement. No splenda or decaf tea though yet.

Due to the heavy rains early in the month all the berries were kind of watery and not too sweet. But Georgia consumed a good quantity of blueberries despite the taste. Then she claimed to be hungry and went for kibinai. Then she went to bed. Even though we had to go to Kazio museum at 12.

We dragged her out and went for our date with the curator. Basically, the place changed hands a few times and finally the city bought it and wanted to make a city museum out of it. Then Kazio Varnelis turns up. He left LT during the war, did studying in Vienna, and lived in US until early nineties. There he made living for himself as a painter doing formerly popular genre of painting that used a lot of gradations. He also amassed a large collection of art books, historical maps, and a bunch of housewares like bronzes, storage chests, Renaissance furniture, some Japanese art and more. He offered all that to the city and city accepted and let him live in the complex too. He is in his nineties now.

It is a good museum, but the best features is the beautiful architecture of the huge house. It used to be a Merchant Guild house and thanks to the curator we were able to see the portions of the house that were used for the specific guild purposes. The map collection is really impressive as is the book collection, which definitely beats the collection at the library of the college of Fine Arts. The highlight of the house is the artist studio which is a huge 2 story affair with 2 exposed Gothic walls. In this setting, even the artist's art, which we honestly were too ignorant to care for, looks very impressive. Georgia fell asleep on Dan's shoulder halfway through the tour. We are glad we went.

In the late afternoon we went to Kernave where we had a photo shoot session with Elze and Romanas from http://www.fotopastele.lt/. Dina Olshevsky found them on the Internet and we decided to professionally document our stay here with them. They took us to the nature park / forest in Kernave and we spent 2.5 hours with them. Both photographers, though very young, were very professional and very good at working with us. During and in between the shoots we picked the blueberries and wild strawberries, which grow there in great quantities. The park is very large and has plenty of interesting areas to take for at least a half a day of activities. The views of the river are amazing. Other than Elze's mom, turned avid photographer and hitting her daughter's spots with the entourage dressed in ethno gear, there were no other visitors. Will know whether the Photoshop was able to convert us into the magazine worthy family by the end of our stay.

Big plans for tomorrow: Georgia wants to climb a tree, we need to check out the new stage over at the Cathedral square, go to the Japanese exhibition, pack for Palanga, and Alicia is coming for dinner. There will be massive activities this weekend in the city and in Kernave. Oh, well, at least we can watch the preparations.