Day 7 - Medieval show in Trakai

Today Dan brought us some fresh pastries from Svejais Bandeles for breakfast! Hurray!

Then we headed out to Trakai. Georgia was very excited. We told her some stories about the kings who used to live there and she fully believed they would still be living there. We planned to do our usual walk around but she begged us to go inside. It was a good idea. The exhibits and descriptions inside were updated and now the museum looks pretty impressive. They have some nice light and sound exhibits on the third floor of the big tower. Unfortunately some rooms are still closed and it is not possible to go around everywhere. Dan said it may be because they don't have enough exhibits to go in those rooms. It could also be because they could not afford enough attendants to man all those rooms. This sucks. These special areas are some of the key perks of the castles.

Georgia was pretty disappointed. I think she expected to see princesses. She dragged us from room to room without finding what she wanted.

Just like in our last visit here, we got lucky and came on the day of the Medieval fair. Arond the fair there was enormous amount of booths selling different handicrafts, cheeses, sausages, honey. There was also Chinese alley that was selling junkets that had no relevance to the show or to the country. But they completed the picture.

There was a guy who on his RV traveled around entire Europe and much of Asia. He travels with a bunch of pets and they do a show together. There was a stage for performances of folk music/dances by the different groups of locals.

Inside the fair grouds they have a couple of scenic eateries like last time, a witch booth selling various herbal medicines, blacksmith, book binder and others. There was also a joust between the knights from different European countries. It was pretty awesome. The event would take two days and in the end, president Adamkus would present the winner with a suit of armor made by the best armorer in the country. This is pretty neat. They had army boys without any weapons apparently stand around guard and help to move heavy pieces around.

There were lots of long time enthousiasts of this kind of show - they walked around in really authentic costumes and footwear. This stuff was not the type they sell at Renaissance fairs. The clothing was handspun and colored and was probably extremely close in historial detail to the real things. Women looked particularly beautiful in these dresses.

The knights were fighting with swords on foot. Even though the swords were probably dull and we did not see paramedics anywhere (unless guys with crosses on their shirts doubled as such) they looked like the swords were very heavy. The goal was to hit the opponent on the head as much as possible. That's probably the best you could do with the thing being this heavy. Some had squires who carried their helmet. Some knights kneeled and prayed before the battle - it was very realistic. There also was a guy with 2 huge mastifs. They were pretty friendly but during the joust barked and pulled like crazy and that added to the atmosphere. Anyway. We got lucky with today's event and the weather :) Beats Kazukas!!!

On the way back we picked up Alicia and drove to Vandens Malunas for dinner. It is an actual watermill that was converted to the European restaurant. There were 2 weddings going on so we got the cellar. It was done in a really interesting way. The cellar is 3 stories. The bottom where we went so that Alicia did not have to do any climbing has ceiling so low that you have to crouch as you get to your table. The second sellar floor is a bit higher. There was a door to the kitchen on the third. This setup brought to mind the description of the eatery Ijon Tichy ate at in the final pages of the Futurological Congress. Free translation now "The reality drug kicked in. The palm leaves turned out to be the rope of the underpants of the guy sitting on the level above". Sort of the same thing. But really very scenic and cozy. There was a little table for kids, with coloring paper and pencils.

The food was great. They had what Dan defines as a higher cousine quality quotent - excellent sauces. Every dish was excellent, very well prepared and, again, the sauces! We may need to come back for desert. There was simply no room to stick it in.

What was equally impressive (note, this is a third paragraph covering the same restaurant!! feel free to drop off if you are nauxeous) was that the waitress split her time between hanging out outside directing the non-wedding clients to the cellar, running around between the two stories of the cellar and the kitchen. And she was fast and responsive. Amazing.

The weather got completely perfect towards the evening. The sky was blue and there was not a single cloud. But Georgia was totally beat. And we only looked ready and willing. So we headed home and had an early evening. Dan ran out to Rimi and got us some desert to have with our evening movie.

Day 6 - Getting a few blocks further

Today we walked out fully prepared - rain boots, rain jackets, sweaters and it is was good thing too. Even though it rained less it was pretty cold - possibly mid 40s.

The first order of business was to check whether it was possible to walk up to the Gedimino tower on foot. Last year the walkway was closed and only funicular access was available killing half the fun. We failed in that task. In addition to re-starting the work on the front of the lower castle (actually very cool - they have 3 cranes up there with people during the day), they are also expanding the cathedral square into the park so there was much construction going on around the walkway. I extrapolated that the walkway would be closed. But turns out during our afternoon walk that it is open and it may be possible to get up by walking.

We walked leisurely stopping here and there. There is a no stroller rule for the morning walk.

The second order of business was to go to the toy store on Vilnius gatve and get Georgia some more paints and play dough. By the time we got to the post office to do some research for Dan, Georgia decisively claimed that the bathroom was needed and now. We ran into a Double Coffee. Our first foray here this summer. She instantly forgot what we came here to do and sat down to study the menu. We got a stuffed croissant (not recommended) and hot cocoa for her, cappuccino for me.

While we were sitting there, there was a serious business discussion going on at the next table. There was a young couple and a young real estate agent discussing a possible deal in LithuRussian. It was funny to hear "blah-blah-blah" + "a separate master bathroom." I wonder if the agent spoke like that because the couple was Russian Lithuanians. We do hear people mixing up these two languages though younger people usually speak purer Lithuanian and use Russian for the expressions where certain emotional impact is necessary.

It started raining outside again. We watched a family across the street without the raingear deal. They had a double stroller and a bigger kid Mom took over the stroller and dad launched the kid on his shoulders. They ran out of view. We forgot about them but in about 3 minutes they ran inside the Double Coffee and started chaning the kids into some dry clothing. Georgia and I felt like a veteran hikers properly prepared for the hardships ahead.

By the time we were done it stopped raining and we got as far as Gedimino 9 before there was another bathroom call. I am beginning to suspect that it is a trick. We walked around the mall afterwards. There is really little to see. The last floor is still unoccupied. There are few open spaces on the other floors as well. The only thing that was really interesting was the bookstore. It was all Lithuanian and we only got as far as the children's section but it was really awesome. They must have such enormous supply of local illustrators that each book was a treasure trove of pictures in many different styles.

We walked over to the square next to McDonalds and called Dan to join us to lunch. We went to the soup and bun place on Gedimino. It was nice. On the way we saw some policemen on police Segways. This looks really cool. Incidentally Segway renting place on Vilnius gatve is really popular and we see people on these things practically every day.

In the afternoon the apartment owner came over with her husband to do the cleaning. They are great: brought new toys for Georgia, extra soap, towels, table liners. It is weird to figure out what it is we are responsible for since there was toilet paper, paper towels, and other similar things already there when we came. They also tried to bring over a couch for Georgia's room but she did not allow it and asked for it to be taken away. Poor things. They dragged it all the way up here. The owners were really talkative - I guess they are working their garden all day long and don't get much of a chance to speak with anybody. Or maybe they are like that with everyone.

Georgia and I went out while Dan still had to finish a few things. We fed the doves and went to the temporary textile exhibition in the building on Stikliu gatve. It was one of those weird incogruous things we saw on our last visits here. Several rooms of strange textile artifacts of questionable artistic value. Like semi-circular wood frames with threads pulled through to make it look like it is a human figure in threads. Yeah, I can see a deep meaning and be impressed for about 10 seconds. Georgia wanted to climb on top and use the thing like a seesaw. Zero other customers and bored to death attendant who has to keep an eye on this goodness for 8 hours a day.

We walked a bit more on Stikliu gatve visiting different stores. One of them,"Silvero Salonas 925" on the corner sucked. The stuff looks nice enough from the outside but inside there were eagle eyed women who last took shower in the time of the Soviet Union. They followed us around drowning the view of the goods inside with their aroma.

There is a brand new little nook that used to be a broken down backyard last time but is now a place with three vintage clothing stores. Don't know if the venue is a long term proposition on this street but it looks good now.

We met up with Dan and went up to check out Usupis. On the way we passed the Church of the Holy Mother of God. It was freshly plastered and they uncovered sections of the original walls. The view is awesome. Of course we left our camera at home. Next, there was a chanting crowd in Usupis Cavine and one customer was taking off his pants. We stopped to see the end of the show but that was the end. After that we walked around the Cathedral square and went home to get our car. Initially we planned to just get some drinking water but we ended up getting some stuff for dinner. So, sorry, no culinary updates today.

Day 5 - Rain games

Today started out very nice - perfectly blue skies, bright sunlight. No sooner than we fed the morning fix to the pigeons than it started pouring. It is a good thing we live about a block away. A short trip up to the third floor (ceiling height in the apartment is at least 3 meters) and the sky was perfectly blue again, the sun was shining, and the birds were singing. We went back out.

This time, first we stopped at St. Nickolas church where our windows go out to. It is tiny but very pretty. Very typically Orthodox with rich spattering of gold icons. The colored glass windows looked awesome with the sun shining right through.

Less than a block later it started to pour again. We ran into the new souvenir shop near the Vokieciu pharmacy. They have really awesome scuptures by a new artist. Totally fantastic, like something you would see in a painting - horse with the cage inside pulling another cage, a man sitting on a fantastic bird. Some sculptures had secret drawers inside. After we finished with the sculptures it got sunny again outside.

We leisurely walked over to Dailes art store. On account of Vilnius being the culture capital, they moved away most of the art and were having an exhibition of Austrian inventions (?). There were some pretty and not so much armchairs, pictures of some industrial excavators, a model of train, a real bike, headphones, and such. It started raining again so I gave the collection a very thorough overview while Georgia was testing out the furniture.

The rain slowed down and we managed as far as the city hall. They had some boring exhibition downstairs and then there was a sign that there will be an exhibition related to the Lithuanian kings starting on Friday. Several people were walking upstairs the city hall so we followed them dripping but looking like we belong. Upstairs the workers were nailing some of the large paintings for the exhibition to the walls. The guy who looked like a painter came over and said something friendly in Lithuanian to Georgia. We are getting good at smiling and nodding. We walked around and looked at the paintings. I could not make out any of the history on them but they were really beautiful and dramatic. Lots of violent bloody scenes, flying gilded angels and saints, and exceptional attention to detail despite the very large size of the painting. Georgia liked them too.

Then we made a quick run to the supermarket across the street, and, after that, another 3 blocks home to get Dan and our raincoats. For lunch we walked over to Wok to Walk right off of Gedimino and Vilnius gatves.

It was supposed to be a fast food Chinese and they got everything together except the fast part. They had a Chinese girl and Indonenian guy working furiously. There was a 3 step easy ordering process - get you carb (white/brown rice/different types of noodles), get your meat (pork, chicken, etc), and get your sauce (sweet and sour/oyster/etc). Sitting inside and outside was nice and implied fastness. The only thing we had to wait for almost 15 minutes for our food. Compared to the other eateries here it is pretty fast but still not fast enough. There was a huge lunch crowd waiting at the door. But the two wok operators, who were the bottleneck, could only handle 2 dishes at the time having only 2 woks. Almost everything was cooked from ground up. We were craving to offer operational efficiency suggestions. The food was branderized for the local flavor and there was cabbage with every dish but it was OK. Georgia really liked her dish.

During the entire lunch the sun shone and not a drop fell.

In the afternoon Alicia came over and we hanged out at home while it was raining again. For dinner we went to Forto Dvaras. The food was great just like in the last summer. Alcohol-free beer is almost as good as the real thing. The restaurant also extended their cellar. Now it is a massive maze of the rooms, some done in different styles. There was also a children's corner where kids could build towers from the wildly colored wooden blocks in many different shapes.

The only downer was that we got a lousy waitress. She walked about with a stone face and only came over when she wanted to, despite our hand raising and "exsuse mes." Absolutely no peripheral vision whatsoever. But when she came over she was actually sweet. The dishes came in with a 10 minute interval between each person. The final drop was when she added another dish to our bill that amounted to about 10% of the total. We had to argue with her over that too. In the end she did not get any tip. Dan wanted to leave her some but I was against it. Waiting the tables implies certain degree of courtesy and accuracy. She failed on both counts.

In the evening we drove to the local equivalent of Target and Home Depot combined, forgot the name. We had to get a microwave. There was incredible selection, far more than in any of the stores we were at. It was like a hypermarket of the home improvement stuff. We hunted down a store assistant, they are as rare here as they are plentiful in a real Home Depot. Scared the one we got into obedience by speaking English with them. Incidentally, just as he was about to dash out to the warehouse to pick up the model we wanted Alicia blew our cover by speaking Russian to him. Darn. He was not nearly as eager when as he dragged off to get our microwave. But we got it in the end.

Dan spent about 30 minutes, all our alcohol pads, some Windex, and some of our dishes detergent trying to remove the sticker "Microwave" from the microwave. Eventually he succeeded by rubbing it with his sleeve really fast, getting the plastic to warm up and release the glue. Amazingly good quality sticker.

Just reread this post and it sounds pretty negative. In reality we had a great time and it was a really successful day. Covered one more eatery, saw a new church, a few new exhibitions, and got warm milk with honey for Georgia to have with her evening cartoons. The weather is funny. It does not rain long enough for it to get depressing. And when the sun comes out, everyting dries out in minutes. The view of the wet roofs and shining green leaves from our balcony is awesome. And tomorrow we will come armed with our raincoats on the very first trip out.

Day 4 - Taiwanese paparazzi and diving into the culinary delights

Today at 9am I was the first one up. I guess with time we can become completely nocturnal. It is a good thing that it gets light out at 5am and dusk comes after 10pm. We woke up Georgia around 10 and went to walk around the town.

Last renters left some ungodly quantities of unroasted sunflower seeds and salt. So we wanted to check out whether the doves would respond to the former. Did they ever! Georgia dropped the first seed and a whole avalanche of the flying city rats descended in her vicinity. She panicked and dropped the whole bag. They destroyed it in under a minute. Will have to repeat the experiment later today.

As we walked towards the market outside the Gates of Dawn, Georgia got tired and sat down on the stairs outside the store. I snapped a picture of her. Then I heard snapping sounds behind me. It was a crowd of the Taiwanese tourists who stopped to take a picture of her too. They gave Georgia some candies.

We smelled the market as soon as we walked out of the Gates. It smelled like strawberries and cucumbers. We got some of each and tomatoes too. Everything looked so fresh and enticing. Women outside were selling lillies of the valley and peonies. I wanted to get some but our apartment owner left us a huge bouquet of Daisies and wild grasses. Will have to wait till it rots.

As we walked back a gypsy woman with a kid a bit older than Georgia appeared and followed us around for a bit begging for money. She and her daughter did some praying outside the shrine and then resumed following us. Gypsies had been living in the city for a long time. I wonder if they all practice the same religion or the bunch that lives here became Catholic or Orthodox. From what I could tell the shrine does not belong to either one of these faiths in particular. It is designed like an Orthodox icon but Pope John II did some praying here. So I am not sure. Back to the gypsies. Supposedly they are living in the area called Taboras which coincidentally respresents the largest drug market in the Lithuania. A few years ago authorities tried to fix that problem and also return the gypsies to back to the nomadic lifestyle by offering them some trailer homes located elsewhere in the country, but that did not go anywhere.

For lunch we went to the Royal Thai Bangkok in the old center on Šv.Mikalojaus str.15. Pretty austere setting offers a few hints that it is actually a Thai restaurant. It did not smell like anything either. But the food and service was very good. The spices were subtly different. We ordered chicken fried rice for Georgia. It was bright yellow from some spice (not just turmeric) and came served in the body of a pineapple. Dan had yellow curry and I had chili chicken. We switched because mine was very good but suited better the fire-eater league. Georgia had some fun with the napkin. Gold bags with chicken appetizer was great too.

At home we spent some time working while Georgia was taking her nap. It started to rain pretty intensely during that time. Later in the day the rain seemed to have stopped and we went out. The plan was first to feed some more sunflower seeds to the doves. It is a lot of fun to watch them. Next we wanted to walk around before our planned dinner at Graf Zeppelin, on Savičiaus 9. Supposedly the home of the largest ceppelin in the country. After dove feeding it started to rain so we had to run to our eating hole and finish the day there.

It is an awesome place and we see ourselves returning again and again. For one thing it has a perfect decor - with gnomes, writings in German fonts, and the pictures of Kaiser adorning the walls and cabinets here and there. Add to it a really friendly Aryan bartender/waiter who spoke fluent Russian, Lithuanian, and English (and I don't know what else). He brought colored pencils and a coloring book for Georgia. There was a pleasant sound ambience provided by the German 30s waltz style music. I was surprised to hear the rendition of Prince's Kiss in that style. Much more interesting this way than the original. Now, either Prince ripped that off or whoever was performing the waltz was making very good fun of it. I could not recognize any of the other songs, so it was probably the Prince doing the ripping.

Now we would probably be OK with the place even if the food was so so but the food was great, and they did not lie about the size of their zeppelin. Georgia had the "German children's favorite" Hoppelpoppel which was the fried potatoes and eggs. Dan and I are no German children but we remember this very same thing from our childhoods. Only it was usually accompanied by cutlet. Ah, the culinary memories.

We ran back home through the rain - it was only about a block away.

Now it is past midnight again and it is time to drop off.

Day 3 - Settling In

Today was the "typical" day we were hoping for. In the morning Georgia and I hanged out together while Dan worked. At 10 we went to the youth park and spent a few hours there. It was cool that she remembered which way to go. There were loads of people on the playground. We heard some Russian, but the rest was Lithuanian. There was a bunch of school kids painting. Georgia spent some time watching two of them.

We walked back via the Literatu street. A bunch of people, probably art students, embedded examples of their work into the walls of a few buildings on the street. There were etchings on metal, oil, ceramics, and more. All together they looked awesome. Too bad I forgot our camera. Will have to come back tomorrow.

For lunch we went to the creepery Gusto near the Gates of Dawn. Don't know why. We were there a whole lot during our last trip. It was nice and fast but nothing special. Not again. We have already some of the eateries planned for the rest of the week. There is also another creeperie under construction right next door.

In the afternoon, after learning that our dog left at home is OK, we walked to Alicia. Georgia walked pretty much the entire way. In the end we got tired of keeping down with her pace and the continued onslaught on the wild flowers along the way and stuck her into the stroller.

On the subject of pets, Alicia has too many. We are probably going to limit our walks to her to one time per week and bring her over to our apartment instead. It is midnight now and like yesterday we cannot fall asleep. Still on US calendar.

We are planning to go fishing with Vitalik to Trakai on Saturday or Sunday. On the second day of the weekend, which ever it is, we will go to some park North of Vilnius.

Day 2 - Lots and lots of v.

Today was pretty eventful, but most of events were of the very similar in nature.

Georgia woke up at 5am and asked for a drink of water. Since I was sleeping since 9pm from last night - no problem. At 5:45 she called me over so I could watch her giving back that water to her pajamas and linens. And so it had started...

Within the next three hours we went through all the towels we had at the apartment, most of the linens, half of Georgia'a wardrobe, and a quarter of ours. Only our master bedroom was spared. She was afraid of it for some reason and only went there when she got completely exhausted to catch some sleep.

We all slept till 1:30pm. It never happened in any of our lifes before. Next, we proved that even though eating black seedy rye bread and 20% fat cheese sounds appealing after a morning of starvation, it would not stay in, at least in Georgia. After that the life went back to normal.

Dan worked and we watched cartoons and played. I ran out to get the laundry detergent and water. It was blistery hot outside. I spent some time demystifying the washing machine instructions that were free translated into English and Russian from Chinese. The lady owner graciously pointed me to the manual and said I would find answers to all my questions there.

The owners of the apartment came in at 6 to get the rest of the rent because we could not pull out all of it from the ATM yesterday. They were friendly and offerred to bring some toys for Georgia and extra couch into her room to fill the void left by the desk we moved. I tried to consult the owner about the washing machine. Apparently the Lithuanian version reads as smoothly as do the Russian and English ones. Any random way you get the machine to open up and spin would do. One factor that probably helps a lot is that the detergent begins to eat through your skin if you handle it long enough.

Then we drove to Hyper Maxima to get some food and cleaning supplies. We thought there was no reason to eat out with Georgia only being able to handle rice at this point. However, at home she opened up to french fries, chicken wings, and ketchup with no apparent problem.

After that we finally took a walk around the old town. Some of the old places are still open while a bunch of new eateries to be checked out had opened up. Most of the couture boutiques are having a 60% off type of sales. Noticably more stores had closed and spaces are available for rent. Alaus (the yacky beer restaurant) is closed due to the technical reasons (roaches? the beer had gone bad?). The lower castle is still being worked on. There were no changes in the front, but another wing was built in the back. And there are new excavations around it. Pieno Baras now has some clothing store in it. Coffee Inn is still in business and serves decaf!!

It was still light out at 10pm but there were very few people in the streets. Even the goths were done - it is probably not the same thing to put out without the crowds being present.

Hopefully tomorrow would be more "typical" of our expected days here :)

Day 1 - Arriving to Vilnius

The trip itself was very similar to last time. We flew with SAS through the Copenhagen and arrived to Vilnius at noon on Sunday, May 31. Georgia was awake and behaved better than many adult pretty much the entire time. She fell asleep just at the plane started to descend in Copenhagen and then woke up and cried until they let us out of the plane, but it was nothing compared to the 12 hours of goodness around it.

Through a small mix up, the guys from Autobest.lt who were meeting us in the airport were about 5 minutes late. So we panicked, got a sim card, and, in the time we had available, called them, the apartment agent, and t.Lillia. Within minutes they had arrived (can't recommend enough the courteous service and most reasonable priced) and we packed our little Mitsubishi Colt and took off to go to Alicia. It is like we never left.

Alicia looks very good, it is like we just said goodbye yesterday. Except for a few subtle hints indicating a possible presence of over a half a dozen cats, apartment looks very clean and updated too. We had lunch and Georgia went to the playground looking for her old friends. No one was ther. And there was no updates to the playground state.

After that we went to the old city to look at our apartment on Didzioji. It was a great improvement over our last one. For one thing, it was bigger and had a balcony looking a nearby church. We could see a few other nearly steeples as well. All the rooms are separate and the master bedroom and stairs could be reached by a small wooden staircase going down. It really felt like an old city apartment. Plus it was clean, like a freshly prepped OR. The owner insisted on keeping it this way and on changing the linens by herself at the price we payed to another lady last year. The price for apt. was better than last year too. Audra from Gelminta DELFI short term rental agency, handled the research and transation again. Another round of recommendations here. Given the economic times, the companies that go above and beyond to keep up and improve their services deserve special mention, and more prospective clients.

The apartment owner was very self-assured, and with a bit of a condescending air. Interestingly, the last apt. owner, whose apartment we opted out of taking for diversity reasons, had the very same features, except the maniacal cleanliness. It may be an attribute of the other old city apartment owners who got their coveted cribs for probably next to nothing when LT allowed to privatize them.

Dan walked back to Alicia to pick her up and drive back to the apartment. Georgia and I walked a bit around the old town and watched the multiple folk performances, intersepted here and there by kids playing the violins, neo-goths, the guitars, and others their other instruments. It is good to be back.

We tried to convince Georgia to take the master bedroom reasoning that it would be quieter and would allow us to use her desk in the second bedroom. But she refused and was so thoroughly sick of us that she went to sleep around 7pm without allowing us to change her dress. Dan and Alicia moved the desk to the living room. We ate supper, and scampered around for another 2 hours before finally dropping off ourselves.

We are back

OK, so our last summer trip was only for two months. But for the remainder of the year we bored our friends and relatives to the quiet helpless fury with the tales about how great our trip was. By the early spring we convinced ourselves to repeat the experience (it was not a very hard task).

For a variety of reasons it will have to be Vilnius again this time. But we intend to be much more thorough this time in our (culinary and other) exploits. Vilnius is a culture capital of Europe for this year, and hopefully that should translate into more fun events this summer. We are shooting to spend two months - an improvement over our last attempt of over 2.5. We also rented a car hoping to get out more on the weekends and at nights.

January 2009. Chile

Photos to come.

Great experience with helpful assistance of:
Charles Hallifax email -
request@experiencechile.org
www.experiencechile.org

The Last Entry for Summer 2008: Vilnius

Our first time was great! Looking forward to the new adventures!