Day 34 – More Palanga

A note to the devout. After one day of working, the wireless in our rooms died. So I will put up the rest of the updates and photos when we are back on Monday night.

We had a good day today. Started at the coffee shop next door with Vitalik. Dina was making soup at the hotel. Ilyusha was keeping her company. By the time we finally made it to the beach, it was 10:30.

It was getting pretty hot. There still were not too many people out. The water was of the proper temperature for this region – foot numbing. It was also a different color – light blue and had lots of seaweed in it. Yesterday's was clear and greenish yellow. We lasted until 11:15. After that we took off and went to walk around the town. Vitalik and his family stayed behind.

We walked down Vitauto gatve to the botanical garden. We must have missed the botanical part because we did not see any unusual plants. All we saw was a good park with several little ponds with ducks in them. We went to the Amber museum located inside the park. I was very impressed with the quality of exhibits and excellent descriptions in multiple languages. Georgia enjoyed all the pieces with insects stuck in them. They have a very nice store too where you can get the usual jewelry and also small piece of amber with the insect stuck in it – they have a huge variety and all come in a box with a magnifying glass built in.

There is a beautiful regional legend about Jurate, the sea princess, who fell in love with a fisherman Kestutis. She moved to the land to live with him. Her father, the sea king, was so upset that he destroyed princess’s underwater amber palace. Ever since then pieces of amber had been washing up the shores. Georgia really likes the legend and asked many questions about it and for that region enjoyed the museum a bit more than the previous ones. There is also a fountain with the statue of lovers on the Basanavichaus.

Not sure what this thing from the boardwalk is about. The notes say "For rent" and "For sale." Not sure about the rent part - it does not seem to be seaworthy.

After the museum we met for lunch with Dina. She left her men to sleep at the hotel and went to yesterday’s Ukrainian restaurant. We had the red borsht again and another selection of dishes. Still the best. Plus service was faster because there were fewer customers. Georgia though still wanted a kibinai. We did not see any in Palanga so we convinced her to try cheburekas. They are sold in the multiple kiosks around the town. All kiosks have prepared raw dough and meat and it takes about 6 minutes to boil cheburekas in hot oil. In retrospect I wonder how often they change it.

We spent a portion of the afternoon back on the beach. The water got warmer. There were a bit more people out but far from the bursting point. First the boys, and then Dina and I walked along the beach in the Northern direction. We got as far a the women’s beach. The sights will haunt me for some time.

We decided to have the evening of fast food along the road so that we could walk around longer as opposed to sitting for two hours at the restaurant. It was neat. There is really no such thing as fast food here because even a hot dog takes about 10 minutes. So we would walk a little, and someone would proclaim their readiness for another food item and we would stop at the kiosk and wait for it to be made and then would move on. The best thing were waffles in chocolate on a stick.

We walked around for 4 hours. Passed some of the older buildings and Vitalik pointed out what they were. Walked by the old “Luxury” sanatoriums for the government workers. They look so sad now and yet were so exclusive to get it. It is very lucky for us not to live in those times.

Another peculiarity of the "boardwalk" - a mini-store/armoire. It gets really interesting when there is a girl inside.

We finished the evening on the balcony again. It was even better. Other lucky parents were out on the balconies too. One was not so lucky- she was walking around outside swinging her infant all the time we were on the balcony.

Day 33 - Klaipeda and Palanga

We woke up at 6am and set about packing pretty much all of our belongings to go to Palanga. We were only going away for 5 days but with Georgia getting extras and us taking beach, summer, and rain clothing it meant pretty much her entire wardrobe and most of ours. We drew the line at potty though. Georgia woke up around 6 as well and followed us around to make sure we would not leave her.

The ride was pretty good. Georgia fell asleep right away and we were entertained on the way to Kaunas by the many billboards on the way. And from Kaunas, where there is the only official highway in the country, we went at 140km/h, which made the rest of the way a breeze. Halfway through the trip Vitalik called us and said they just started their ride.

We walked around the old town. Most of Klaipeda was destroyed during the war so it is hard to tell whether what we were looking at was a new, restored, or fake. Plus the streets were perfectly parallel and that was kind of boring. We checked out a few galleries. The fine art is better, more plentiful, and cheaper than in that Vilnius and Kaunas.

The one thing that really impressed us was the used book store called something like Retro books. They had enormous collection of old Russian books on a wide range of topics. The science fiction section was to die for. They were also very very cheap. It was sad to look these shelves loaded with books, which used to be a part of someone’s collection and life. We did a little to reduce the burden but it was really necessary to spend a lot of time there and we did not have it.
Vitalik called and said they are already near. We went out to the restaurant on the main square for lunch. Like 4 years ago, it was still very good.

Then we drove to Palanga. Having seen Druskeninkai I really did not have very high expectations. However it is really a great place. It was quiet and unassuming. Not too many people on the streets. Not really sure what was so nice about it maybe the company.

The hotel was good too. It looked like a big glass cube and was teeming with young families with children. There must have been 5 strollers left downstairs. The rooms were smallish but sufficient.

We changed and went to the beach. The water was a bit warmer than the air. The beach was not too full and some people were swimming. The water was not as salty as in the ocean. The waves were pretty gentle. Georgia had a great time and played in the water until she froze. Then we went to the sand dune and warmed up. It was Ilyusha’s first trip to the sea, he really liked it. He played with Vitalik while Dina was taking pictures of them.

In the evening we went on the main pedestrian street Basanavichaus. It is like Wildwood meet … I have not seen so many kinds of eye candy in my life. In addition to the standard fares like the cotton candy, carousels, and arcades, there was a scary enormous blown up dinosaur with a scary trip of its insides, a bunch of girls from a strip club were walking next to a bicycle cart and offering rides to their place of work, accompanied by the dances along the way. There were also multiple restaurants, little food carts, smoked fish kiosks.

We stopped by the Ukrainian restaurant and spent a good few hours there. In addition to having some of the best tasting food we ever had in the region, they also have a pool and a large playground. And they have a very funny menu. I stole one so I could take pictures of it in peace. The English version is nothing special but Russian one is the best. And there is no Ukrainian - possibly it cannot convey this kind of poetry.

To end the evening we walked down the pier – the main activity in Palanga. There were a bunch of elderly sitting on the benches on the dune to watch the sunset. Lots of families and couples were walking around, and there were full activities on the beach.

Back at the hotel, as we were watching cartoons, Georgia asked me whether I will wash her panties. I said, “Of course.” She continued, “Then, will it be OK if I pee in them?” This on the account of her being too lazy to get up and walk two meters to the bathroom. Made her get up and use the bathroom. But it was funny.

When we put the kids to sleep we went on the balcony – ours are separated by the grill because we live in the neighboring rooms and had some beers. Other hotel parents were out too.

Tomorrow will be all Palanga and trying to beat the food experiences of today.

Day 32 - Preparations in the city

In the morning the first stop was to feed the pigeons. We are out of sunflower seeds so now we use stale bread and buns. Some older guy beat us to it by emptying a small bag of some grains on the ground. The pigeons clearly preferred the nutritional aspect of the single grain as opposed to the multigrain. The good thing they were done in about 10 minutes and moved on to our little pile. If there are other feeders the birds must be consuming thousands of calories daily.

Next we dropped into the University pharmacy. I have a lot of respect for the place because of its smell. I tried to get some hand sanitizer since it is not sold in the supermarket. They did not have it there either. Oh, well. The next stop was the University book store.

I am still trying to find the first book of Max Frei series to give to Vitalik to read during our Palanga stay. They did not have it. But they had a Lithuanian fairy tale book with beautiful illustrations. It was in English so we got it. They also have a very impressive collection of books related to the Holocaust in Vilnius. We got a memoir by Rahel Margolis called something like "A bit of light in the darkness" for Mike S's dad. It is pretty interesting. I might read it myself. I was looking for the references about this book and found an interesting site that looks at the history of Vilnius 100 years ago: http://szhaman.livejournal.com/180254.html.

In front of the Presidential Palace there were some military exercises in conjuntion with the practice of the military band. Georgia was impressed, but they really should have practiced in private a bit more: they did not do all the motions at the same time, like syncronous swimmers, one guy dropped his shotgun when they were rotating them, and the other guy lost the sharp stick in the end. The military band was very good though and there were even a few women in it. Georgia said she wants to marry one of the soldiers. We agreed that she will wait until she grows up and if she is still interested we will look into it.

The cathedral square was teeming with activity: the concert organizers were continuing to bring in the benches, new kiosks were being contructed every where, and the sound team was testing out the mics. The lower castle finally got the knight on a horse put above the main gate. I am hoping that they would open the construction gates soon.

Even the youth park had a straw sculpture in the front. And we are going to be away through all of this!

I had a feeling we will not make it to the Japanese exhibition so we dropped into a gallery in a courtyard on Sitadarzio gatve (right off of Maironio) to consume our daily balance of the beautiful. Unfortunately it is of the type "Pass some more purple, or green, or whatever." We walked around under the watchful eyes of the two people who were in there. And left.

We ate lunch at the Old City Bistro, which is where the burger place used to be in front of our last apartment on Vokieciu. Basically only the sign outside had changed. Inside it was the same fare and service. They did not even have any soda so we had our cheeseburgers with fries and water. And you have to pay separately for ketchup. Dan went across the street to Iki and got us a whole bottle for 2 litas. They will have to do a bit more than change the name to make this place better.

Alicia came in the afternoon and we went to Tzarskoe Selo for dinner. Another oldie and but this time formerly goodie.

We walked around the city in the evening. It felt like the majority of 500,000 residents of Vilnius are trying to get together on the cathedral square. It was really crowded and even more people were coming from Gediminas p. and other streets. Policemen were zooming around on their Segways. But even though we stayed around past 9pm, there was nothing playing. Maybe it was something scheduled for 10pm. However we have to get up early tomorrow so we left.

A view from our balcony at night:

Note about the upcoming posts

We have about 28 days left here. We will be doing a lot of travelling. I don't know if I will have enough time to continue blogging publicly. I will maintain a private log though on the ad hoc basis. If there is still continued interest in seeing the updates, please respond with a comment or a note.

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.

Day 30 - Last day before all the fun starts

Nothing new to report today. Went to the salon with Georgia, she watched cartoons, I did nails. For lunch we went to Wok to Walk. In the evening to the youth park and around Totoriu street.

Tomorrow we will have our tour of Kazio museum and then another afternoon activity. On Wednesday, we will try to hit the Japanese exhibition and a few small ones at the city hall. And on Thursday, we are off to Palanga.

Some wall art on Boksto gatve:

On the fun note, the author of Max Frei lives in Vilnius. I looked at the author's blog and many of the pictures are of the places we walk aroud. So, the author is out here somewhere. We had been trying to find the first book of Max Frei series in the stores and it is not available. All the others can be found, just not this one.

Days 28-29 - Intense weekend activities

It was a pretty busy weekend on terms of relaxing. It is now only 10:30pm on Sunday and I am not even sure I will stay awake long enough to finish it.

On Saturday morning we went to Vingis park. We initially thought to go to Moletai but the sky was overcast and the rain looked promising. But halfway there the sky cleared and it got pretty hot.

On the way we passed the makeshift memorial to Michael Jackson. You can hear people talk about him everywhere.

Cute engraving on the engagement lock on a bridge to Zverinas.

Near Vingis we walked into the Church of the Apparition of the Holy Mother of God (a hell of the name). It was empty safe for a single person standing in front of the main altar. But the mass was going on and priest's voice seemed to be coming from everywhere. Dan finally spotted him in front of the single parishioner. The acoustics in the place are something else. The church is beatifully restored inside and almost finished on the outside as well. The priest drives a brand new Mazda sedan. With the incredible turnout, I wonder where did he raise the funds to put all the work into the church. And in general, with the parishioners not required to give a portion of their income to church, fund-raising must be one of the key activities of the churches.

A formerly pretty house in Zverinas. Probably worth millions now. I am serious. The property values had fallen here but they are still at crazy levels where it is cheaper to buy an apartment in a middle of Paris than one in the center of Vilnius. It is all probably going to stop once they introduce property taxes and make people pay to support all the historical and otherwise properties that they had appropriated and are just sitting on top of.

The park was very nice. The wild strawberries are so plentiful that it is like a weed. Georgia went on a few rides she was not ready for last time. Dan and I were watching with great fear her going up and down in a rickety white swan, while smiling and waving.

Then we walked back home planning to go to get a vacuum cleaner for Alicia and some Russian books for Georgia. On the way we passed many weddings and a bachelor party where the groom to be was carrying a fully inflated rubber boat and a tip jar. There were also two girls sitting in the pizza place next door, all dressed up and looking miserable about it, do not know why.

We were very impressed by the book store near Alicia. They have lots of training materials for school. We got magnetic Russian alphabet and this book. Very happy about the book, though don't care of the manual at the end. We will definitely be back. Can take orders. On a later note, we opened up the magnetic alphabet, 10th Kingdom brand, and the magnets were separate from the letters. The whole family sat together for 30 minutes and put them together. In the end 5-6 magnets were missing. But I guess it was a good little family project.

Dan set up the vaccuum cleaner and proved that there is more than meets the eye inside the carpet. Incidentally the huge variety of choices as far as vaccuum cleaners are concerned is very cool to see but with the market of this size is not sustainable. There were four double shelf rows with not a single one repeating. Reminded us of the Hyper Maxima when it used to really be Hyper.

Then we went home and waited for Vitalik and his family. Treated them to the fourth version of the cold borsht. Apparently to take it to the next level you have to use the beets marinated in the apple juice instead of simply being boiled. I will never master the art.

We had a really good time. In the evening we walked outside and went to the youth park for the little ones to catch some more fresh air. It was warm but there was a pleasant cool breeze. There were lots of people out at 10pm. Dina said almost felt like a resort town.

The next day we had a BBQ planned at Lazutkas dacha. Off we went at 10 am and came back at 8:30pm. The dacha is located in an awesome spot on the cul de sac next to the lake. The house is solidly constructed and has a several fire places, 2 decks, and a pool with a sauna in the basement. Unfortunately because the family did not figure out internally who is responsible for the place pretty much no one is taking care of it and it is slowly falling apart. As of now they don't have running water because a pipe burst in the basement. Makes going to the basement bathroom really fun. Also, some vandals visited the place while they were away during the week and burned through some furniture on the bottom deck. And they too have a dead bird in the back.

Georgia enjoyed hanging out with the load of kids who were there, while we were with the adults. There was many of them. We also tried out the water of the lake. The ice had melted but it is still not a swimmable place for the spoiled NJ folk. Georgia did get in up to her waist.

In the middle of the day it started pouring like mad and we ran inside. They moved all the stuff onto the covered lower deck and with occasional power failures it was really cozy and pleasant being there. After the rain the air got very fresh and we walked around dashas sampling the ripening berries: cherries, wild strawberries, and currants.