Lithuania!!!

Last weekend I went on a weekend trip to Lithuania. I got a lot of  “Why are you going there” questions – even from my friends here that travel all the time. Clearly, it's not a place commonly traveled to. The trip was organized by a group of my American friends who have lived here for a couple of years and wanted to find a place that no one had been yet. Bingo!  

As much as I didn’t know what to expect when I left London, the trip reminded me what it was I have loved about European travel all these years. It re-centered me. It actually relaxed me, which is not something that a 2-day trip usually does. (It relaxed me so much I actually napped Saturday afternoon which literally never happens!) It also brought back my memory of all of those trips I took around Italy 8+ years ago when the only word I could come up with to describe it was “beautiful”. I remember walking through Sienna and Lucca and Pisa and at the time, I was awestruck by the different world I was walking around in, but unless you’ve ever been somewhere like that it’s really hard to put into words. And beautiful just doesn’t do it justice, but it’s your best attempt. That’s how Lithuania was for me. I’m going to have to settle on saying it was a fantastic trip, and completely beautiful. But really it was so much more. And I realized again that I really relish the trips to more obscure places where you can soak up the local culture. 

So Friday I flew into the city of Vilnius – the capital of Lithuania – with the group of KPMG-ers that I met here. (Jenny and her husband Matt have been awesome at helping me out with tips prior to arriving here, and befriending me since I’ve been here).  The group already had a handle on what was going on, so I was pretty much just along for the ride, which was unusual but enjoyable for me.

First off, it was frigid cold when we arrived. Like 16 degrees F. Be assured I brought my Sorel boots (they have been the best investment of my life, and I actually wore them all weekend long), my Russian hat (I think you’re probably familiar with this from my last trip), my warm mittens and I was bundled up all weekend.

Everything about this trip was reminiscent of small-town Italy travel to me. We stayed at a small, local hotel that had free breakfast every morning. Picture an Eastern European woman speaking forcefully at you each morning, asking you whether you’d like pancakes or eggs. They also seemed to have a weird fascination with rabbits feet. I'm not sure why, but even our hotel key was on a rabbit's foot keychain.

Everything in Lithuania was dirt cheap compared to London. We all kept commenting about how we couldn’t believe how inexpensive it was. The windy cobblestone roads, the stucko colorful buildings and the amazing Catholic churches all told a story of a city that’s been around so much longer than anything we can even fathom. It really was stunning.

It also was NOT a touristy town at all, which Jenny and I were discussing made it so much cooler. It was so non-touristy, that one of the Lithuanian guys at a bar asked me if I was Italian. Nope. Then Spanish. Nope. And it was like the seemingly-obvious answer of American didn’t even occur to him because it was so unusual!

It was DIRT CHEAP compared to London. I think we’re all still in a bit of awe that we spent so little. It was kind of funny how willing everyone is to buy rounds when you get 11 beers and somehow spend like 30 lita (their currency).

It was also an extremely Catholic city, which I have to admit was pretty incredible to witness for me. There were catholic churches everywhere. One of my favorite things in Italy had been just touring the different churches and looking at the art inside.

We went into the Cathedral on Saturday to check it out, and some women were singing some sort of prayers while we were there. It took all of us a bit of time to determine where the singing was coming from. They had the most hauntingly beautiful voices. It sort of made the experience to have the soundtrack to them singing in Lithuanian.

 It also was Palm Sunday while we were there (which I admittedly forgot). ALL of the churches were spilling over with people. Dozens of people standing outside the doors for the entire mass that was being broadcast on speakers out in front. And all of the markets were selling assortments of flowers and branches that you could select from and put together into your own special set of “palms”. 

I wikipedia-ed it (because I was so curious about the traditions), and apparently palms aren’t very common in Eastern Europe – not a shocker – so they take special care to put together well-formed branches and flowers instead. 

Other than that, most of the weekend we just walked around and checked out the sites. Ate good food. Relaxed and just enjoyed another culture.

Jenny and I at the market on Sunday

The streets were lit in a really cool way at night.

An outdoor market with art for sale.

Some of the highlights in my opinion were:

Live chickens in the restaurant – The first night we just wandered (very late I might add) into the first place we saw that had signs of life. We later read up in our guidebook that we actually went to the “TGI Fridays” of Lithuania. Sweet. Great selection. 

However it was especially funny that there were live chickens just chilling in the front of the restaurant. Ha!

I do have to say… TGI Fridays is looking quite a bit better over there. And they also had these huge beer…thingys (I don’t remember what they were called!!!) that you could buy by the liter. Let’s not talk about the fact that our group of 11 took down 19 liters of beer that night. Ugh.

Fried Bread – Yep, you heard me right. It’s apparently a popular thing there. So we got it everywhere we went. They were all different. Wish I could say it was gross. I just can’t. It was good.

Awesome Food – They have a very different diet than we do here. Some of the common things that made appearances on our dinner table were: beet soup

wild boar, and beaver stew.

Actually we had several traditional Lithuanian meals. Saturday night was our big night out and we literally were guided down this narrow little hallway into a basement room just for us.

We also happened to eat surrounded by bear heads. No big deal.

Coffee Inn – It’s their “starbucks”. If you ever go to Lithuania, go to Coffee Inn. They are kind of artsy. Each of them are intentionally decorated differently. And in my opinion it’s the best coffee I’ve had since arriving in Europe. (Fighting words).

The Genocide Museum – I know this sounds disturbing. It was. But the especially interesting part to me is that as Americans, when we hear “genocide” I tend to immediately think of the Holocaust. However most of the persecution of the extremely-Catholic Lithuanian culture was by the Soviets. And it didn’t stop in the 1940s. Apparently they were occupied and had KGB forces in Lithuania until the early 1990s!!!! Its so crazy how unaware we are of things going on so recently. Let’s just say that walking through the old KGB prison cells in the basement was nothing short of creepy. Especially the soundproof room with a straightjacket, and the solitary confinement “with water” room (which was a particular form of torture where they made the prisoners balance on a little circle over freezing cold water for hours).

Some of the other random – but definitely worth mentioning – things we saw and did are as follows….

Ate pigs ear – I highly recommend NEVER doing this. I still want to vomit at the smell of bacon.

I fell asleep IN the bar, on purpose, twice. Look, I’m not sure who decided that 19 liters of beer was a good idea, but around 3 am, I’d reached my limit.

The Constitution - We were walking around and randomly found this wall with the town's "Constitution" written in like 8 different languages. It was pretty cool. And pretty hilarious given some of the things on the constitution....I particularly liked "A dog has a right to be a dog."

Spinning wheels – Sleeping Beauty style. Not sure why, but at 3 of the restaurants/bars we went to, spinning wheels were a decoration.

A series of funny incidents surrounding cough syrup. I’m still recovering from this damn cold/flu/cough sickness I’ve had. I got the airport prepared as can be with tons of cough syrup options. Silly me…security took them ALL. I tried not to get too mad at him, but I was irritated as crap when I had to re-buy all the same meds. So after all that hassle, when I accidentally took the nighttime cough syrup before going to dinner the second day, I kind of panicked. I actually thought about trying to throw up. I mean I fell asleep at the bar the night before, and the last time I took that stuff it made me delusional. So I was pretty convinced I’d be passing out at the dinner table. A couple of shots of espresso later, I’m pretty sure my body was completely confused with what I wanted it to do….

Here are a few other photos from our wandering around. I have to say that it was one of the best weekends I could imagine. 

Just paintings along several of the streets

We walked up to this old castle overlooking the city

I was trying to pretend I was sneaking inside and some woman yelled at me through the door to "shut the door"!!!

Group shot before we went inside

Posing with the soldier

Cool view from inside

Britta and I at the top of the castle

There was also a few streets that had wall art by local artists that was really cool

One of the pieces of art was referencing Illinois, so we got a picture with everyone in the crew from Chicago!

Apparently Estonia is also supposed to be incredibly beautiful – particularly in the summertime – as well, so after this trip I’m planning a weekend where I can explore the beach and countryside towns in warmer weather!