The time I left Conway in Lithuania

Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, Ireland, London, Warsaw, Amsterdam, and now Vilnius.  What do they all have in common?  These are all the places Conway and I have hung out in.  Not a bad list for 2 friends who have only known each other for a few years and have never lived in the same city.  I might even be forgetting some places.  It's actually pretty incredible when you think about it.  I only know a few people with the same spontaneity and willingness to book 1,000 trips per month like Jess. And since we both have that desire to travel during the limited time we are each living in Europe (she lives in London), we figured we better find somewhere else to go before either of us moves back to the US.  We contemplated some warm-ish places like Morocco or Madrid, or arctic places like Helsinki, but in the end we settled on the city that was one of the cheapest to fly to on Skyscanner that neither of us had been to.  I've wanted to go to Vilnius for a while now, so this was a great opportunity.  In case you don't know where Vilnius is, it's Lithuania, Poland's neighbor to the north.

In the center of Vilnius

Vilnius at night

The bus from the airport to the Old Town was easy (although they came infrequently), and I made my way to the hostel - Jimmy Jumps House.  The hostel was in a great location in the Old Town, was extremely friendly (the staff were the smiliest people I've met in a while, and all the guests were extremely social), it was very clean, and the price was right.  I definitely recommend it.  There were only 3 rooms in the hostel (a 12 person room, a 6 person room, and a 4 person room) and 2 single bathrooms.  There were no locks on the doors to the sleeping rooms (although lockers were available), and there was a big living room/kitchen, so it actually felt like we were staying in someone's big house.  It was a nice environment, and the girls who worked there made us delicious waffles for breakfast.  I knew I would love it when I saw the sign that asked everyone to take their shoes off before entering.  Ah yes, just like home.  The girls working there sometimes worked 24 or 36 hours STRAIGHT (alone), just sleeping for a few hours in a closet at night when all was quiet.  They called it a "room", but really it was a closet.  the fact that they loved working there spoke very highly of the place. Jess and I shared the 4 bed room with another guy, who to my delight, was Polish.

When he first told me he name was Tomek, my first reaction was "whoa! skąd jesteś?" (whoa! where are you from?) and he said in English "Poland, I studied near Krakow".  I excitedly exclaimed "Mieszkam w Warszawie!" (I live in Warsaw) and he responded with "so you don't speak Polish?".  Pshhhhhhhhh. That's the sound of my deflating enthusiasm for speaking Polish.  I'm going to pretend he actually meant it in a way to say "you speak Polish, don't you?" which makes me feel much better.  Well, to be honest, it only took a few more sentences for him to realize I do in fact speak a little Polish.  Like a Polish 1 year old.

I had asked a few friends (and random people I met) before the visit what we should eat in Lithuania.  They all responded with the same suggestion: Cepelinai (aka didzukuliai, duh), which are ginormous potato dumplings filled with meat, topped with cream, bacon and bacon grease (they call them "zeppelins" in English because they're shaped like blimps - and I assume if you eat too many of them, you also become the shape of a blimp).  They also suggested Saltibarsciai, which is cold beet soup with eggs, veggies, sour cream, and a side of hot potatoes.  The soup was pretty good, even though I don't like beets, but the side of potatoes was my favorite part.  It's just funny to get a side of potatoes with soup (and they're not french fries).  These dishes are similar to others around this part of Europe, but of course, everyone has their own spin.  For drinks, they suggested Svyturys beer.  I asked the waitress how to pronounce it, but even after 3 attempts, I couldn't figure out what she said, so I just call it "Saturdays". It kind of looks like the word "Saturdays", right?  Svyturys. Saturdays. Same same.  You already know that they don't have a lot of vowels in this part of the world, because times are tough, and like in Wheel of Fortune, vowels must cost $250.  The most popular vodka in Lithuania is actually called "Lithuanian Original Vodka".  Very original indeed.

Cepelinai - potato dumplings with meat filling

Saltibarsciai with a side of potatoes and Saturdays beer

I have to admit that the food doesn't look extremely appetizing, but it was delicious.  Even this "potato sausage" thing, which looks like something that came out of somewhere I can't say, tasted pretty good...as long as I closed my eyes while eating it.  It was hard for Conway not to make farting noises while I was taking bites, which of course made it very enjoyable.  Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to try "pig ears".  Apparently it's a very popular bar snack, and is exactly what it sounds like...pig ears.  Goes well with Saturdays beer and Lithuanian Original Vodka.

Potato sausage - please don't say what you think it looks like

The Old Town is a very nice mix of old and modern.  There are several cobble stone streets and old style buildings, but also some areas with a nice, new feel to it.  Perched above the city are the remains of a 600 year old castle, from which there are great views of the city.  Vilnius is also where the 2 million person human chain started in 1989, which stretched through Riga (Latvia) to Tallinn (Estonia) to show their united desire for independence from the USSR.

Old Castle tower

View of the city from the tower - old on one side of the river, new on the other

After wandering around a bit, we made our way to the Museum of Genocide Victims (aka the KGB museum).  Like many of the countries in this part of the world, Lithuania was victim to both Nazi and Soviet oppression.  This museum did a nice job of showing what life was like for those in the city even after WWII ended.  Anyone that was against the Communist regime was watched by the KGB, many disappeared, were arrested, or shipped to Siberian work prisons.  The museum is located in the old KGB headquarters, so we even saw the old holding cells and alleged torture rooms.  It was very scary to think this stuff happened to those who fought against Communism, but also sobering to think about where these countries would be now if these brave people around the region didn't stand up for themselves. On a maybe inappropriate side note, the museum smelled like someone was cooking sausages when we went in there, which was torture to me, because it smelled amazing.  I also took some pictures in there, which were not allowed. Talk about irony: taking unauthorized pictures in a museum about Soviets who spied on and tortured those who deceived them.  I expected to be caught on secret cameras and arrested as I left the museum

One of the torture rooms - they filled it with cold water, so you had to either stand in the water, or balance on the little platform in the middle

Extremely creepy display of a straight-jacket in another holding cell

This chalkboard says it all (the drawings, not the words)

This museum also made me start to wonder if we have a museum about the Japanese internment in the US. Does anyone know?  

It also reminded me of a movie I saw recently with Ed Harris and Colin Farell about people who escaped from one of these Siberian prison camps and walked "home", called "The Way Back". Check out the trailer if you haven't seen it.

When we left the museum, we were both very tired (and let's be honest, a bit hungover), and to our delight there was a big parade starting just outside.  And when I mean delight, I mean the opposite of delight.  The parade kept following us, out of museum, down the street, making loud and off-beat noises.  We tried to walk faster, but we were looking for food, and every time we stopped for a minute to check out a restaurant, we decided to keep going, and the parade would catch up to us again.  The drums were loud and they had vuvuzelas (they're even more annoying when they're not at a soccer game).  Once we finally escaped the parade, we stumbled onto a street of more annoying sounds - honking, bike horns, sirens, crying, bells, accordians, squeeky dog toys, and pretty much everything else you do not love listening to on a lazy weekend stroll.

The parade followed us down this street

On the last night, one of the workers from the hostel took 12 of us out on a pub crawl.  There were people from Australia, Spain, Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, US, and of course our Polish friend (who disappeared for 2 hours after drinking two 2-liters of beer, but then found his way to us).  Yea, they sell beer in 2-liter plastic bottles (like a big Sprite or Coke).  Mr. Poland killed two of them before we even left the hostel.  We went to a few different places and had a great time.  A lot of the bars are situated with tables and chairs everywhere, so everyone sits down (no standing, unless it's a club).  This, and the fact that every bar seemed to have a foosball table, was something different about bars in Vilnius.  As far as the group, there is just something fun about hanging out with a bunch of people you just met an hour earlier, like you've been friends for a long time.  We went to one of the bars both nights, and saw the same people there...one guy with a hoodie that Conway took pictures with both nights, and another girl who is Jessica Schwartz's Lithuanian Original Doppleganger (i.e. she looked exactly like her!).  Those pictures can only be seen in my Facebook album, to protect the innocent.

Crew from Jimmy Jumps

Unfortunately one of us had a little too much fun that night, and had to stay in Vilnius an extra night because he/she physically couldn't get on her plane.  We got to the airport, were about to go through security, and as he/she was crouched on the floor in the fetal position, he/she said to me "I can't do it.  Leave me.  Save yourself".  After comforting him/her, I didn't think there was anything else to do but to tell the airline people that my friend was going to need to change their flight and to ask if they could please keep an eye on him/her ("Which friend, you ask? oh, the one over there curled up into a ball under the bench").   To be fair, the ailment didn't seem 100% alcohol related, but I will make fun of him/her as if it was. And you can too (it's a she).

One funny cultural thing that has seems to be more and more prevalent lately is what people in this part of the world associate with Seattle, my home town.  Everyone has heard of it, but 5-10 years ago, people told me they heard of it because of the movie Sleepless in Seattle, the Sonics basketball team, or maybe the show Grey's Anatomy.  However, recently, it seems like more and more people don't know what those things are, and instead think of Nirvana.  Think about it for a minute, and it doesn't really make sense, since Nirvana was popular in the 90s, a longer time ago than those other Seattle "icons".  But somehow, Nirvana has stood the test of time, and is more popular now than these TV shows or movies about Seattle.  There was even a signed poster of Kurt Cobain in one of the bars we were in, and a guy in the hostel was playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on his guitar.  Unfortunately there were no signed Sonics posters (even though basketball is the biggest sport in Lithuania, and a Lithuanian guy even played for the Sonics - Sarunas Marciulionis - I feel sorry for the Sonics announcer when he had to say that name 50 times per night).

So the weekend in Vilnius was a success (at least for one of us), and thus my journeys to all 3 Baltic capitals is complete.  One thing we didn't get to do was visit Trakai, a small island/castle about 30 km from Vilnius.  I guess there's always next time.