Ūkyje

My last weekend I got to spend on a family farm. The weekend included trimming apple trees, repairing the roof of a greenhouse, and going to the town where my grandpa Jonaitis lived. Before I went though, I snuck in a local basketball game where the hometown was playing in the Baltic tourney.


Dancers with cow mascot




This is what awaited me when I came to the farm... bandukės, but they were not the normal bacon-filled rolls I am used to but were sweet and had either apples or a cheesy type filling.
Local hard honey
This is one of the greenhouses they have where they are starting all their seedlings or other plants. Here you can see onions and something else I cannot remember on the right.
Here's some more tomatoes.
Potatoes, a main staple here.
The wood stove that heated water pipes that ran throughout the greenhouse to keep the place warm at night. Loading the stove at night was another job I helped with.
Some farm equipment
Here you can see most of the farm. The farm with many of its structures was actually purchased a few years back by another company or cooperation of some sort. The farm house is on the right with the red roof.
The cross in front of the old house on the farm where my grandpa's sister lived. The house you see in the background is similar, but is actually the neighbor's house, not the sister's house.
It was pretty muddy
They had chickens and...
these creatures. I already made tacos with them, and it turned out great. Apparently people just die for the meat of these guys.
There's still reserves to last the rest of spring. On the top shelf, there are some jars that look like they have olives. They are actually some berries that grow on a bush on the farm that taste a lot like kiwis. They are in the jar as a juice concentrate.
This is the church where my grandpa grew up. In fact, this is where he was captured along with many others by the Germans on a Sunday while attending mass when the Germans were retreating from Russia.

There were no palms used during mass, just evergreen branchs and pussy willows.

One of the day's excitement included shooting the air rifle, something I had not done in quite some time. We had a competition among us 4 who would do the best. Well my first shot hit the bulls eye and the second was just next to it. I was just happy to know that I had hit the target.
The recent addition to the town, a metal sculpture of a fox that sits along the lake, which unfortunately is very polluted and is said to have a parasitic worm that is only found in 4 or so more lakes in the world.
The golden archer in town. Hopefully I will get this right. The town first came to be during a battle that was occurring in this area. The golden archer shot his arrow and where it landed is the current site of the town.
I am not really a cat person, but I think it is a loose belief that cats have healing powers. Strangely enough, the house cats I have met all like to rest on people, including me. Here it stopped directly over my heart.


Finally the weekend also included seeing some pictures that I have already seen of my grandpa and grandma Jonaitis when they were in the US. Here's my grandpa and grandma. My grandpa has just recently arrived to MI. He weighs only 55kg!

Atsiprašau. Nekalbu lietuviškai.

My first week in Lithuania I kinda felt like I was in a coma at times because I was having a hard time adjusting to the time difference. I might finally fall asleep at about midnight and then only wake up at 3 to a stomach wondering where dinner was. I would study some Lithuanian for a couple hours to fall back asleep at about 5 or 6 only to wake up at 8 or earlier. I am not good at not getting sleep, but actually I did well, probably mostly because I had very few things I needed to do. The 1 goal for that week was to talk with 2 high schools about helping with English, which I did. Both were extremely receptive and happy to have me as a volunteer. I offered to come in one day a week to do mainly some speech and listening comprehension. I actually started at one of the schools Thursday and it went really well. The teachers were happy to have me and the students were participating so much I really would have had to prepare little for the lesson. The paid part of my experience, as I soon was able to understand when I got to Lithuania, could possibly come from helping in the town university. The students of course want to better their English understanding but also the professors want some help. I will meet with the university during Holy week so we will have to see how that goes. I also will meet with another high school where my cousins that I live with go to. This will also be a volunteer position. So a good outcome to all of this would give a schedule that would be teaching in the high school as a volunteer for 3 days and teaching for some minimal pay at the university 2 days of the week.
Besides this planning, I also was being led around by the hand through the city so that I could get around by myself in this small town and could use the buses. I walked around quite a bit (of course most of the time accompanied) and surely confused some people when I was doing my own personal English-Lithuanian language lesson on produce in the supermarket.
On another note, learning Lithuanian has proved to be a huge challenge, something I can see that will almost surely not be done by me in the time that I here while living in an English environment. I have heard and read that it is one of the toughest languages, some ranking it as 2nd or 3rd. When I first saw the word declension, I had urges of jumping out of a window. All I know is that it's definitely a lot harder than Spanish. But that is OK. I am surely going to continue with my personal lessons but not get upset when a native mistakes me even after 6 months.
Finally, as I am sure I will be through out my time here, I am very thankful my extended family has been helping me out so much and speaking a lot of English. Without for them, I know I could not transition as easily nor have the connections with the schools they had already arranged.
First sunny day and the Lithuanian flag
I got to see a musical my first week in town. Here are 2 shots I took. The musical was called the Devil's Bride.



The apartment complex where I live

Cabbage rolls... I forgot the potatoes.

Wild blueberries and raspberries from the farm


I guess seeing all that food got the pet turtle hungry too.

Pirmos 24 Valandos

My first stop heading to Chicago with my family was not very far. It was Sobie's Meats. I just had to bring some beef jerky and get a picture of the Lithuanian flag.




Then, it was a stop in old Lithuanian town in Chicago to get some bread for others back home.






So this is what I left.... a green, warm Chicago.I had a great start on the plane.... I got 2 meals, including this one, which included my choices of beer or wine at no cost. I think I will be flying SAS again.But then, I woke up to this in Stockholm. Where's the green.

Here are some pictures of Stockholm that I took during my layover. Unfortunately, all the churches were closed until May and the castle was closed for the morning, so really these are just some outside street shots.

You can see that Stockholm sits by the sea and it as well as its surrounding are just a bunch of islands.
The royal church where the big wedding will be taking place sometime this summer. Apparently according to the advertisements, Sweden is love in 2010.

Loyal guard of the crown.

Some of the royal castle.

Another church in the old section...Riddarholmen Church

So my first full day in Lithuania, was the same day that coincided with the 25th anniversary of the death of my Lithuanian grandma. So I, with my cousins, went to the Hill of Crosses on this dreary day to put rosaries and crosses from my family in the US on the family cross in the Hill of Crosses. I cannot tell you much about it right now, as we could not stay long since the baby of my cousin was getting sick. I can tell you though that this site was bulldozed down many times when the Soviets occupied Lithuania, and that overnight, there would be more crosses erected. This place definitely shows the craftsmanship that the people have for carving wood.



Here, a newly-wed couple is picking out a place for their future family cross.


The big Franciscan cross is our family cross. Luckily there was a place to put the rosaries on.

Sveiki lietuva

Here's a little background to my blog and why I am here in Lithuania.

Lithuania, which is not a country in Africa, was where one of my grandparents was born. Basically, I have always wanted to go the country where he is from and meet the family we still have there. I was never taught Lithuanian growing up, so I also thought I could learn a little Lithuanian. With as complex as Lithuanian is (it happens to be one of the oldest Indo-European languages still existing), I am not sure how little I can learn. I am certainly up for trying though. Thank goodness for family that speak English. They are helping me a ton. I have no idea for sure how long I will be staying, but a few months is very possible. That is another reason why I came when I did. I wanted to come when I still had the flexibility of coming for a longer period of time.

I got to Lithuania without any problem a couple of days ago. On the way, I had a long layover in Stockholm and managed to see a little bit of the old city. I had to choose between sleeping, which I really needed, and site-seeing. I had no idea if I would ever be there again so I decided to postpone sleeping. All I have to say is that I am so lucky that I know English. If that were not the case, I may not have been able to do what I wanted with such ease.

Oh, and the name of the blog, dienos saulėje, means days in the sun. I chose that because the city where I am staying means sun city.

And just another fun fact... This year just happens to be the 1000th anniversary of the first time Lithuania was formed. I am guessing there will be some neat festivals to attend.

As always, I will be posting some pictures in future posts. Anyone who wants to be a "follower" can just sign up by clicking the link on my blog.

Iki pasimatymo,

Joe