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.