Iki Lietuva, und Bremen

Goodbye Lithuania!

Here are 2 pictures of Kaunas, the 2nd largest city in Lithuania. The one below is where the 2 main rivers connect forming a narrow point. It is hard to see, but look for the dark arrow shape.

From Kaunas, I landed in Bremen. For some reason, there were a few statues of farmers and farm animals.
This is a memorial in a church for Germans that died during WWII.
In the background, you can see the cathedral (St. Peter's) in which I would later go and tour the museum.
This is the town hall built in the early 1400's. It is an especially elaborate one for N. Germany, which signifies the city's importance in the past. In front, but very hard to see, is a statue of Roland, seen in the photo below too. It is a representation of city rights and liberties. There were more, but this statue in Bremen is the best preserved. The town hall and statue represent a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Inside St. Peter's
A very old mural in restoration. It is of Jesus when the guards were fighting over his cloak.
An old mitre found in the crypt during the restoration. On it are Sts. Peter and Paul.
White asparagus! White is actually a lot more common here than green.
Duck house on the river.
Central Station. The trams and buses gathered outside. The main building for the trains is in the darker building in the top left half.
This just seemed like a weird casino, which was one of many in Bremen. Even the pictures on the building seem weird. Maybe the odds are out of this world?
A small garden with flowers and lettuce and sunflowers among a few other things.
The river running through Bremen. Bremen sits very close to the sea to the north. One thing I learned was that there was a big trade of tea at one point through Bremen.
All over in Europe, as I think I said, parking garages tell you how many spaces are available. How smart.
Poor Dudu. I guess the name really does exist.
I took these two pictures walking through some neighborhoods, which were quite beautiful and historical.


Here I am at the tram station at the airport when I was supposed to take off to Croatia.

Before taking off from Bremen by train while I was eating a frankfurter, I took a moment to calm down (because I don't like changing plans suddenly) and listened to a song from a group of performing sailors.
Germany lost a game in the World Cup while I was there. This is a possible casualty.

Changes in the plan

The plan was to go to Croatia, as I mentioned. I bought the tickets and would need to go to Bremen Germany first for two nights before I could continue on with a second flight to Zadar, Croatia. Around the time of my last weekend in Lithuania though, I started to have some health problems strange enough that I got them checked out at a Lithuanian doctor. Nothing was found thankfully and I was given some antibiotics a day before I was leaving for Germany. Well, I went to Bremen toured the city while I was waiting for my next flight, which as I said would be in 2 days. The morning of the day that I had my flight to Germany, my last day that my tourist visa was good for, my health problem showed up again. I normally do not make hasty decisions, but by the time I took the tram to the airport, I already knew I would purposely miss the flight. I just went straight to the other side of the track and waited for a return tram to the city. There I bought some tea, ate a frankfurter, and bought the next ticket to Spain where at least I could speak the language. I mean in Croatia, I not only knew no one, (well actually I met some very kind people in Bremen who were going to help me out) but I could not speak the language. 25 hours later after going through Cologne and Brussels and Paris, I made it to Spain, from where I am writing to you now. I feel fine and serious causes have been ruled out, so things are looking good. It will be at least a week though before we figure out what exactly is going on. I have very kind friends who are taking care of me. So no need to worry, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am not in Lithuania nor Croatia. I am just relaxing, and enjoying the hot sun, which was not present in Lithuania.

Vilniuje su Justinu

After the weekend near the coast, the next day (Monday morning), I took a train to Vilnius, where Justinas would be. In my nearly 3 months there, I still had not gone. I went to Gediminas castle, Trakai castle, the cathedral, other Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, and just walked around in general. I think the most interesting little find was that there was a tiny neighborhood called across the river which had it's own constitution. On the bridges to get to this neighborhood (becuase to do so, you needed to cross the river), they were tons of locks with engravings. They were put on by couples who were married to symbolize their commitment. Unfortunately though, the pictures did not get transferred to my flash drive, but somehow I have the videos. So, you will not get to see very much. There are 2 pictures that Justinas took and 3 videos, one video which was a mistake but I posted it so that you could have one more thing to see.

Midievel armor at Gediminas castle. Really the castle is more like a fortress. It is not very impressive when comparing it to German castles of Bavaria, but it has an interesting history. One time the ruler Gediminas had a dream, and a wolf spoke to him saying that he should build this castle on the hill where the castle is currently. This place, the wolf said, would become a very prosperous city in all of Europe. So of course he did, and now we have Vilnius.

This was at Trakai castle. I have no pictures of the castle, but you can see a wall. The castle was situated on an island in the middle of a lake. At one point it was destroyed by Russians and locals used the bricks for their private uses, but now is has been completely restored. I did a little practice using a old bow and arrow. I hit the target, which was big, but I think if I ever hunt for something living and moving, I better practice a lot more. To my defense though, there was not even a sight to line up to the target.

So this is an outlook from Gediminas castle of Vilnius. The larger river you see is not the river you need to cross to get to that special "across-the-river" community. That river is much smaller. I tried zooming in on a green-roofed Russian Orthodox church I would visit later on, but it did not focus very well.

Here is a small, but very famous chapel with the picture Merciful Mary as its main thing that brings tons of people. I was talking with a Polish person in Spain (you'll understand why later why I say Spain) who said that Polish people consider themselves to have 2 very important pictures of Mary. One in a Polish city, and the other in Vilnius, which actually was owned by Poland for some time. In fact, when I went to the chapel, a mass, which had to have been in Polish, began. It was for a small Polish parish group, I presume, that was visiting. As you can see by the video, the place is rather small. It is actually located directly above the street in a bridge/arch. The chapel is called Dawn's gate, which was part of the gates and wall that used to surround old Vilnius. As far as I rememeber, this is the last one standing.

And finally, this was the 3-second, accidental film. It shows wild mushrooms and wild strawberries for sale in the market in Vilnius.

Paskutinis Savaitgalis Lietuvoje

After having exhausting all options that I could think of and having some exhausting and frustrating days running around town trying to get a working visa, I admitted defeat. So the choice was to either stay illegally or to leave. I really wanted to be there for when my parents and aunt and uncle would come later on, but a week before my visa expired (I fought to the very end), I bought tickets to Croatia, which is not apart of the EU and thus I would be able to stay there legally. You see, since Lithuania is apart of the EU and in the Schengen Zone, tourists from the US are given 90 days to stay. For every 90 days there though, you have to leave for 90 days. This is why I had to leave since I did not get my working visa. So I bought the tickets to Croatia and hurriedly did some things I had been saving for the summer when I would not be working. This post is of my last weekend in Lithuania.

On the way to another cousin's house on the coast, the fields were filled with purple lupines.

We had a huge lunch and dinner at her house. This is wild boar hunted nearby.

And these pieces are what is left of the rabbit we ate.

Here is Justinas, the cousin's son, who just graduated from the US Naval Academy. He is with his girlfriend serving us the fish, seen below.

Here are just a few of the rabbits in the pen. I think they had at least 20. And yes, that is where our rabbit from the meal came from.
My cousin's house is only about 9km from the shore. This was taken at about 10:30pm close to when the sun was finally going done.
Justinas's captain's bell.
The family dog.
The table was littered with all kinds of different Russian and Lithuanian liquors, some which you mixed with tea, others which you drank outright like a shot. They were definitely very intersting.
Traditional Lithuania cake already broken apart.

Traditional cheese with caroway seeds. This is so good with honey.

Cartons of Juice. I thought the names were funny. I think I will miss the fact that most food labels are in a variety of different languages. Every meal you learn a little bit more about another language. For instance, now you know that pfirsich probably means peach or nectarine in German.

The following day, we went to mass at the same church I visited before where my cousin, the monk, was living. It was special because it was the day after St. Anthony's day and many people had come the day earlier as well as for this following day. As I said in an earlier post, behind Padua, this is the place with the most visitors to St. Anthony and has the most miracles attributed to St. Anthony documented.
The entrance of the church had this banner.
The picture of St. Anthony with his relic. Anthony in Lithuanian is Antanas.
At the end of mass, the monks distributed a special bread to the congregation which was shared with everyone by breaking off a piece and passing it along.
Many people were also lighting candles.
As you can see, the church was decorated for the occasion. The garlands are strands of evergreen tree branches.

After mass, we ate a little, and then went to some parks, where the main attractions at both were the wooden sculptures.


Birute got a little scared on the teeter-totter.
By my calculations, it weighed about 1000 lbs.

Ignas, Karolis, and I.

This was the first of 2 times when I tried to make Karolis barf on the merry-go-round.

I was unsuccessful both times.
I think this is a punk-rock breed. The meat is a bit stringy (like a guitar) :)
There was also a small zip-line.
Ignas loved all the animals, even the goats.
Ignas, Karolis, Birute, and I
Karolis and the windmill.
Plants which will sprout summer wild blueberries. Yumm. I had been eating blueberries all winter long in my oatmeal in the mornings.
This was a bunker made in the forest where rebels during the Soviet occupation lived. It was very small and probably could only fit 5 people only a little bit comfortably if they needed to live in there.
Some of the wooden carvings were just huge.

Bonzai plants. We went to a place that is just starting to construct what will be the largest Japanese garden in Lithuania. We did not stay long though since the weather, at 10 C with wind (50 F), was so balmy.
An old Russian car. Stop in Lithuanian means, yes, go on behind the yellow and red tape.
Joseph beer. Karolis is contemplating which one he will try, the dark one, or the lighter beer. They both have to be good, though, because I mean, hey, it's Joseph beer.
If you look close enough at the mug, you will see it says Juozo or Joseph's beer. Also, the pitcher pouring the beer looks like it is floating.
Ignas also loves the water. This was another visit to the local park. I had to hold him over the water to play with it. The only bad part was that we had to leave, which made him rather unhappy.