A Weekend in Lithuania

This weekend was the first weekend we have spent in Lithuania in three weeks. Paige and Rusty were going somewhere with their host family, and we haven’t heard from Alona since Thursday. We assumed she was still sick, so Camee, Maggie, Emily, and I were just going to have a chill weekend doing whatever. However, on Friday afternoon, Dima came into my classroom and watched me teach my elementary lesson. It was pretty nerve-wracking, but I must have done an okay job. He pulled me aside and said I was brilliant, which made me really happy. I think he finally decided he liked me. Anyways, then he invited me to go to a museum about this famous Russian author with he and family on Saturday. I didn’t really want to go with Dima somewhere by myself and none of the other girls. But I said yes, since it was a great cultural opportunity that I was probably never going to get again.

He and his family picked me up at 11:30 on Saturday, and we drove towards downtown to this huge park. I thought it was just a regular park, but it was actually a national monument dedicated to the author. His name is Alexander Pushkin, and I guess he’s the Shakespeare of Russian literature. He wrote everything from poetry, plays, children’s fairy tales, and novels. Saturday was his birthday, so there was a big show in front of the museum for the first couple hours. A bunch of Russian school children sang songs and performed some of his stories. As one of his fairy tales was being performed, I realized that I recognized it. It turns out that I had read it in my Folklore class in college. Dima was pretty excited when I told him this. I guess Russians don’t believe he’s recognized enough worldwide.

The statue of him in the park

Russian kids performing his stories

The museum 

I think this was his son's grave.

Then we got to visit the museum for free. The “museum” was actually the house that belonged to his son. As it turns out, Pushkin had never even been to Lithuania in his lifetime. He actually died in a duel at the age of 37. So it’s pretty funny to realize how many famous people have died in duels. I guess they were pretty common back then. So the museum was mostly his son’s stuff. However, one of the tables and a couple of the chairs were actually brought from Russia to sit in the museum.

So overall, I’m really glad that as an English major, I got to go to such an authentic cultural event about a famous author.  That was an experience that I’m never going to have again, so I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to go.

Russian dolls they were teaching the kids to make

Pushkin's original table and chairs

Some of his children books

Russian costumes

More freaky Russian dolls

On Sunday, we were going to meet Maggie and her host family at this Russian festival they were having in Old Town. We were going to go to the 10:00 church so we could go to the festival in the afternoon. However, Camee and I ended up sleeping in. So we just went to the 2:00 church with Emily and skipped the festival. Actually, we were so happy we did too. Church is really fun in Lithuania. Everyone there is so laid back and sincere. Tons of women were wearing strapless dresses and this one girl had blue hair and no one even bat an eye. Everyone is so kind there. We stayed for all three hours and then we went to dinner at the senior missionaries’ apartment. They are so awesome. She makes the best stuff ever. For dinner, we had taco salads. We ate so much because we were so staving for regular food. I’m so sad that they are going to be leaving in July. But the good news is, they live in Logan! So when I go back to school, I can keep going over to their house for good food haha. After that, we watched the movie 17 Miracles. So it was a relaxing, gospel filled Sunday.

There were lots of interesting people at dinner. We talked to this 17 year old girl for a while, and she had a lot of questions about America. And the Nigerian converts there are always so funny to talk to. There are also these two really glamorous girls in their late twenties. One of the girls speaks five languages, and she translates all the general conference talks and Ensign articles into Lithuanian and Russian. She’s amazing. The other girl teaches Russian at the MTC in Madrid, Spain. She also just engaged to a man she met there from Portugal. There are so many cool members of the church in the world. I’m glad that I’ve gotten to meet so many interesting people since I’ve lived here.

Next weekend, we’re going to this really cool spa town called Druskininkai. There have this amazing health center there with all these saunas, baths, and spa treatments. They also have this adventure park where you can go ziplining and an indoor snow arena. So that should be really fun!

Daily Activities

I think one thing that made the first few weeks in Lithuania so hard was the stifling, monotonous routine. We almost spent the entire first week planning lessons and getting used to teaching. The second and third weeks, we were all dealing with sicknesses. The day literally consisted of sleeping or planning lessons at the apartment, going to the school to teach, and going back to the apartment. No wonder we were all so depressed and homesick! My roommate Camee and I decided that we actually needed to start going out and doing things during the day or we were going to go crazy. Maggie decided to join us, so the past couple weeks have been filled with activities. Last Friday morning, we went to Old Town and hiked up to Gediminas Tower. It was really fun, and the hike is really more of a walk up a paved trail. The tower was so cool to see up close. Usually you can just see it sitting on the hill from a distance as you’re walking around the city. Actually going up there and getting to see the views of Vilnius was spectacular.  

On Wednesday, we hiked the Hill of the Three Crosses. Now this was an actual hike! And we were totally unprepared. I was wearing sandals and Camee was wearing flats. It was so steep,  and I got so much dirt in my shoes! But luckily, the hike wasn’t that long. It was just really, really steep. The crosses weren’t really as cool as the tower, but they are an important national symbol. Allegedly, some Catholic missionaries were burned at the stake there in 17^th century. The crosses were put up to commemorate them and their devotion to Catholicism. So they are extremely similar to the Hill of Crosses we went to. But at least it was another thing we could check off our Vilnius bucket list.

The rest of the days, we have mainly just hung out at the mall. That usually involves looking around the stores and eating gelato and McDonalds. But today we went to see a movie. We saw Pitch Perfect 2! It was actually really good and so, so funny. I haven’t been to a movie in so long, so it was so nice and relaxing to do such a normal activity. I haven’t even seen the first movie, but the second one was great. I’ll have to see if I can track it down somewhere.

Today was so crazy! Maggie went to the movie with us, and then she came back to the apartment with us to hang out before teaching. However, just as we were getting to leave, she started to feel sick. Immediately, she begins to throw up! Then a massive migraine sets in and she feels chills all over her body. She literally developed a full-blown virus in ten minutes! We leave her lying down on the couch and decide to go over to the school. We figure Camee could just take over all the beginning classes today. But it turns out, Camee still needs to get some things at the apartment, so I go over to the school by myself. At this point, it is already 3:05. When I get there, absolutely no one else is here. I try to open the door to the supply room. It’s locked. I’m thinking, where is everybody? Two kids, Vanessa and Alex, are already here. I walk down to the first floor with them to get the keys. We walk back up, and I help them unlock all the doors. Finally, Alona shows up. I’m just in the middle of telling her that Maggie is sick when all of a sudden, she throws her hand on her forehead. Then she passes out! I am so freaked out! I rush to help her, and thankfully Dima walks in right at that moment. We get her into a chair. She’s already conscious again. She tells us her vision is going black and she can’t hear anything. Dima takes her to the hospital.

Camee finally comes. She tells me Maggie is still throwing up at the apartment. I tell her Dima is taking Alona to the hospital. Paige, Rusty, and Emily are still at the new school. They can’t get here for another hour. Camee and I are freaking out. We have to teach the elementary, basic  reading, beginning, and prelanguage kids between the two of us! We decide that’s never going to happen. We put all of the kids in one room. For an hour and a half, we sing songs. We sing every song from opening twice. Then we begin teaching them songs from Frozen. Eventually, we make a paper chain. Then we play Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum in a Dish five times. We are dealing with 13 kids. Finally, Paige and Rusty get there. Rusty takes the elementary kids. Camee and I keep entertaining the beginning and basic reading kids. Paige teaches prelanguage. It was crisis mode all day with literally no learning.  It was insane; I have no idea what we’re going to do tomorrow. Paige and Rusty are going somewhere with their host family, and if Alona and Maggie are still sick, we’re going to have to take all the kids again.

This week has been jam-packed with lots of worry and panic. These types of experiences are those you need to learn to deal with though. I hope everything works out. 

Walking a Marathon in Tallinn

I am worn out. Traveling to Riga and Tallinn the past two weekends, preparing to teach an entirely new language level, plus the ongoing recovery from my sickness has taken everything out of me. Thankfully, we’re going to be staying in Lithuania for the next three weeks before our first nine day vacation. But the good news is that now we’ve visited all the Baltic States!

Friday night, we took an overnight bus to Tallinn, Estonia. Is it even possible to get any sleep on a night bus? I probably got 45 minutes total. Luckily, I’ve been pretty good at running on adrenaline throughout this entire trip. Because we were going from 6:55 AM till around 9:00 PM on Saturday. When we got to Tallinn, it was completely abandoned. So at least we got to walk around the city and get a taste of it before all the tourists came out. Speaking of which, Tallinn is a complete tourist trap. It seems to be mostly locals in Vilnius and Riga. However, I guess a lot of cruise ships stop in Tallinn. There were thousands of people to navigate between the entire day.

The whole group

Pretty philosophical right?

After dropping our stuff off at the hostel, we went to get breakfast at McDonalds. I ate my first sausage egg mcmuffin in over a month. It was delicious. We have eaten at McDonalds in every single country we’ve visited. But seriously, it’s the best thing you can get out there. European food is always either super weird or really expensive. Then some of the girls in my group wanted to look around the shops and markets. I don’t know how they do it, but they have literally bought tons of crap every place  we’ve gone so far. Not even cool souvenir stuff. Just like bracelets, rings, purses, gloves, magnets, etc. Sometimes, I just want to say, “You’re really just going to shop again?.” We’re in Europe for crying out loud! This is the same cheap crap you can find in every single shop in the Baltic States. But to each their own. I hope they run out of money by the time we get to the cool places like England and Italy. Thankfully, one of the shopping girls met up with her cousin around noon. So then our group broke off, and I went with Paige, Rusty, and Alona again to go on a walking tour of the city.

Town Hall

Town Hall Square

First off, we visited the Kiek in de Kok and Bastion Passages Museum. It’s located in an old fort-like thing, and it’s all about the medieval weapons. I’m not really into that kind of stuff, but the layout of the museum was really cool. You kept going up a spiral staircase to each level where they had all kinds of old weapons and little tibits about medieval life in Estonia. It also had these cool little glass lookout points in the middle of each floor so you could look down into the preceding levels. Even just the windows in the wall offered fantastic views of the city.

This reminded me of The Book Thief

One of the views from the museum

After that, we visited a few cathedrals. My favorite cathedral was still the one in Riga with the courtyard. The rest are pretty much variations of the Russian style you find in all the Baltic States. But they were still beautiful. It’s always fun looking at a cathedral. One of the churches has this really cool tower that offers the best views of the entire city of Tallinn. In medieval times, it was the tallest tower in the world. We paid the three euros to talk about. 280 steep stairs on 45 minutes of sleep was not fun. But the views were awesome.

Alona and me

Remember The Three Brothers in Latvia? This is The Three Sisters. Dedicated to Katie and Jessie. 

Some lemon cotton candy I bought

After that, we tried to go to this really cool maritime museum. But we got there too late. You had to get there at least an hour before closing time, and we got there like 53 minutes before closing time. So that was lame and disappointing. So we just went back to the hostel to meet up with the other girls. The hostel was so weird. Hippie central. Saturday night just happened to be some music night. So we got to listen to the fellow boarders strum their guitars and sing hits such as Happy, Can You Feel the Love Tonight, and The Hanging Tree. Plus there were all these candles everywhere, bright colors, and words such as “The University of Life” painted on the walls. It was even called Euphoria. So weird. We were all pretty thankful we were only sleeping there one night. But the girl working there was pretty funny. As we were leaving on Sunday, we told her we would come back at 7:00 to pick up our bags before we got on the night bus. She was all, “Cool. Maybe I’ll see you again, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll see you when I come to Utah.” She was so funny.

On Sunday, we went to the Estonian Art Museum. The name is pretty ironic, because it was mostly Dutch art. But it was all still so beautiful. I love going to art museums anywhere. It was even located in an old palace in this gorgeous park. We also got to see the Baltic Sea! 

The Baltic Sea

My roommate Camee and me

And the group likes to do weird things like climb in trees

The Thai Embassy in Estonia Jessie!

The art museum

After that, our group broke off into the same two groups again. I have a feeling this is going to be a recurring theme. But all they wanted to do was shop again, and we went back to the maritime museum. It’s called Lennusadam Seaplane Harbor. Honestly, it was one of the coolest museums I have ever been to. I’m not even that interested in old ships and submarines and stuff. It was the museum itself that was awesome. It cost seven euros and you were given this little black card. You swiped the card to get in. Then whenever you read a sign in front of something that looked cool, you could swipe your card, type in your email address, and they would send you all the information. It was awesome. They also had amazing interactive displays you  could play with. One was a simulation of a sinking ship. It was one of the most terrifying things I have even been in. You go in and it looks like a regular hallway. Then all of sudden, the lights start flicking in and out. Then the floor starts tilting and alarms start blaring. You have to grab onto the railing before it almost went back 90 degrees. The lights are flashing on and off and you can hear waves crashing against you. It was pure emotional manipulation. Before us, there was this group of screaming Asian tourists which was pretty funny. Way better than shopping.

We all live in a yellow submarine....

Right next to the maritime museum, there was this old prison called Patarei Tallinn Prison. It was no Alcatraz I’ll tell you that. It was just this abandoned building full of junk. But it was still really scary. Something could have literally jumped out and pulled a knife on you. It was also full of graffiti, some of which was actually pretty cool

I Love Lucy!

After that, we went to catch our overnight bus. Tallinn was really cool, but I am getting exhausted. We walked 26 miles this weekend. 26 miles! That is ridiculous. It is still hard traveling with a group of strangers sometimes. The homesickness still creeps in at the most unusual times, even just going through an old prison in Estonia.  But hopefully the next few weeks will be pretty chill. I start teaching elementary and prelanguage this week, so I’ll be sure to update on that.