A Rainy Day in Riga

The only thing that could have cheered me up after last week was a much needed vacation! We decided to go to Riga, Latvia for a weekend trip, since it’s only four hours away from Vilnius. We got on a bus at 7:30 on Saturday morning and arrived in Riga around noon.  Then we went and dropped our stuff off at the hostel we were staying at, which was only a couple blocks away from the bus station. It was my first time staying in a hostel, so I was a little nervous  about how it was going to turn out. However, it actually turned out to be pretty nice. The staff was very friendly and the rooms were clean and comfortable, We were put in an eight-person room, so we only had one roommate who wasn’t part of our group. It was this 34-year-old British guy.  He was pretty nice and didn’t seem creepy, which is really all you can hope for. Then we spent the rest of the day exploring the city.

Doesn't this look like Amsterdam, Mom? 

Riga is so beautiful. I don’t know if we’ve already become too accustomed to Vilnius, but it seemed  even better than Lithuania. There were definitely a lot more tourists and we heard much more English being spoken. The locals just seemed friendlier too. I don’t know why, but it was a great change of pace. The first big thing we saw was St. Peter’s Church. We didn’t pay money to go inside, but it’s really its tower that is the most famous. Then we went to Town Hall Square and saw the House of the Blackheads. It was such a cool looking building. However, then I read online that the original was bombed to the ground during World War II. What we saw was really a reconstruction built in the nineties. All well. It was still really cool.

St. Peter's Tower

The House of the Blackheads 

After that, our group broke off. Paige, Rusty, Alona, and I went the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. Emily, Maggie, and Camee (aka The Shopping Group) went to the big market and pretty much stayed there all day. On the other hand, my group went to all the awesome historical sites. The museum was pretty small and it was mostly reading signs. But the history of it was really interesting. The Baltic States were so worn down by the Soviet Union that when Germany invaded them, they actually considered it a liberation. It’s really amazing to learn how such a small region of Europe was affected by the war.

After the museum, we went to St. Mary’s Dome Cathedral. Paige was really excited about this. She was telling us that it was the first building in art history to use a pointed arch design instead of a round arch. And the church was gorgeous, especially the little courtyard area outside. After that, we saw the Three Brothers. All that really is is a collection of three really quaint-looking houses .  They were so cute though. Afterwards, we even saw a set of figurines modeled after them in a gift shop. I wanted to buy them so badly, but I really couldn’t justify it. Paige and Rusty bought them though. I’m so jealous.

The Three Brothers 

After that, we saw the Freedom Monument and found this really pretty park. It was so nice and peaceful. The weather was perfect; a little rainy, but not too cold. We saw this cool bridge with a hundreds of locks. I know they do this a bunch of other places as well.

The Swedish Gate

The Freedom Monument

On Sunday, we went to Rundale Palace. It was basically modeled after Versailles. We had to take an hour bus ride to the city it was in, then another 20 minute bus ride to the palace. The inside of the building was all right, but it was basically what you would find in any old mansion. The gardens were magnificent though. We even saw this group of people dressed up in these eighteenth-century outfits. It turns out, they were a singing group from France that had just put on a performance. It was really fun to enjoy the nice weather and see the pretty flowers. It made me feel nostalgic for the real Versailles.

The front of the palace

The back of the palace

The French singers

Random Chinese style bathroom

And Maggie thought I needed more pictures with me in them, so she took this

When we were waiting for the bus back to the main city, this random guy offered to give us a ride. And for some crazy reason, we accepted. It was the most uncomfortable experience of my life. Seven people cannot fit inside a tiny, European car. I guess it did get us to the bus station faster. But I am never doing that again. That night, we discovered  the best restaurant ever. It’s called Wok to Walk. It’s basically a Café Rio type of place for Asian food. You pick what kind of rice or noodles you want, your meat and vegetables, then your sauce. I got egg noodles with pork and yellow curry. It was the most glorious thing I have eaten in a month.  The good news is that they have one in Vilnius! The bad news is that the restaurant chain is only in Europe. I tell you though, people would go wild for this in the U.S. It needs to come there.

We got up early again on Monday and took a bus back to Vilnius. It was such a good trip! It really rejuvenated my spirits and made me excited about being here again. There aren't many people who have the opportunity to go to Latvia, so I just tried to take it all in. I can only imagine what the week long vacation will be like now!

The Third Week is Always the Hardest

Sometimes, I take my voice for granted. I didn’t realize how important it is and how much I needed it until this week. I haven’t had a voice since Saturday. That means that I haven’t been able to speak above  whisper - volume for five days. I haven’t been able to say a complete sentence without my voice faltering out towards the end for five days.  Add to that a runny nose, extreme coughing, and unbearable chills, The result is the hardest week  I’ve had since being here. I’ve been feeling really frustrated and discouraged about teaching, the ILP program, and just being here in general. I know being sick has a lot to do with it and that it will get better, but this week has been a struggle.

The food is becoming more of a trial for me. The first week or so, I was fine with it. Mainly because I was so hungry after not being fed the first weekend. Now it’s just unappetizing, especially since I’ve been sick. I can’t smell or taste anything, so that makes mashed potatoes and meatballs even more gross to swallow. I’ve barely been able to eat any of it, so I’ve been really hungry the last few days. That probably isn’t helping me recover from my illness, but I don’t care. I’ve been having fantasies about any normal American food. And it doesn’t help that Dima is always telling us we’re doing a million things wrong even coming and going from the school to eat the food.

Next, teaching and the students. First off, not all the kids are bad. There are a few really sweet kids who really listen to you and try. But the rest are complete hellions. Yesterday, we tried to do a really fun activity that involved leaving the classroom and walking through the school. They are always asking to go outside, so we thought they would be happy about at least leaving the room. The first group  absolutely loved it. It went off without a hitch. The students loved it, and I was thinking what a great activity we had come up with. Then the second group came, and they are the crazy, disobedient group. I knew it was going to be more of a struggle for them, but I figured we could still do it and keep them in line. I was wrong. The second we let them out of the classroom, they were all sprinting in a million directions. I literally chased a few kids all the way to the other side of the school. It was the angriest I have ever been. I would have said I yelled, but since I had no voice, I probably didn’t sound that mad to them. We immediately went back to the classroom. I told them we could never leave the classroom again since they had shown they couldn’t handle it. They felt bad for like a minute, then turned into insufferable little beasts again. A couple kids refuse to participate in the next activity. Dima comes in right at that minute, says “Listen to your teachers,” and watches them ignore us for five more minutes.

I know kids are going to be kids. But this is a different breed of kids. It doesn’t seem as if some of them receive any discipline at home. So how can we discipline them? Then Dima goes on about how it’s because we’re not entertaining enough, the activities aren’t fun enough, etc. Well, we planned a really fun and entertaining activity that the kids proved they couldn’t handle.  The mom of one of the boys in our class even called Dima and told him that we weren’t giving her son enough tokens. Well guess what, all he does is goof off, not pay attention to the any of the activities, and can barely speak and understand English let alone read it. And we’re supposed to give him as many tokens as the best English speakers who engage with us? It’s so frustrating and absolutely ridiculous.

On top of that, Casey from the ILP office came. It couldn’t have been a worst time. It is only three weeks into it and we’ve all been recovering from sicknesses. He basically came, spent a day sightseeing with Dima, talked to us for about an hour and a half total then left. The only thing he really told us was that we’re “doing great for the third week” and to “look in the manual” for ways to improve. But he approved the countries for our vacations, which is incredible. The only thing he told us was that it might be hard both physically and economically doing so many countries. We already knew this, since there have already been some divisions in the group  about where we should go, how many days we should spend in each country, etc. So we might be splitting into two groups for at least one of the vacations. We’ll have to see.

I know this post has come off as really negative. I know there is a lot to be grateful for. And I know there are exciting things to come. This week has just been difficult and hopefully I’ll get better next week.

Here's a picture of me at the castle to end with something happy.

Second Week Updates

After such a busy first week in Lithuania, our second week has been pretty low-key. This is mostly due to the fact that most of us are sick. My roommate Camee has been sick with a severe cold sine last week. And this week the rest of the girls caught it. I was feeling fine for most of this week, so I was hoping that the sickness would pass over me. However, Wednesday night my throat started to feel a little sore. I drank some water and went to bed praying that I would wake up with my throat feeling better. Then I woke up at about 3:00 AM and my throat was aching. Panic set in, and I was sure that I was getting strep throat. I sent out a few agitated texts to Mom and Jessie and went back to sleep. Thankfully, when I woke up on Thursday, my throat didn't feel as bad as it did in the night. But during teaching that day, I started to get major chills. My entire body was freezing from my head to my legs. As soon as I got home, I crept under my bed covers and tried to get warm. I woke up today and the chills were gone. My throat still feels a little dry, but I'm hoping that was the extent of the sickness and that it won't get any worse. Since the rest of the girls are sick too, we haven't really gone out and done anything this week. Hopefully next week everyone will feel better, and we can start doing things during the day before teaching.

Teaching has been fine. We had our first evaluation on Wednesday and our scores weren't very high. But talking to the other girls, I guess everyone got a low score. Our head teacher probably wants us to try to improve and keep working hard until the end of the semester. It is kind of an interesting situation, because all of the children we are teaching right now will be gone at the beginning of June. Then supposedly we're doing a summer camp, but from what we've heard, only three kids are signed up right now. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see what will happen.

Here are some pictures of my students from this week. We made paper boats.

This is Birute and Laurynas. Boy, are they both obnoxious. But also very smart. 

This is Oleg. He is very hard for me to figure out. Some days it seems like he loves you and others like he hates you. 

This is Maya. She's our little crybaby, but she's also an absolute sweetheart when she's happy.

This is Kira. She is pretty quiet. I try to get her to participate, but most of the time, she just says "I don't know." Hopefully, we can get her more confident in her English abilities. 

The whole class.

This weekend we might be going to Trakai Castle. It is a really cool floating castle that was built around the 1400s. Trakai was also the medieval capital of Lithuania, so it's supposed to be a really cool town. A girl we met at church is taking us. She is really cool and her English is perfect. She goes to Vilnius University, so she's around our age. It will be awesome to be shown around by a local. Yesterday, it was also Maggie's birthday. She spent the day with celebrating with her host family, so we're having our celebration tonight. After teaching, we are going to go to Hesburger for dinner. Then we're going to watch Austenland, which I guess is her favorite movie. So hopefully this weekend will reinvigorate us for the last couple weeks of teaching this group of kids.

Lastly, we got our vacation dates. We have vacations June 20-29, July 3-6, and July  18-26. We already have a list of places we want to go, so we're starting the initial planning. It should be really exciting, but I'm not going to get my hopes up until the plans are approved. The ILP director is coming next week, which is abnormally early. But that's how it worked out, so we'll have that next week as well. I miss you guys!

Siauliai and Hill of Crosses

This weekend we went to Siauliai, Lithuania and the Hill of Crosses.  Siauliai is in northern Lithuania, and it’s about three hours from Vilnius by train. We had to get up super early on Sunday morning to take a half hour bus ride to the train station where we would catch our train to Siauliai. The other girls spent the night at the apartment, so we would all be together when we met at the bus stop at 5:30 AM. As it turns out, there wasn’t actually a bus that went to the train station at 5:30. Dima had looked up the times for us and had mixed up the Saturday and Sunday bus times. So we had no bus to take us to our train which was leaving at 6:45. We called Dima and he ordered us two taxis (which we had to pay for of course). He did feel really bad about it and kept apologizing, and the cabs ended up being faster than the bus anyway.

Once we got to Siauliai, we had about an hour to kill before yet another bus came to take us to the Hill of Crosses. So we just hung out at the mall near the bus stop. Lithuanians love their malls. You can always count on there being a huge mall in whatever city you go to. So we went to a crepe restaurant and that took about an hour and half, because there is no speedy service in Europe. The bus to the Hill of Crosses only took about 10-15 minutes, but then you had to walk down an abandoned road in a field for about 20 minutes before you got to the hill.

It is believed that people started placing the first crosses on hill around 1831. That is when Lithuanians first fought for independence from Russia. Since families could not locate the bodies of their dead family members, they put up symbolic crosses on the fort where the battle was fought. The hill was later seen as a symbol of their own national identity and devotion to Catholicism when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union during World War II. People have been placing crosses there ever since. Pope John Paul II even visited in 1993. A stone was placed there inscribed with his quote, “Thank you Lithuanians, for this Hill of Crosses which testifies to the nations of Europe and to the whole world the faith of the people of this land.”

The history is pretty cool right? But once you get there, the Hill of Crosses is really fun for about 10 minutes. Then you realize that most of it now is just junk. The symbolic significance was ruined once it was only tourists putting up all the cheap crosses they bought at the gift shop. But we walked around there for an hour or so. There were a lot of old people, and there was even one couple getting their engagement pictures taken. Kind of weird, but whatever.

After that, we still had a lot of time to kill before we took the train back to Vilnius. So we walked inside a really cool church they had in the middle of town. Outside the church, there was a cool memorial with a bunch of Russian flags, flowers, and candles.  On May 9, it was Victory  in Europe Day for Russia. So a lot of Russians were celebrating on Saturday. Someone in my group wanted to go to the Cat Museum  there. Not my first choice of destination, but you kind of just have to go along with it. So we seriously walked 30 minutes before we got to it and it wasn’t even open. But we took pictures of the sign. It seemed like a pretty weird place, but Lithuanians are obsessed with cats.

Everyone was really tired on the train ride back to Vilnius. Paige got motion sickness and threw up all over the side of the train tracks once we got off in Vilnius. And on the bus ride back to the apartment, this creepy old man kept trying to talk to me. I told him I only spoke English, but then he still kept leaning into me. Rusty and came over and stood next to me, and he eventually went away. So there’s always an adventure, even when you’re just going home. But it was a fun weekend trip, and it makes you realize how much there is to see in Lithuania.

Teaching

I have officially finished two days of teaching! The first day was absolutely insane, but the second day was a lot better.

The first day was very long and hectic. It was impossible to plan for anything until we knew the students and which level they were at.  First off, I need to tell you about Alma. Alma is incredible. She works at the school, and she helps keep the kids in line for us. She is also so sweet. By the second day she already knew all of our names. She doesn’t know English very well, but she always says hi to us, cleans up our classrooms, and helps discipline the kids when they’re being naughty. It’s so funny: when a kid is acting up, all you have to do is say, “I’m going to go get Alma” and they literally shut up right on the spot. Today she even volunteered to take Alona and Emily home to their host families. However, she doesn’t know English, so she called Dima to ask us if that would be okay. She is such a sweetheart.

My first set of Basic Reading kids are Vejus, Toma, Nikita, Pranas, Milena, and Aritum. This group is very smart and knows English very well. Most of the kids are six and seven years old. However, Vejus and Pranas are older, nine and ten, and they are best friends. This makes them very difficult because they are bored by everything we do and can’t stop talking to each other. And I don’t blame them, since I would be bored by that stuff too if I already knew how to read. They should be at a higher level, but I guess a conflict with the parents prevents us from moving them to elementary. So that really makes the situation unfair for both us and them. It is unfair to us because they are very condescending to us and the other children. It is unfair for them because they are beyond this stuff and have every right to be bored.

Toma is one  of the smartest kids in the class. She is also very sweet  and actually tries to help the other kids.  Nikita is not very advanced and doesn’t know how to read well. However, he is so adorable and kind. He gets distracted easily, but he will listen to you when you ask him to refocus his attention. Milena and Aritum are both very quiet but very well behaved. They don’t like to participate very much, but I try to include them as much as possible. They are such good kids.

My second group is a lot crazier and not as advanced in reading as the first group. Their names are Agata, Kira, Laurinas, Birute, and Maja.  Agata is my favorite. When we line up for opening, she always stands in front of me and leans her head against my body. She is a cutie pie. She can’t read very well, but she is well-behaved. Maja is very sensitive. She will cry about almost anything. Today we tried to play a competitive game.  When she wasn’t doing well , she would start to throw a temper tantrum. We adjusted the rules of the game just to get her to calm down.  It’s going to be hard dealing with her. Birute is crazy. She has so much energy and loves to yell and run around. She will listen to you most of the time, but sometimes she gets a little out of control. But she’s funny too, so I don’t hate her. Laurinas and Kira didn’t come the second day, so I don’t know them as well yet.

Alona and I decided to combine our Basic Reading groups and teach together. This made it so much easier the second day! The first day was so awkward only working with two students. This way, we had at least 3-5 students and could help each other. It is very nice teaching class with someone else. I also love teaching Basic Reading and writing. It is so much more fun helping them read a book and learn how to spell. We played hangman, around the world with alphabet cards, and a game where they had to spell words we read in the book on white boards. They seemed to love all of them. It went well, but I’m already losing my voice.

So that’s how teaching has gone so far! 

Travel Days

These past three days have been an absolute whirlwind. There has hardly been a spare minute for me to collect my thoughts, let alone do a blog post. But it may be beneficial to be so busy, since there is less time to feel homesick.

Yesterday I moved into the apartment where I will be living for the whole semester. I currently am living there with two other girls, even though one girl will be moving to a host family on Wednesday. The apartment is super convenient because it is right across the street from the school. Most of the other girls have to take a bus to the school, so I’m very grateful I got a spot in the apartment. There are also two grocery stores within walking distance, so that is great. The apartment is very big, and I even have my own room. There are two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. We had a very first meal today as well. We eat at another school that is right next to the apartment. The whole weekend has been extremely hard, because we didn’t have anything to eat! We were promised three meals a day, but that did not happen the first three days we were here.  My body has slowly been decaying, but now hopefully it will be better now that we’re getting  meals.

My room:

The first couple days of travel went well. Even though we had a few hiccups before we even left Salt Lake. Camee forgot her ipod before we went through security, then Maggie left her carry-on at the security area after we went through. The flight to Chicago was fine, but the airport in Chicago is insane! It is very large, widespread, and incredibly busy and crowded at all hours. We had no idea how to get to our terminal and wandered around for a while. Luckily, we saw our flight attendant from the flight, and she was able to give us directions. Once we got to the terminal, we hung out for a bit until the flight to Stockholm. The flight overseas wasn’t actually that bad at all. Maggie and I were in a four person row, but we were the only ones there. So we got to spread out a little and there was nice in-flight entertainment. It didn’t feel that long at all.

Once we got to Stockholm, we rented some lockers to put our stuff in and took a train to the city. Stockholm was very beautiful and cool. It was just hard to appreciate it more when we were all so tired and cold. It is freezing here! I feel like I should have brought a heavier winter coat, because it has been terrible. But we still soldiered on and walked around for a few hours and took pictures before we went back to the airport.

It was not a good time, and the worst travel part by far. The flight to Vilnius is only an hour and a half, but our flight was delayed two hours. By that point we were all so exhausted and just wanted to sleep! There is absolutely on indoor heating in Europe, and the airport was freezing. So the sophisticated Swedes got to see all these Americans lying over benches and huddling up in blankets and coats. But we made it eventually!  The Lithuanian airport was very tiny and deserted. We didn’t see anyone there besides the people getting off our flight. Not even any workers. It was so spooky!  But luckily all our luggage was waiting on the carousel, and we didn’t have to deal with any lost bags.  Dima picked us up and took us to a temporary apartment until the Spring girls left on Sunday.

Here are some pictures of Old Town from when we walked around there on Saturday.

I will do another post about what we did once we got there! I miss you guys!