Lithuania Journal: Vilnious

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E-mail sent almost a year ago, has the combo of pictures, text and Country info at the bottom.

This is the same one,
but with a bit more info. The other message randomly
sent itself before I was done.

Greeting from Kliapeda, Lithuania. Klaipeda is the
third largest city in the country, is on the coast,
and will be my hometown for the next four months.
Since this is the first news of my trip I have been
able to send out, let me backtrack a bit.

The flight in was nice, and staff greeted me right at
baggage claim when I arrived in Vilnius (always nice
when one arrives in the middle of nowhere and things
go as planned.) The couple of days we spent in Vilnius
were very nice. It had snowed for the first time this
winter a few days before I arrived, and we had a nice
coating of powder for the duration of sightseeing in
Vilnius. I guess I should explain the "we" in the
above sentences. There are 28 students from North
America in the Lithuanian Program. I am one of 7 from
Trinity Western. The other major contributer of
students (9) is Taylor University in Indiana. While in
Vilnius, we saw the KGB (Secret Police-ie Russian
gestapo) museum, (one little interesting side note is
that the former director of the Lithuanian KGB is
still living in Vilnius, and collecting a pension from
the Lithuanian Government! Another interesting fact is
that the KGB used to employ 130,000 in Lithuania
alone.)We spent a lot of time just walking around the
city and taking in the atmosphere. The few churches
and holy sites were also on the list, but the purpose
of the first few days was to give the study abroad
students a chance to get to know one another.We moved
into the dorms on our third day here, and started
classes on Monday. I have two Lithuanian roommates and
one Latvian. They were not expecting a study abroad
roommate when they left for break, so I when arrived a
few days before they got back, I came to a less then
inviting room. I just say that it was not the cleanest
place I walked into. Once I meet them and discovered
the reason for the mess (sometime over after Christmas
they were informed of my upcoming arrival)Their
favorite phrase so far has been "Pete, come drink with
us!" So, I should say that they are definitely not
standoffish. Things are going really well, and a few
beers definitely knock down any language barrier. The
college I am attending thru the program is Lithuanian
Christian College. The school is just a few years old,
while the cafeteria and gym/fitness center just opened
last semester. Very nice sized school, with an
enrollment of just over 600. The campus is about a
twenty minute walk from the dorms. I am still figuring
out classes and will update when I know what I am
taking.

So far, the one outing we have had while in the
Klaipeda has been to an authentic Baltic sauna. You
sit in the hot sauna until you are soo hot you can't
breath, then run out over the sand (which has snow
covering it) over the frozen over twenty feet of sea,
and jump into the almost freezing baltic. I'll just
say it was an interesting experience.

Just wanted to let you know that E-mail updates may be
a bit non-existent over the next few weeks. When I
plugged my computer in, it popped and then a little
smoke came out. Somewhere something went wrong, and I
don't know how wrong or how long it will take to fix
it. Until then, I mooch. And since I don't want to
mooch too long, I better say goodbye.

Pete Crow

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