Vilnius

So after we arrived in Vilnius on Tuesday, we ended up spending most of the morning in the Hostel,just catching up on things. To be honest it was really niceto just chill out for the day as we had been so busy so far.The hostel were really great and let us hang around until there were beds free, they had quite a big kitchen where a lot of other guests were hanging out- everyone we met so far was australian, all really nice people.

We eventually ventured out late afternoon. The hostel had these city maps called spy maps, and on the back they had loads of recommended shops, bars and restaurants and many of them gave you a discount if you showed them the map. So went to this one Bar called Bix Baras and ordered some cheap food. We had hardly eaten out so far so thought we would treat ourselves ;p Of course we went for the cheapest option - soup of the day for about 70p and a couple of traditional lithuanian snacks. One was called a lavash - like a really thin pancake filled with tomatoes, bacon, onions & lots of garlic, cost about 1/2pound, and also these weird fried potatoe hash brown like things that hadchicken in- all very nice though! And of course a 0.5l beer for about 1pound and a vodka (with coke - not straight like most of the locals!)

For the evening, we wondered through the old town down to the river which overlooks the old town one way and the business district the other way. I had read on a couchsufing forum that there was a free outdoor concert happening, we found it, it was quite small but still really good. We stayed for abit, seen a singer/guitarist, some breakdancers an a folk band :) really nice evening.

Tuesday evening was similar to our morning - quite chilled, went back to the hostel and chilled with some of the other guests. Met some really nice people here, we ended the night playing cards with an Australian girl called Apana (she was traveling with her boyfriend Darrien) and a German girl called Suzanna.

Wednesday we joined Darrien and Apana to do a free walking tour of the city, but no one showed up. There had been some bad storms that morning, so it must have got cancelled. So we went to a little cafe and got some hot chocolates and coffees and relaxed (a bit more). Ste and I went off after round a couple of cheap clothes shops as Ste wanted to get a bandana to wear round his neck as it was starting to get a bit chilly now, found one eventually for about a pound.

We went back to the hostel via a supermarket buy some stuff for dinner, so far we had pretty much lived off bread and pasta, so we changed a little and got some rice and eggs for breakfast. We spent a lot of the afternoon planning our journey to St Petersburg, the bus was what we had planned and was cheaper, but had really rubbish timings, so we decided to get the train which was about 10 pounds more but a lot quicker and had beds in like the trans siberian trains - but will tell you about the train in the next blog.

On this map we had it mentioned that the bar we ate in yesterday had a karaoke night on tonight and we overheard these Germans lads saying they wanted to go, so we managed to round up most people from out hostel for a bit of a group outing :) Turned out to be one of the most funniest nights so far, this other Australian lad James, got straight up there first,brave guy, wasn't even drunk! The bar had a load of local people, but they were so welcoming and kept cheering for whoever went up. There was really random songs coming out- we had the locals doing bohemian rhapsody, James doing you give love a bad name and jumping all over the stage area knocking over the cheers (the locals loved it though), the german lads singing Dont Speak by No Doubt...great night though, of course Ste and I both got up, Ste got the locals going by singing Livin la vida loca!!! :) A few people left to go onto a club, but us on a budget decided it was time for bed :)

Thursday we had to check out but luckily the hostel let you leave your luggage with them :) We walked to the train Station to buy our tickets for our night train to St Petersburg, luckily the lady at the station spoke a little English, although we did have to ask tourist information to explain our tickets, which carriage, which bed etc.

There was a part of vilnius we hadn't explored yet so we went on a bit of a walk through an area known as the art district,everyone had said really good things about this place, and how it was really hippyish, to be honest, we didn't really see that much, maybe we went the wrong way :p but it did lead us into some woodland area by the river which was really pretty. We were near an area called the 3 crosses that everyone had talked about and on our map it looked as though we were right near, so we figured we have to walk through the woods to get to it. Maybe not. We walked for about 45 minutes uphill (I had flipflops on!) and finally found, realising after there was a path which takes 5 minutes from the town!! Ahhh but we had a nice little hike and seen some really nice stuff. At the 3 crosses though you have an amazing view over the whole town so well worth the effort.

We went back to hostel after where we could use their internet and kitchen even though we had checked out. Grabbed some dinner (more rice ) and some snacks for our journey. Since our train got into St Petersburg really early,we decided to book a hostel so we could go straight there, so we sorted that out before we left, and set off to the station to begin our trip into Russia.

We got here fine yesterday and will tell you all about it in a couple of days

Lots of love
Layla & Ste xxxx

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