Blogs from Lithuania, Europe - page 44

This has been a flurry of blogs, none of which have had much substance. But here is one of substance. Just an update of my plans. So this weekend are my final two games with the Kaunas Lituanica team, and then my pro ball career ends abrubtly (unless of course I return next year). But seriously, it is sad for it to be ending. It has been an incredible experience and I just appreciate so much getting to know the team, and the people who have taken care of me for the past month. On Monday I leave for Riga, Latvia, from there take a ferry to Stockholm, and then up into Sweden, through Finland, more boats, and down into St. Petersburg for a good old Russian time. The only plans we have for now is ... read more

Vilnius!... read more

I am back in Kaunas, my Lithuanian home away from home. The bus ride from Prague to Kaunas was only about 20 hours this time, because luckily we managed to not get lost this time. We did, however, stop almost every hour for cigarette breaks and such. I have never played on a sports team that smoked so much. So all of this is very undramatic (is that a word?) since I have been unable to get pics up yet. But bear with me. One story to tell you. In my eyes, the tournament was a success even though we only won one of our four games. Our goal was to qualify for next year's tournament, and we did just that. We finished fourth out of six teams, the top five teams qualify for next year. ... read more

Hello everybody, For my first time, I am getting information on the Soviet controlled countries. Lithuania is a good example. They were independant from 1918-40. At one point only their capital city was occupied by Poland--that was in 1920, but the rest of the country was independant. In 1938 the Soviets gave back Vilnius, but then moved in in 1940--35,000 Lithuanians were sent to Siberia. Fewer than half returned. From 1941-44 the Germans had it, but the Soviets were back in 1944. The Lituanians fought back, but were defeated. The got their independance in 1991, but the Soviets didn't give up easily--in an skirmish 14 people were killed and hundreds wounded. Gorbechev finally gave up after being pressured by other countries. It took until 1993 for the last Soviet to leave Lithuania. No wonder these people ... read more

Mes amingininos! We arrived in Lithuania yesterday after a "crazzzzzzzzy" time in Latvia. Andy and I have been trying to keep this journal as informative as possible. UNFORTUNATELY, we have pez size ...yep.... memories. So this is going to be more of a catch up entry to flesh out the details of our time in Estonia and Latvia. Estonia: Tallinn, which is located on the northern shore of the Baltic Sea in Estonia, was established as a trading settlement c. 9th century. It has a current population of 400 000 people. Estonian is the only official language, but Russian and English are very common. The level of english was what it was in Finland, but it was still decent and definitely better than my level of Estonian. Tallinn is considered one of the most progressive cities ... read more