Blogs from Siauliai, Lithuania, Europe - page 3

I've just had a wonderful time at a meeting of some Rugute families this evening. Most especially some of the children playing Lithuanian instruments and some pictures they painted for us. My contribution, following the chicken soup and some cakes was to organise the football and then finally be on the winning side of the Basketball. We all had a great evening though I was smarting from the 94 miles and the sunburn on my legs, I obviously didn't get the sunblock in time!... read more

July 15 - I woke up in the night around 4am with my stomach, and then decided to check email like a freak. Of course, then it was hard to sleep again for a while. I got up again just before 7am and got ready to leave the hostel. I made two eggs and finished my yogurt and then finished packing up. The train was at 8:34am and so we got to the train station at 8:10am or so. Lucky for us, as the information office had given me incorrect times and the train actually left at 8:15am. We just made it. We spent about three hours on the train to Siauliai to see the Hill of Crosses. When we arrived, I checked the train schedule to Vilnius, the capital, since I did not want to ... read more

Ah! Waking up after having fallen asleep in a new place always makes me feel both refreshed and a little off-kilter. But this time it was in Klaipėda, and the town was just so gosh-darn cute we were feeling pretty good (slightly firm mattress notwithstanding). We made our way downstairs for our early-as-they-served-it breakfast in the same room as the guesthouse’s hostess. It’s strange having smørrebrød in the same room as a check-in desk, but the food was extremely tasty and duly inhaled. (Erin ponders: “What would American smørrebrød look like? I fear it would be an Egg McMuffin, which is tasty enough, but SAD.”) After Tallinn, we’d been starting our days on the early side, since staying only one night in a town really cuts into your exploration potential and we wanted to wring as ... read more

The hill of Crosses It is said that this saddle bag hill 12 km outside Siauliai was once a pagan alter. How this remote location, far from anything, came to be a holy place is unknown, but the legend describe it as such. Many centuries later it became the home to a cross or two, this is estimated to be around the 1830's, and today the saddle bag hill hosts hundreds of thousands of mainly wooden crosses placed there by pilgrims and a large part by especially Polish and German tourists. The crosses are mostly wooden and unfortunately many of them are identical and have their origin in the souvenir boxes at the entrance. But others are of a more personal caracter, and it is interesting to find in the forest these few trees which truely ... read more

Hey...I came back...and it seems that summer is going to the end. But I had really great time in two children camps: in the first one (14 - 27 of June) i was as an activities leader and spend wonderful time with children, i had lots of fun and relaxing time with them. And the next shift of the camp (27 of July - 08 of August) was a bit different because I was The leader of all camp, bigger responsibility, different job, less relaxing time, games and fun. But still I am glad, that I had oportunity to manage a camp. The first two days were real hell, but then later everything started to go to the good side. And if someone would ask me now, would I go again to the camp, i would ... read more