Lithuania, at last

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Finally, Lithuania

So we left Riga (again) hoping that, as nice as the city is, we wouldn't have to return - at least not under similar circumstances... It was back to our old friend Eurolines where for once the bus driver wasn't annoyed that we actually had baggage when travelling internationally and even whipped out some baggage tags which proved useless because it was still very much a save and grab at the other end anyway... The journey was fairly long at about 5hrs but there was some mild entertainment by watching a drunk lithuanian and chinese student communicate for almost the entire journey, language barriers are nothing it would seem.

When we arrived in Vilnius it was fairly late at around 11pm but luckily our hostel wasn't far at about 3mins away, although even this short walk seemed rather treacherous - why do dodgy characters accumulate around bus stations???? Anyhows, we turned up and it does indeed seem to be that the further south we're heading, the less english people speak, the woman at the desk eventually waved us upstairs stating "bedroom left" with no further details, anyway it was all worked out in the end but it most confused the chinese student from the bus... After a brief walk around the immediate vicinity, bed was decided as the best plan.

By this point we needed very much to do some laundry, it was the kind of situation where you've been saying you're on your last pair of pants for faar too long. So we trotted off on the advice of our travel guide to the recommended laundry outlet and were disgusted to discover the premium price PER ITEM for washing... So in despair we headed to the tourist office hoping they would know somewhere else that wasn't dry cleaning... Indeed they did know, but it was in the suburbs and required a bus. Nevertheless this was actually quite easy and we actually found the launderette which rather astonished us both. The woman there even had a handy book with phrases such as "Do you need fabric softener?" rather handily translated. Anyway, an hour or so later and hoorah! clean clothes!! But, by this time it was about 3pm and half our day and been taken up by this necessary task.

Next challenge was booking the train ticket to Minsk but this went suprisingly swiftly and we headed off to the old town to actually see something of Vilnius other than the bus and train station and a launderette. Conveniently we took the main thoroughfare through the old town managing to see a considerable amount of sights on our way to the pub Gabi to sample some traditional lithuanian cuisine - more of the potato and meat variety! Adam had potato pancakes and I (Fiona) had cabbage rolls with meat inside - very delicious. We also decided to share a Zeppelin which is kind of a mashed potato fat with meat squashed inside - nicer than it looked anyway.

After a bit more of a walk around the city we headed back for an earlier night so that we could make the most of the next morning before our train at 14.15 the next day. Successfully getting up quite early, myself at 7am awoken by some stupid spanish girl shouting "I dan't wahna sleeeep" underneath the window who I promptly went out and told her I indeed did. I woke Adam up at a more respectable time and we trekked off to the other side of the town to visit the rather sobering Lithuanian Genocide Museum in the former KGB prison complete with the original cells... Before heading off to Belarus we remembered we were in rather desperate need of a guide book due to knowing very little about the place so purchased this and trotted merrily off to the station heading to what America termed "the last dictatorship in Europe"...

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