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Published: March 31st 2009
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Personal statement? Monday brought rain and what felt like chillier weather but by the time we made it out and about the rain had mostly stopped. First on our agenda was to visit the building Denis' mom grew up in only a few blocks away from where our hotel is in Old Town Vilnius. It was really a powerful experience to see it.
We ate at an Italian restaurant and confirmed two of our suspicions: 1. You pretty much have to ask for the check when you are done, the service is prompt and all, but once you get your items the staff pretty much leaves you alone for as long as you wish. 2. Bathroom light switches are never actually in the bathroom, sometimes they are on a completely different wall up to five feet away. This makes for some anxiety as you are holding your breath flipping different switches, hoping you won't knock out the lights to the hole restaurant.
After lunch we stopped at a chocolate shop and bought a few pieces. I was really excited about it until I realized it’s a chain and we have seen like five more of the same shops around town. The chocolates were
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Amy likes bees good though.
Next we headed to a neighborhood right outside of Old Town called Uzupis which is a community of artists that declared themselves an independent republic from Lithuania (after Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union). From what we saw the neighborhood has some interesting public/street art and also a posted constitution.
Then it was on to the church Holy Mother of God (Russian Orthodox). It was absolutely beautiful on the inside, no photos allowed. From there we walked to the church of Saint Anne (Catholic), one of if not the oldest Gothic churches left in Vilnius.
After heading back to our room for a brief rest we headed out for a later dinner at a cozy pub style restaurant with great authentic dishes as well as a wonderful Chicken Kiev which we both had. The Kvass (bread beer- non alcoholic) was exceptional here, cloudy and rich - YUUUMMM. My glass actually had a few nuts floating in it, Denis said they were trying to make it like a Boba Tea.
Tuesday we woke up to a sunny day and decided to get out of town and take a bus to Trakai; a medieval castle 23km outside of Vilnius,
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Building on the corner of V. Shopeno and Sv. Stepono gt. a historical treasure of Lithuania and beautiful site to visit. We had lunch in the village at a place that served traditional food of the region - yay meat pies!
After our trip to the castle we ended up wondering two shopping malls in the business district of Vilnius; Cup and Europa. The latter much fancier than the first. We will probably be heading back to Europa to do a little shopping, however Denis will NOT be getting any perforated leather shoes which are apparently ultra popular in the shops but not anywhere on the street. Also, I will NOT be purchasing any funky flower printed hammer pant jumpsuit things that I thought were restricted to Copenhagen’s fashionistas only.
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