Advertisement
Published: April 2nd 2009
Edit Blog Post
DSC00584
View from Taurangu bus station across Kalvariju street onto my block In the morning of Wednesday it was raining pretty hard so we had a late start. First, we went to visit where I (Denis) grew up until we left for US (17 years ago). It was quite amazing how little the neighborhood changed since that time. The changes that are noticeable are mostly not very good ones. The central doors to the complexes used to stay open all the time, they did not have any locks in them. Now, key or number combination locks. Pretty much all lower floor balconies are fenced up. A lot more graffiti is visible around (actually that the case for most of Vilnius outside of old town). There were few new buildings, but that's about it. The rest was very much the same.
Then we took a walk I took pretty much every day for 11 years, from my house to school. In Lithuania, there was no elementary or high school, just one school from 1 till 12 grade.
Also, not many things have changed. It was amazing how short the walk seems now and how long it seemed back then. Longer stride, maybe…
Then we decided to look for a place to eat and ended
DSC00585
More of same up at a shanty place called “Kebab King”. The king was absent that day, but the queen was unmistakably upset at being disturbed by a pair of legitimate customers. Mind you, the place had three chairs and they were all empty. After eating a whole lot of cabbage and very little meat, we were off. On the way back we swung by the mall Europa for another attempt at shopping. Then, back to the house.
In the evening, we took a nice stroll through the old town and Cathedral square to an Indian restaurant
Sue’s Indian Raja, the owner of which is designated as an official cultural attaché by the Indian government with all the associated privileges and immunities. And he even came by to ask us how our meal was. We could honestly tell him that it was exceptional.
After dinner, we took a long stroll back to our guesthouse, in the process, scoring a bit of a loot from a local minimarket.
A few days ago we were asked by our guesthouse if we can change the last night of our stay to a different hotel because they had a party that needed to book all six rooms that night.
DSC00586
Green house, same as before, orange highrise - new. Not wanting to move on the last night, we asked them if we can move earlier to that hotel. It worked out that move on Thursday was acceptable to all parties. So, this morning, we moved to hotel Vingriai. It’s a four star hotel, so we definitely scored with the three night stay.
After quick and excited settling in, we decided to take a long walk around town, since it was a bright and sunny day. We stumbled on the Orthodox Church of St Michael and St Constantine. The pictures do not do it justice. Then, a forgettable but edible lunch at a Hong Kong restaurant near our hotel.
Later in the day, we took a bus to Akropolis, a mall that had been quite recommended lately . The item of interest was a skunk on sale at a pet shop for at 40% discount. He did not give a shit and was snoring happily in a cat house in a corner.
After a few hours there, back to our new place of residence.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.067s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0343s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb