Blogs from Lithuania, Europe - page 37

After spending a night sleeping on the worlds hardest bed, we woke the entire room with our alarm. By nine we were on our way to Siauliai (pronounced sh- ow- lay) on a rather rickety old bus. The journey was three and a half hours, so we amused ourselves by making up new rules to card games. We'd met an American guy on the bus who was also heading for the hill of crosses, so we went in search of the tourist information together. He wanted to get a taxi that cost 40lts but we wanted the bus at 4lts, so we parted ways. I think he was a bit miffed, but it was to expensive his way. We went to good old Rimi to buy food for dinner. We got stuffed bread, bananas, yoghurts and ... read more

The title sounds a bit disturbing doesn't it? actually i wish a had a better one, one that could express what i feel better but i don't. Yesterday i was outside contemplating...Autumn is here, leafs are brown, remembering "Hazy Shade of Winter" from Simon and Garfunkel...Cultures..."Peace corps" and pioneers ...uuu big Word. I was thinking about Peace corps Volunteers coming to Eastern Europe right after 1989, or just people wanting to see what Eastern Europe is. But still Peace corps Volunteers were in my mind, coming to an ex communist country and trying to change something...to help...teach...discover...they were probably the pioneers...Than another thought hit me...how did they adapt? They were coming for 1 or 2 years....just like AIESEC internships. wow there was such a big difference in culture back then, Thinking about Romania only 17 ... read more

Today Kaunas squared off in a doubleheader against Vilnius Logipolija. This was our first game in several weeks against solid competition so I was interested to see how we would respond. We won the first game of the doubleheader 11-5, Logipolija’s runs coming on a string of errors (including one by myself—an errant throw to first base on a bunt). We hit very well. I attribute our level of comfort at the plate to the amount of hitting we have been able to do in practice over the past two weeks thanks to our new (make-shift, home-made) batting cage. The second game we won 6-3, 2 of their three runs again coming on errors. In other Lithuanian baseball news: Utena Vetra lost both of their games today against the Black Vikings, which moves us into first ... read more

Even though "Senna" and "Prost" drove at break neck speed to try and make up time. We arrived in Vilnius at 10.30am one hour late. After a sleepless night, aching all over but with a smile on our faces (Thanks to "Fric" and "Frac") Had a wonderful welcome from the lady at the bus station who told us off for putting one of our bags on the grass whilst we got our bearings - wasn't as if it was a nice bit of grass!!!!. So if anyone decides to sit on that bit of wall to the left of the station, beware she's a tyrant........... Finally found our "Ahostel" after being sent from one to the other, there are 3 that are only streets apart. We were pleasantly surprised, the honeymoon suite with a little ... read more

I am not sure if I have yet to truly dive into Yagi Torazo’s story yet. But his is worth a full entry, so here it is. Yagi is in his early 30’s. He is not very tall (I would estimate about 5 foot 2 inches). He is from Tokyo, Japan. He is soft-spoken, very friendly. He plays 2b, Shortstop, and Catcher for the Kaunas team. Yagi first heard about our team when he was in Cuba on a 4-month research assignment playing baseball and traveling Cuba researching for his book that will be about baseball in different cultures around the world. He had spent the previous three seasons living in Italy, playing first for a team in the Italian 1st Division, then 2nd Division, and finally the 3rd division this past summer. And it was ... read more