And If All...

And when i thought that spring is finally there, weather turned into total crap. Life is also kinda slushy.
Last week new pope was elected, some Argentinian cardinal. I always trust my first instinct so kinda liked this one, although later after reading more about his life and activities back across the pound - not so much. I remember how after first looking at photo of previous one was repulsed at instant - he just looked angry and like hiding something bad. Usually i don't care much about religious stuff but after starting to regularly go into weekly pub quizzes at U Palečka started reading more about weekly events as it's common topic.
That's how i know that flamboyant basketball player went to Vatican, in Ukraine they trained dolphins and some other random stuff. This week presenter was quite bad though, i wanted to take over after first few sentences. He told it was his first time, but come on, shouldn't one train a bit before it then?
To make my brains rest a little, i started watching 30 rock and imagine i work in company like that. That would be pretty awesome! I love challenges and freedom to think, so now sometimes have to restrict myself not to propose great ideas so i won't be hit to the head like

experiment's (true or false) description
Lesson 'never propose anything great in case not to make people who are not that smart but has to be to look they true selves' was learned hard way.
I'm thinking to start studying again so i'll go to one of many many events there in Brno about research. That's the only thing which makes me feel stupid sometimes - lots of people there does what they call PhD (in my language it's 'doktorantūra' and nobody really talks in abbreviations that much anyways) and i didn't even really defend my master thesis due to financial reasons (if you finish, you have to pay full price for everything and since there's no jobs for young people, it's not fun), so sometimes i'm totally lost when people starts to talk about science and other theoretical stuff.
One very very active guy named Fulvio created Living in Brno guide which can be really useful sometimes for ones who are totally new there. I go to some of events or plan to as although most of them consists same people (some of them i would like to avoid due to harassment) but are trully enjoyable. I'm interested how 'baltic' Morena celebration looks like. Def not the same like Morė burning at Užgavėnės. I was in Saint Patric's event and it wasn't very enjoyable mostly because of lack of space and bad organizing of games.

"My milk tooth" celebrated fourth birthday! Gotta love them :)

Bureaucracy sucks

Week was quite stressfull as i had to deal with parliament and other freeloaders. I sent one request about month ago and gave them few simple questions. Instead of getting aswers, my request was redirected to one committee which gave my opinion, not answers so i had to write again. And again got answer that my request is redirected to committee again. Ugh....

On thursday evening i went kayaking in Neris. While during daytime is pretty much boring, in the evening and later at night view is really stunning, especially while sun is setting down.

Later me and my companion went to have some beers at Route 66 which is really amiable place with tasty and cheap beer, nice interior and without "Švyturio extra" made from powder. While it's most popular beer, it's certainly one off less tasty. In Route 66 they have on thing which sounds almost creepy for me - beer with tomato juice. 

On saturday i decided to check "Live camp" event.Description said "Camp principle is simple - guitar, friends, and Fire. Everything else - details, but everybody who has been there  - knows that it is most cozy and mysterious guitar camp in Lithuania."

Thought about going to stay overnight, but came back after five hours as event was really boring. Maybe my opinion would have been different if i arrived in the evening but since i arrived around noon there were nothing really going on. Some people playing, some singing and thats it.

Eveing was much better though - i went to listen some music in Vienuolyno kiemas and later some acquitances joined. That place always leaves mixed impression for me - it's expensive and they don't have local beer, just Švyturio extra from powder and even if there are two persons inside they always have three face control guys whose main task is taking people's water. But they always have really nice concerts.

Some days in nature

Last week I spent some time in godparents place in some small town (Marijampolė) in nature. Weather was really nice, exept from some rain and quite strong wind before arrival.  Week was very relaxed as i didn‘t have to bother about all the stress i‘m having tiese last days.
I wish i would be able to visit them more often as the area is extremely beautiful. Last year when i went there for car repairs i used time and went around to visit some small villages and hills around as city itself is small enough to see everything in few hours. As a big city girl i always manage to get lost there even with only few "main" streets.

I thought about going to swim in the river but it sems that footbridge was drifted away in the last flood so i was kinda afraid to step in the water when i can‘t clearly see the bottom and there‘s lots of grass there.

When i arrived home, i separated my female guinea pig from male and next day i found out she had a baby. Only one, but very beautiful one. It‘s a boy. He‘s now constanly growing.In picture he's two hours long. They are born with fur, can open eyes instantly and has very small teeth.

Weekend was spendė in nature. Saturday in Molėtai with some acquitances and ugly annoying liar English guy. Everybody was such crybabies, complaining that there are no showers, mosquitos and bat bottom of the lake in nature. I barely survived it. Saturday – by the river Širvinta with family and friends. It was raining thought, but water was just awesome. Cant’ wait for this weekend.

Flea festival

This weekend was spend in cozy and nice gathering near Varėna – Flea festival . The event was destined to be flea market under the sky with some workshops, music and various stuff to do. Weather was simply amazing, so huge part was also spent in the like which is 28 meters deep in highest point (later I was told by guy who gave lift to train station that somebody drowned in the lake and divers got exact deep measured).  I was driving to festival as owner of the car was tired after preparing to workshop. I was going with friend from Scotland and felt not really comfortable as others were speaking Lithuanian all the time but she seemed fine with it. While in festival, I was surprised that everything is so cheap and got three handbags, shirt, two pairs of earrings and also facial with amber.

I made rubber band with flower made from plastic bottom of bottle myself with some help of owner of a car who is advocate of recycling and making new things from old ones. She runs some small shop/workshop called Absurdo idėjos. It was really interesting to see how much can be recycled and what can be made from old stuff. Since i was with a friend who didn't speak lithuanian i didn't went to any of lectures as they were only in lithuanian. We  checked some sellers, listyened to music (all singers and bands were really good) and just enjoyed ourselves in nature.

I thought about going to sauna too, but saw no point after realizing it is quite far away from lake. It was nice that people gathered there were not alcoholics party partiers, so biggest part was without drunk heads, shouting and littering. Only at tree a.m. some really bad (and later I was told he was also high) saxophonist decided to show that elephant stepped on his ears. So I lack of sleep now, but festival was definitely worth it. 

Flea market is going every sunday 12-16 Vilniaus s. 39

Midsummer

Last weekend and preweekend (06.21-06.24) was spent in alternative midsummer celebration.

Weather was plus minus good, aside some rain on Thursday night and Friday evening. Company was also okay, but i liked Thursday evening more because there were no drunk heads and loud music (festival started on Friday evening). Music was very loud and playing till six in the morning and also quite bad on Saturday night so almost no sleep made me very tired and grumpy. I fail to understand why some people consider shouting, drinking to the ground and not letting others to rest as 'fun'. 

There we so much to do and only after coming back home and reading program i realised how less i saw. There were one camp 'Forever christmas' with hot wine, soup and gifts for people who said some rhymes to Santa claus. There were camp of eco-crazed, joga obsessed people. Fest organizers declared 'leave no trace' politics but there were some much trace left it was disgusting. 

On saturday day we went to look for Šventoji river. Description said 'twenty minutes, two kilometers', but we got lost a bit, so it took around one hour one way. There were no (pseudo) beach so people who wanted to swim had to jump straight into river and go. I didn't have courage to do so as river is very fast and i'm not very good swimmer yet.

The sculptures were very nice and took quite long time to make them (i heard weeks) and lots of attention to details and burning them was quite sad at times but it was the point of fest. On first (Friday) night gates were burned down. It was made mostly by stew and planks. There were some cable holding them together and we put some fabric around them so nobody would get hurt, but one dog still did. That dog was a bit funny for me. It's seven months old German shepherd name Tiklis and for me he seemed plain stupid. He wanted to play but didn't give stick to throw. He hurt himself. He didn't know how to swim (really!) - when jumping in the water he started whining and instead of swimming to the shore he tried to get on small bridge so in the end three guys had to get him out.

Buning statue looked as great as before burning. There were some drummers, fakirs, dancers, singers and fires going on. Before that i persuaded other to make flower crowns as it is one of traditions of Midsummer to later throw them into water or burn. I slept in my car that night as i really wanted to get some rest and woke up with sun hitting my eyes, stiff knees and wanting to take almost all clothes, what i did. But at least i rested. Music was horrible on sunday night but most of people didn't care about it. So, all in all, weekend was very good.

Wandering

So this Saturday was once again spent in Trakai as there was medieval festival there. It was really great and lucky me and fellow travellers day was sunny (after few hours in the sun, i already have some red skin, what happens when i don't use sunblock on my fair skin). One thing organizers should know - come on, if you organize 'medieval' festival, only beer you have should be "Švyturys" made from powder and drinkable only to foreigners and desperate locals. We have so many great local breweries! Sice i had only coffee in the morning i took oportunity to try caramel apple

i never tried it before and i really like it. Apple itself was delicious and big (probably polish) and caramel coating made it even better. I also got myself ring depicting selpent. I liked it so much, i gave him name - Juozukas and now i can stroke his head if i'm nervous or just for luck. 

Medieval dances were also quite enjoyable, althouh one looked quite funny for me

- it looked like girl couldn't choose between two guys and guy can't choose betweek two girls so they made some exchange in their triangles. Knowing that all Lithuanian folk songs are either about drinking beer or guy going to war and expecting that girl would wait for him it looked quite modern.

What was really awesome was jocker. 

He was straightforward, funny, making jokes and was really good with kids. Me and my acquitance from Scotland really enjoyed it. We even appeared in gallery in news and "news" blog 15min.lt . He was even able to make jokes about Kaunas, Poland and Estonia without insulting anybody. Everybody was laughing all the tim :) when i was in Kaunas last time after telling where i'm from i was asked 'So... you hate us" and literally didn't know how to react to that statement.

The perfomance by Doll theatre "Lėlė"  "Trys paršiukai" based on fairytale about three little pigs was also really nice, although programme said it's for kids,

it was clear that grown ups enjoyed it as well. I especially liked perfomance of the wolf, who was funny, good with kids and enjoyable to watch. My fellow traveller enjoyed it was well, although didn't understand language. She also made some paper and later we took off. We went to Kybynlar for kibins and real local beer. I never got why for kibins main streem goes to "Senoji kibininė" which is always noisy and kibins are much much better in "Kybynlar", but it's nice that you can always find some place and space there. After trying kibins on way to bus station we found some local value "knaipė" which worked ridicuously slow, but everything was twice as much cheaper than in most of places in Vilnius. Later took of to Vilnius, went to herbs market and then parted as it was time for me to volunteer at Let there be the night event. My place was at event called "Varpų šešėlyje" and my job was to look that were wouln't be any underage youngsters and kids.Time went quite quickly but when i was free there were basically no intersting events going on apart from concerts so i basically didn't experience that "cultural night" what was more cultural evening. Concerts were rather good though, especially Victor Diawara.

Good thing was that there were night buses because our stupid "heads" meras Zuokas and Gintas Bliuvas who don't use public transport and has money for taxi believe that after 23:00 or even 22:45 there's no need for public transport. I can't understand if it because they are stupid,don't use logic and don't care about people's needs, they expect people to spend free time at home or they expect everybody to be party animals going all night long. I wrote email asking that and kinda expect stupid answer...

Today i'm having strawberries with sugar. Tastes really yummy :)

Salt city

Last friday i woke up and spontaneousely decided that i don't want to spend day in Vilnius. Weather was rather cold but my crazy mind decided to go to Druskininkai which is about two hours away. It's nots season yet and all the way was raining but i decided to go with it.
When i arrived first sight i met was ducks around the lake. Brave ducks. But as this city is called resort maybe they are already used to tourists.

After walking around a alke for a while i decided to search for some sights. Still raining. Pouring. Found church. Actually not much more to see there. Also rain was pouring, so i was wet and quite grumpy.

Later found some more, but most sights marked on the map i got in information center which i found after thinking i got lost were spas. There are nice park though. And some museums. But it's more spas city with nothink much to sight see. I believed i would have enjoyed it much more if not pouring rain all day. It made hot bath very much enjoyable though.

Leisure

Drinking champagne, meant for a wedding
Toast to the bride, a fairytale ending
Drinking champagne, a bottle to myself
Savor the taste of fabricated wealth

yep, alcohol gives an illusion. I see it every time I go out and watch drunk people behave stupidly. Most of the time it’s foreigners feeling so cool because they are not from there and that urban legend that local girls are easy and everything is cheap. On couchsurfing website my posts constantly get comments by very unpleasant English guy who was there for few days and I met him for hour or so. He’s very boring and obtrusive but considers himself ‘friendly’ and is simply attention whore. I’m so happy he was there only for some time because I’m really bad with attention whores as I have only a little patience.

Nowadays weather is really good and there’s local folklore celebration going on. Strangely there’s lots of germans coming, but maybe season of pensioners already started. I spent whole evening there yesterday listening to folk songs and just resting, away from my problems, work to do and friends.