Welcome to the Baltics - Lithuania

It was not love at first sight for me and Lithuania.  Oh, the country is pretty enough, but I arrived with a lot of baggage.  Loneliness, exhaustion and pessimism had sneakily stowed themselves away in my trusty backpack.

Vilnius is beautiful, but I saw it first through the hazy lens of depression.  My hostel was definitely not a great start, but that I could change.  So I moved for my second and third nights.  My usual wine and goat cheese salad lunch ritual failed to lift my spirits.  I even, *gasp* resorted to a McChicken dinner, to no avail.  It was during the fitful night's sleep that I released the negativity - and then had to consciously continue that practice the entire next day.

Switching hostels proved the balm to my bruised spirit, as did a day trip to the beautiful town of Trakai.  I wandered in the sun, waded in the lake, ate several of the Lithuania's renowned meat pastries.  I just couldn't figure out why the bike tour I'd reserved never showed up to the meeting spot.  It wasn't until I actually looked at the bus station clock that evening that I realized my rookie mistake.  I'd spent the past two days on Berlin time.  The Baltics are one hour ahead.  Oops.

As I walked through the courtyard back at my new hostel, I made a snide remark in French to the three Parisian guys sitting there lounging.  Instant exclamations.  And an invitation to join them for dinner.  They ruefully apologized for the meal once they realized I'm studying gastronomy: all I can tell you is that Lithuanian tomato and bean "jam" is not an ideal pasta sauce.  But the conversation was intelligent and lively, and for me there's always an additional frisson when it's conducted entirely in French.  Dinner became drinking terrible French wine at an outdoor jazz club next to a gorgeous church.  Which became dancing at a club and watching the sun rise over the pastel spires of Vilnius.

Okay, so it wasn't love at first sight with Lithuania, but it ended up being my favourite country; something not even two nights of a massive Spaniard's snoring in my stuffy dorm room couldn't shake.



When Lithuanians get married,
they carve their names
& the date on a lock
& attach it to a bridge.