Fall in Klaipeda!

My time in Klaipeda is officially half over. I am saddened by this fact, but must make the most of my time here. The leaves have changed and the cold, rainy weather has come! I thought I would make this post about my everyday life in Lithuania.

Old Town

A cool little amber market in one of the squares

Just a wonderful pic of the pond and swans on campus

Every week I make a stop to a super market called IKI. Iki in Lithuanian means "bye" or "see you soon". A funny name for a store, but it works. I love the bakery section of IKI. It has very good pastries and bread. My first few times in the store took about an hour. Trying to navigate the aisles and finding which food was the food I wanted, all in a different language, was a challenge; however armed with Google translate and some feigned patience, I made it through. I have only made two shopping mistakes so far, that is, buying something I thought was one thing, but it turned out to be another. I tried to buy Vanilla once. I ended up buying rum extract. ( that wasn't going to work for my recipie!). I also accidentally bought laundry soap instead of body soap. Luckily the soap only cost about fifty cents, so my loss was small.

All the study abroad students hang out a lot. We often watch movies and go in town together. We do weekly 'family' dinners where we all get together and eat dinner! We have also recently been watching all the Star Wars movies again among other movies. I have made a lot of good friends within the study abroad group but also other friends who are not study abroad students. I have met people from Latvia, Lithuania, Syria, Iraq, Australia,Ukraine and Russia. It is really cool to interact with people from so far away. We have our slight cultural differences, but in the end we are all just people with the common interest to better ourselves and our world by studying at college. It is also cool to see how children in town act. They act just as any American child would. Even though I cannot understand their parents when they are handing their child some piece of candy, for example, but I am almost sure the Dad is saying " now this is the last one". The point is, despite the distance and culture we all, as people, are very similar.

Here is one of our family dinners

USA and Russia with Syria in the middle.. All smiling together, you may never find this in politics!

The beach is another great place I like to go. Although I've only gone two or three times, it is a very nice place. It is just a 10 minute walk and 10 mintue bus ride away. There is some old bunker of some kind, we assume its a Nazi or Soviet bunker. It is really weird to go into. There is plenty of sea glass on this beach. I have found about three hand fulls worth. Despite the course, rough sand, the beach is very nice, especially at sunset. I have not made it over there for sunset but Ill show you this picture Katie Wells, a fellow study abroad student took. Beautiful!

The bunker

I couldn't pass up the photo op!

The view from on the bunker

Sea Glass!

The beach is beautiful and so is old town. Old town Klaipeda is the oldest city in Lithuania. It was first mentioned in 1252. Now I'm not sure how old the buildings and streets are that I see today, but its still pretty old! I cannot get over the beautiful buildings, cobble stone street and the Danė river or canal. I am still not certain which it is. Anyway, the beautiful color of the trees only makes the beauty even more magnificent.

A path near old town

The river/canal

Sometimes I will catch the bus at the stop near school and head down to Old Town to do homework and a cafe. I will only occasionally get a frappuccino, without coffee of course. I just like the environment of coffee shops. This one is right by the river/canal. Sitting in the canal is an old sail boat that has now been transformed into a restaurant. It adds a certain charm to the city. Not too far from Old Town is a beautiful sculpture park. It is just littered with stone sculptures. When we went, the most beautiful thing was the leaves.

The yellow building is the Vero Cafe

The old sail boat

The sculpture park

In the sculpture park

After being here for just under two months Google apparently thinks I have become fluent in Lithuanian. Most of the adds and webpages are now in Lithuanian! Luckily, I can have it translate it back. In my two months here I have realized that public transportation is the way to go in European cities. Every city I have been to has a very large, and well used public transport system. Even in Klaipeda, a smaller town, it is not common for the buses to be packed. I have also noticed so many more single, old women walking the streets. Often times they are indeed very old. It is common for them to pair with another older lady and walk arm in arm. It is interesting to think what they have been through in their lives. They are walking pieces of valuable history. Most of their lives was under the oppression of the Soviet union.

The often very full buses

I have also been blessed to see many good sunrises thanks to the east facing window in my dorm room!

Here are a few...

I do think of home on a semi regular basis. I am not homesick in the sense that I am crippled by it and don't want to do anything, but I often think of home and family. I feel I will be somewhat ready when the time comes to go home, but by no means am I wishing any second of these next two months away. I have a lot of traveling to do between now and Christmas! I still have 6 countries to go to. ( Russia, Italy, Vatican City, Cez Republic, Austria, and Norway). In total these trips will consist of 58 hours worth of riding in a bus/van, 36 hours of train rides, and 7.5 hours of plane rides. I am super excited,however I may have a sore butt when I come home! We will be leaving for Russia on October 27 and returning back November 5. That is 9 days! There will surely be more than one blog post about the Russia trip!