June 19, 2006
LT the Place to Be
Summer has really kicked in in Lithuania. It hasn't rained a single time since I came here. Apparently it hasn't been like that for a long time, so everyone is very eager to do the summery stuff and absorb the maximum of sunlight. One good thing that happens almost every time I come to Vilnius (in summer) is going to the garden house and grilling marinated meat "shashlyk" (an aspiring vegetarian can have some salad leaves from the greenhouse :)
Its nice to spend the day just lazing in the shadow of the huge pear tree and chatting this and that. Btw, if you haven't met them, this is my sister Norvyda and her daughter Julija and the lady in red dress is my mother. Hello! :) There's always a bunch of half naked children running around the place (somehow not captured in the photos) and you may end up watching them catching fish with bare hands or feeding little ducklings or... you know, doing the kid stuff...
Summer continues in Trakai (some 30km away from Vilnius), a place with a castle a lot of history and many lakes. It becomes very apparent that the population of Lithuania is relatively large for the land area, as there are throngs of people and traffic jams everywhere. Egle and Ruta point out that it would be so much worse, if people wouldn't have left to Britain after joining the EU. From what I hear, it seems that tons of young people are earning money somewhere else. In any case, the human traffic is nothing compared with weekends in Orchard rd. We have a moment of solitude in the Karaim cemetary from the 15th century (I never really understood, who exactly the Karaims are, but they are some sort of Jewish related people that were brought by the Grand Duke Vytautas from somewhere in Middle East sometime in the 14th century, yes yes, thats from the times when Lithuania had conquered half of Russia and extended from Baltic sea to the Black sea!)
We drive a bit further and finally see a lake that has only 10 cars (not 50-60) parked on the road. So we go for a swim!!! It feels that everything is somewhat mild in Lithuania: the weather not too hot, not too cold; the light not too harsh, not too dim; the hills not too high, not too low; the water is soft; the air is mellow, etc. You don't experience anything extreme or dramatic in this place (except the ah beng driving style, of course!). In general, you just get this dreamy foggy vague feeling about everything. Life goes on...
Posted by gkligyte at June 19, 2006 09:41 PM