VILNIUS, LITHUANIA (DRAFT)

VILNIUS
Lithuania is an interesting mix of what you think an emerging country might look like. Old, dark, crumbling soviet area block buildings paired with what the Lithuanian’s call ‘mini wall street’ – a modern sparkling group of glass towers in the distance.
I arrived her on Friday to a warm 8 degrees Celsius. Brrr… I have just been kind of winging it. Show up in the city, try to find a map, and then somehow get a bus or train. That backfired here… big time. English… what’s that? The older generation has not a clue.. the younger folks…. Pretty much all speak English quite well. At the end of the day, it was my Spanish that saved me. I met these 2 Lithuanian girls who spoke no English.. but perfect Spanish. They had both left Lithuania 7 years ago after high school and had been living in Spain. This is my 2nd interactions with Spaniards, and perhaps it is because I know and understand the culture… but they always seem to be so outgoing and helpful. After a bus ride and café con leche and a jug of sangria I found my hotel said goodbye to my Spanish friends and my adventure began.
Most of my days are spent wandering the streets – admiring architecture – people watching – and then a little nightlife. Being a lone all the time is quite a change. It is much more difficult than I thought. There is something that is intimate about a relationship. The touch, the feeling, the smell, the security.. and having no wifi and no cell phone has made it extremely difficult. But that is why I am here… to feel challenged and do what I have never done.
My first night in Lithuania was very cool. I ended up at a very nice restaurant – Bistro 18. It is ran by an Irish gal named Anne and her Lithuanian husband. She fell in love and moved from Dublin to Vilnius. I am eating alone as always – enjoying an excellent filet and glass of red Primativo Italian wine and I notice a French Laundry cookbook – we end up getting into a food and wine conversation and then I am invited to another table with another restaurateur and her friend… then boom…. 4 new friends. Margarita owns a bar down the way called BoBo (after her dog). So after another glass, then another glass, then another glass, we head to BoBo. We all had amazing conversation about the Iron Curtain, communism, Lenin, Marx , and the ways of Eastern Europe. Then we talked about American politics. After about 6 conversations… nobody likes Obama. Everyone wants McCain t win. They are scared of Obama… and they have all used that word – ‘scared’. I have heard myriad tales of propaganda – from Obama being a Muslim to him being black… to him being assassinated… The main news service here in Europe is the BBC and they do an excellent job – they are fair and report a balanced story so I think it is interesting that they are misinformed. Anyways after several more glasses of wine at BoBo we said our goodbyes and I head off to Pabo Latino – a latin bar down the street. Next thing I know I am overcome by mojitos and find myself in the kebab shop down the way at 4 am. Thank god I did not have my cell phone.. there would have been some WHOA… WHOA… drunk dialing!
Day 2 – very informative. I started my day at the old KGB headquarters. The KGB was basically the secret service of Russia and they left an immense amount of death and destruction in their wake. Until the Iron Curtain fell in 1991 many of the smaller countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, etc…) were all part of the USSR (United Soviet Socialist Republic). Not by choice but by invasion from Moscow. During the second world war – Moscow came and never left. Basically many of the smaller countries were occupied and controlled from the early 1940’s to the early 1990’s. If you rose up against the government the KGB would come and get you. They tapped phones, used informers, and if they found you out… of to jail you went – they you were usually sentenced to a labor camp for 3 to 25 years of hard labor. Most … never came back. You cannot work… you die. That simple. Their torture chambers were very horrific. Imagine standing in a room with a small platform in the middle. The platform is raised 2 feet off the ground is 10 inches… just enough for your 2 feet… side by side. You step off the platform and you fall into ice cold water or boiling hot water. Then you have someone there to beat you and put you back on the platform again. Another room had padded walls, floors, and ceilings. A straight jacket hangs on the back wall. Then the execution chamber…thousands of people lost their lives here.
The day winds downs with another nice meal