Labas Vakaras!
That's 'hello' in Lithuanian. I think. I'm sitting on the train from Gatwick airport to London Bridge right now so I thought I might as well blog and post it once I'm home.
The flight back to London was one of the best I've ever had, mainly because I had a window seat and there were no clouds for the first two hours, so I could see all the countries below. It's an interesting route, Vilnius-London. For the last half an hour, there were clouds. But I've never seen such beautiful clouds! From above, they looked just like snowy landscapes and whipped cream. I cursed myself for leaving my camera with my luggage. And then we dived into them, and it was like flying through heaps of candy floss! Absolutely amazing. I was glued to the window all through the flight, grinning like a little kid.
I had a nice time in Lithuania, too. My gran's much fitter than I thought she would be. (She has this thing where she goes on and on about being on death's doorstep when we're on the phone, but she's really far from dying. Drama queen!) She also watches daily soaps and has a huge crush on an (admittedly handsome, middle-aged) archbishop who's practically already considered a saint in Russia. He's in Siberia right now and she wanted to send him warm underwear because “the poor dear must be freezing!”. Bless! I showed her lots of pictures and we took lots of pictures and she lectured me and my mum because we don't go to church and will pray for out sinful souls. So, business as usual.
That aside, I'm still appalled about some aspects of people's lives there. For instance, no lifts. My poor gran, with her bad leg, has to hobble up an down half a dozen flights of stairs because she lives on the third floor. Also, her toilet - (actually, she only has one room, so it's not her toilet but the toilet she shares with other people on that floor) - is not a toilet. It's a hole in the ground. You carefully position yourself over a hole in the ground and try to aim well. It's ridiculous! I don't know how she does it, I can hardly do it and I'm not 73. Also, the flat where my mum and I were staying was my mum's friend's place. She had incidentally just moved out, so it was empty for a week. It's one room. Divided by half a wall. It doesn't even have its own loo or sink. And you know how many people used to live there? FOUR! For fifteen years!
I feel seriously privileged right now. And speaking of that, I can't wait to get home and check my emails. There was lots of wireless in Vilnius, but it was all either password protected or the signal was that little bit too weak for my laptop to connect to it properly.
Hope you all had a nice week, I have a feeling I'll be reading my flist for the rest of the evening (although I should be unpacking and cleaning my room).
And tomorrow it's back to work.
~Ana
The flight back to London was one of the best I've ever had, mainly because I had a window seat and there were no clouds for the first two hours, so I could see all the countries below. It's an interesting route, Vilnius-London. For the last half an hour, there were clouds. But I've never seen such beautiful clouds! From above, they looked just like snowy landscapes and whipped cream. I cursed myself for leaving my camera with my luggage. And then we dived into them, and it was like flying through heaps of candy floss! Absolutely amazing. I was glued to the window all through the flight, grinning like a little kid.
I had a nice time in Lithuania, too. My gran's much fitter than I thought she would be. (She has this thing where she goes on and on about being on death's doorstep when we're on the phone, but she's really far from dying. Drama queen!) She also watches daily soaps and has a huge crush on an (admittedly handsome, middle-aged) archbishop who's practically already considered a saint in Russia. He's in Siberia right now and she wanted to send him warm underwear because “the poor dear must be freezing!”. Bless! I showed her lots of pictures and we took lots of pictures and she lectured me and my mum because we don't go to church and will pray for out sinful souls. So, business as usual.
That aside, I'm still appalled about some aspects of people's lives there. For instance, no lifts. My poor gran, with her bad leg, has to hobble up an down half a dozen flights of stairs because she lives on the third floor. Also, her toilet - (actually, she only has one room, so it's not her toilet but the toilet she shares with other people on that floor) - is not a toilet. It's a hole in the ground. You carefully position yourself over a hole in the ground and try to aim well. It's ridiculous! I don't know how she does it, I can hardly do it and I'm not 73. Also, the flat where my mum and I were staying was my mum's friend's place. She had incidentally just moved out, so it was empty for a week. It's one room. Divided by half a wall. It doesn't even have its own loo or sink. And you know how many people used to live there? FOUR! For fifteen years!
I feel seriously privileged right now. And speaking of that, I can't wait to get home and check my emails. There was lots of wireless in Vilnius, but it was all either password protected or the signal was that little bit too weak for my laptop to connect to it properly.
Hope you all had a nice week, I have a feeling I'll be reading my flist for the rest of the evening (although I should be unpacking and cleaning my room).
And tomorrow it's back to work.
~Ana