Let's start out with a cute dog -
waiting for its master or mistress -
outside McDonalds on Gedimino prospect. There's even a McExpress walk-up window. But no McDog window at sidewalk level - too bad.
It's turned just a bit colder today, Feb. 18, the Monday of our last full week in Lithuania. A few gentle flakes in the air.
Last week was a bit of this and that as we came down from our great week in Sweden.
With friends we went to "Les Miserables," powerful and moving, of course, although I tend to like musicals on stage instead of on screen. Seems like a more natural habitat for musicals. (Liz totally loved it. And I liked it a lot.) Even though we had a Lithuanian friend as our guide, we wandered all around the movie complex, up and down, trying to find our particular theater. And then it even took a little while to get out when it was over. Seemed like that Escher print with stairways to nowhere.
A week ago Sunday we had lunch with Per-Erik, who comes to Lithuania from Norway for about one week per month to supervise a business he owns. He's been a member of the congregation for many years now, and you may remember that he gave us a very helpful extended tour of Vilnius soon after we arrived. We had Mexican food at Tres Mexicanos
which has a great location very close to the cathedral.
For some reason, the administration of our senior center has started locking the kitchen/laundry room downstairs. We've had to go to them each time we've wanted to do a load of wash or bake a pizza (no oven in our flat). So I finally discussed this with them - in extremely broken Russian - and they said, well, why not just take the key and go get a copy? Pazhaloostah! So I did. Found a key symbol hanging over an archway over on Traku Street,
and opened a little door back in the courtyard where I found a sign that I think said "back in 10 minutes." Anyway, the locksmith quickly appeared and made me a key for 10 litas. So now we can wash and bake whenever we wish.
On Ash Wednesday I went down to the Italian bakery - the grumpy girl has been replaced by a much more pleasant woman - and got a brioche for Liz and a "kraffen" for me -
a cute little delivery vehicle
for a pile of whipped cream! With scrambled eggs and bits of bacon - this is what I call Lenten sacrifice! (Yes, I know you're supposed to eat these things just on Fat Tuesday, but I couldn't help it if they were still available on Ash Wednesday!) (These nasty treats seem pretty universal - had a very similar "semla" in Sweden and ate lots of "krapfen" in Salzburg.)
Later that morning we headed down past Cathedral Square to the old arsenal, which is now the National Museum.
Here's King Mindaugas (ca 1203-1263) in front of the museum, which is fairly small and modest - at least the part that was open to us - but contained some fascinating displays, including the various smoky rooms of a prosperous(?) peasant's home, traditional national costumes, a large re-creation of the battle of Tannenberg in 1410 (the final defeat of the Christian Teutonic Knights), and lots of wooden crosses, roadside shrines, and painted wood carvings of saints of all kinds.
Speaking of saints (besides St. Elizabeth!), we've discovered that St. George is the patron saint of Lithuania - here he is atop Marks and Spencer's department store -
and St. Christopher is the city of Vilnius' saint -
a statue mounted on a wall across from the Parliament.
As I was wandering around on Friday it seemed that a lot more Lithuanian flags were flapping than usual, so I asked one of the information offices and they said that the next day, February 16, was Independence Day - dating back to 1918 as German forces withdrew. In actuality, as I understand it, this independence existed mostly in northern Lithuania, because Polish forces entered the country at this point and occupied Vilnius and areas to the south up until 1939 and the arrival of Nazi Germany. (Lithuania also celebrates Restoration of Independence Day on March 11 - dating to 1990 and the country's declaration of freedom from Soviet occupation, even though total Soviet withdrawal took more than another year.) A small country with a very complicated history.
On Independence Day there was a lot of activity at a square along Gedimino prospect, in front of the statue of poet Vincas Kudirka,
author and composer of the national anthem, a man who spent time jailed by the Russians for his enthusiasm for his native language and country. His picture is on the 500 litas note. He died of TB in 1899 at the age of 40.
In front of the statue was a demonstration calling for an end to "political terror in White Russia (Belarus)", Lithuania's neighbor not very far to the east.
All up and down the avenue wood was piled up for evening bonfires. As it turned out, that evening we stayed in our flat watching a movie, and it was only at 10 pm that I remembered the bonfires -
but when I got down there, all that was left was a few feeble embers. And the crowds were gone.
A parable about Lithuania:
For years one of the symbols of Lithuania was this horse and rider - note the tail curving down.
But the new pose, since 1991,
has a tail pointed straight up. Viva Lithuania!
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