To Lithuania We Go

So the next adventure was Kaunas Lithuania (June 11-13)

Well, Friday morning was filled with travel. Woke up at 5 am for a 7:50 flight. When I got to the airport, Dan and Ted said that Lance had just called them saying he just woke up and that Jack had realized his passport was expired and that he couldn't come. Both of these were lies, Lance was a little late but not bad, and Jack barely made, the real reason he wasn't there on time was he had missed his bus. Anyways the flight was fine, but we were really packed in there. Take a southwest plane, more the seats 4-6 inches closer and then pack in a few more rows and you have a ryan air flight. I don't think I would be even able to get my head anywhere near my legs incase of a crash. But we arrived safely in Lithuania, 1030 am local time, and then spent an hour on a bus to get to the city center, then 20 minute walk to another bus stop, 30 minute wait, then 20-30 minute bus ride, missed our stop by 2, so another 20 minute walk to the hostel. All of this in 90+ degree heat and high humidity, and very crowded buses. Needless to say, we were a little bit miserable. We finally arrived at our hostel around 1. It was actually a 3 star hotel that had a few rooms that had more beds to cater to students. It was a nice place and the only downside was we were about 15 minutes outside the city.

After getting settled in and cooled off we went to a super market for some snacks. We got lots of weird looks as the 9 of us sat outside in the parking lot eating an assortment of lithuanian junk food.

We spent the next few hours walking around Kaunas. We caught a mini bus back into town, and it felt like we were on some sort of lithuanian safari. The Town Square and main street were a bit unimpressive. They were quite empty, especially for a staruday, but there were some cool looking shops. We stopped at a cafe for beer and to cool off and while we were sitting there some amatuer opera singers set up a little stage and we got to enjoy a few diddies from them, including a song from phantom of the opera.

After a bit more exploring we went to dinner at this nice little steak house, and though we had to wait a while for our food it was delicious. I should mention that Kaunas is ridiculously cheap, because most of the prices look like normal prices for something, but the exchange rate is like 1 euro to 3.5 Lita, so everything is really the third of the price. For this dinner I had a steak with mash potatoes and steamed veggies plus a beer for 10 euro.

After dinner we encountered a thunderstorm. We headed to a club called B.O. (blue orange, not bad odor) and grabbed a drink. Ellie, Anna and I were tired so we left the boys to their own devices and went home.

In the morning we awoke to some very interesting stories from the boys. Ted had apparently started making out with a girl and then once they were outside he found out she was a hooker, or may have been since he wasn't entirely sure if the men telling him to pay money were actually pimps or not. Not wanting any part in that he, david and lance left shortly after this revelation. Danny, Dan and Jack ended up meeting some Lithuanian girls and going with them back to their apartment where they were served cold cabbage soup, bread and cheese and played with their rat Pupa (the lithuanian word for bean). They said the apartment looked just as shady and broken down inside as it did outside. haha

Later in the day we went back into the city for some breakfast and to explore some more. My new favorite salty snack is Lithuanian fried bread. its so good. its essentially fried bread with melted cheese with mayo in it. mmmmmm! Then the girls split up from the guys and just strolled the city while the boys visited the sport and circus museums. That evening we watched the US-England game at an outdoor viewing. It was a very exciting game ending in 1-1 tie. Afterward we went back to BO and when it failed to get going by 1 am, we headed to Latino, which promised black music and a good time. While Anna and I were dancing this old man with a big beer belly who looked like he could barely keep his eyes open came over and said "I am the only man brave enough to come talk to you." We didn't respond and then he came back a minute later and said "Nobody likes you" haha. And then later in the night, seeming to have forgotten that he had insulted us earlier, he came dancing over and asked "where are you from?" then danced 5 paces away and then back towards us and asked "how old are you?" repeated his dance walking and then said "yea I know". Anna and I never said a word to him, it was really funny though.

We left the club around 3 and then headed back to the hostel, caught cabs at 345 to go to the airport, arrived around 440 caught a plane at 640 got to berlin at 730 and i was home and asleep by 9. It was a long 48 hours, but it was a good time, but i don't think i need to go back to kaunas in the near future, haha.

Jackie Comes to Visit

so to everyone who is reading, i apologize for the month gap in my posting. A week after my last posting I bought a journal and I have been writing in that instead of this blog.

OK so last time Jackie was about to arrive, and she stayed for a week, so here goes:

Friday: before picking up Jackie from the airport i explored my neighborhood a bit and found some great little restaurants and boutiques in the area. After running into multiple problems on the way to the airport, including a late train that forced me to reroute myself and switching to a bus, but having construction at the bus stop and having to search for its temporary location, and then finding it just as the bus pulled away, i arrived to pick up jackie. We spent the afternoon doing a bit of sight seeing at alexander platz, followed by lounging by the river at hackescher markt. While we were at Alex, we got a bratwurst, and Jackie mentioned how disproportionate the bun was (the size of a dinner roll) in comparison to the wurst (a good 10 in wiener). The guy must have noticed her comment because when he gave her her bratwurst he had broken it in half so that it fit more nicely in the bun. For dinner we met up with Danny and his friend Anna-Sophia who was visiting as well. (Danny, Jackie and I all work at Coho together back home). We went to a place I had discovered on my earlier exploration called Pizza Dach, which had 3-5 euro pizza and pasta entrees and 350 cocktails. Afterwards we met up with a few more friends, went for a drink and then went home.

Saturday: Summer had finally arrived just a day or two before Jackie came, so we all decided to enjoy the sun and the 80 degree weather out at one of the lakes in southwest berlin. The lake was a bit crowded and we stumbled unknowingly upon quite a few nudists. We also saw one of our professors there with her naked children, thankfully she was not naked as well because that would have made for an awkward next class. we found a beachy area and settled in there and enjoyed the afternoon lounging by the water. That night I took Jackie to one of my favorite bars in Friedrichshain called Kapitan, which serves these amazing rhubarb vodkas. On the way to the bar we came across a squatter street party that looked like it had been going on all day. The crowd was mainly anarchist-punk types but they were dancing to eighties pop and raggae music. Walking through i had to avoid getting whipped in the face by a man's 3 ft long dreads. Later on we met up with my friends Ted, Jack and Katie and we went to a club called Villa. Apparently its kinda underground, you have to know the DJ thats playing that night to get in, and they close during the summer as to not attract too much of the tourist crowd, so this was their last night until september or so. We ended up not leaving there until 6am and I felt like a vampire walking out of that club.

Sunday: We got a pretty late start and didn't leave the house til 4. We grabbed some sushi nearby and the cutest dog came and sat by our table, so of course i pet it the whole time it was there. I was in heaven, haha. We went over to east side gallery to check out the wall and all the artwork it was pretty cool. Then I took her to mauer park to see bear pit karaoke, and then we went and got mexican food at this australian owned place called Maria Bonitas in Prenzlauerberg. It was amazing! it actually tasted like something you would find in California.

Monday: We did a free walking tour of the city and it was pretty good, though our tour guide was not as enthusiastic as the guide we had in prague, but he set a pretty high bar. The most interesting story was the one that closed the tour, the story of the fall of the wall. So for about a month leading up to the fall, people had been gathering at monday night meetings, in a church in Liepzig, to talk about their discontent with the current system. Churches were the only places people could congregate in groups of more than six without raising suspicion. Anyways, as these grew in intensity the government had a meeting deciding what to do about it. They essentially decided to just say that they would reassess the government and tracel restrictions at some point in the future. Well at the press conference, the press secretary had not been present at the meeting, and did not read the minutes that were given to him and he essentially opened the borders without government approval. That night we went and saw a production called "Shut Up and Dance!" It was experimental ballet, and some of it was ok, but 2 or 3 of the performances were really weird.

Tuesday: Jackie joined me in class where I gave a presentation about media coverage and in the impact of television on american presidential elections. I took her to the Mensa for lunch and then we went to the turkish market. That night we went to Weinerei, which is a place you drink all the wine you want and then pay what you think you should. They also had a little bit of food there, salad, bread and potato salad. the potato salad was amazing, it was the best potato salad i've ever had- potatoes, parmasean cheese, parsley, garlic and a little bit of milk. mmm. Afterward we went to a club called White Trash to meet up with my roommates. It serves american food, but had signs like chinese takeout and a very creative menu, with very funny/sexual descriptions of their beers. They also had a bucket o' beers, which obviously we ordered, because it was so white trash. We got 6 becks beers but they came in a corona bucket which just made it that much better.

Wednesday: Kinda a low key day. I had doctor appointments in the morning. I went in because i had a bug bite on my foot that got infected and my foot swelled and changed colors, plus i had lost my voice for the 4th time since coming here. She referred me to an ear nose and throat doctor and he said that there is something on my vocal cords which is causing the problem, and too try not to strain my voice too much and come back in a month. Wednesday night we went to Burgermeister for dinner. It had great burgers and is actually a converted public toilet under the Ubahn station. weird but delicious none the less. Next I took Jackie to Madame Claude, and on the way we met up with Danny and ICED him. (ICE-ing someone is when you suprise them with a smirnoff ice and they have to get down on one knee and chug the drink right then and there, danny had iced me on tuesday when we went to weinerei, so it was payback). Later on we went to Bar 25 which looked like a giant fort from the outside. It was pretty cool inside. its an outdoor bar right on the river, it has a photo booth, swings and a little mechanical pony like you find outside grocery stores. We tried to fit 5 of us in the photo booth, and while successful in getting us all in there, we failed at getting all 5 in the photos and Jackie, who was infront, pretty much took up most of the picture, but it was good. On the way home at the Ubahn station we ICED ellie, her reaction "Fuck you guys! I'm gonna spew now on the way home!" PRICELESS.

FAIL... theater, movies and wg party

I know I fail at writing a blog. I guess I feel that exciting things aren't happening on a regular basis so I don't write very often. But here goes...

So in the last few weeks I have experienced the theater of Berlin. A few weeks ago I saw a play called "Alya, Alias Tochther" (tochter means daughter). It was a play that confronted the issue of Turkish families assimilating to life in German. Alya, a german born turkish girl, falls in love with a german boy, however their love is forbidden, due to the cultural values of her family. Well her parents find out and try to betroth her to her brother's best friend, and she acts out during on of the rituals, and shames her family. When this happens in turkish culture, the daughter is to win back her family's honor by dying. Her would-be fiance gives her father a gun to kill her with, which he gives to his son. The son returns and says that he couldn't do it, and then the father recieves a letter from Alya, stating that it is her life and she deserves to choose how to live it, and then he kills himself. Pretty heavy stuff, but a very interesting play.

Last Friday I also saw a play called Marlene, which documents the late career of Marlene Dietrich. There wasn't too much plot, it was mostly just a sad representation of a woman whose career has died, yet she still tries to keep it alive and also portrays her emotional and erratic outbursts. Then at the end there was about 25 minutes of Marlene's songs.

Last thursday I went to see sex and the city 2, auf deutsch. Now that was a novel experience. When we got there and bought our tickets, they asked us where we would like to sit, apparently they assign seats for movies, which is weird. then at the concession stands they sell beer and wine, which of course i got a beer, for the simple fact that we cannot do that in the states. well we went in for the movie and the theater was empty, so Esther and I decided to sit more in the middle of the row than our assigned seats. Well as the theater filled up, the people with tickets for those seats showed up. So we gave them their seats and took ours, but it was silly because they were a large group that was split in two, and if they had just let us keep their seats and taken ours, they would have been able to all sit together. But instead a woman decided it would be better to sit apart and continually walk between the two groups throughout the movie. lol. she was blonde. then the movie was set to start, but it began with a good half hour or so of commercial ads, followed by another 10-15 minutes of movie trailers. so 40 minutes later the movie actually starts. It was good, and fairly easy to follow, but i didn't understand all of it. Then halfway through the movie, the screen goes black and then "PAUSE" appeared. Yes we had a 10 minute intermission for a 2 hour movie. ridiculous. haha. well that was definitely an experience.

This past Saturday my roommates and I had a party at our apartment (WG=wohnung). it was a great time, and we had alot of people show up. Our apartment was definitely trashed, but not wrecked like houses often look after american parties. My friends and I spent the afternoon searching out materials to build a beer bong, and finally decided upon some ribbed green hosing and the cone from a zuluu, aka noisemaker for soccer games. My friend caroline painted the funnel part with "America FUCK YA!" and some big green eyes to make the beer bong look like a snake. Lets just say, my beer bong got a lot of action that night. lol. the party was good fun, and sometime around 3 am my friends and I decided to get doener, aka best drunk food ever. my house had been decorated with british flags for some reason, not entirely sure why, but of course Jack, a brit, brought one with him. haha. Outside my house we found a shopping cart from Netto, and decided to take it along to get doener. After returing home from our delicious drunken adventure, we hung out in my room for a bit, but then around 4 am the cops came, in riot gear, and shut us down. The party was still packed at 4, so that was pretty cool. As for the riot gear, I later found out its pretty standard stuff for breaking up parties, because you never know how drunk people will act, especially in the close quarters of a WG.

Well my friend Jackie is coming to visit for a week starting tomorrow, so should have some good stories there. Bis dann!