Kretuono salos I (Kretuonas Island I)

 

Ketvirtadienį pirmą kartą aš stebėjau gamtą su Asta, Bronium ir Tautgirdu. Mes plaukėme i Kretuono ežero salas, viena iš jų paukščių gamtinis rezervatas. Buvo nuostabu! čia yra 15000 lizdų, daugiausia kirų, bet keli retų paukščių taip pat. Mes mateme retų gėlių taip pat.

I went in monitoring for the first time, and it was unbelievable! With three biologists of the park - Asta, Bronius and Tautgirdas - we went by boat on the beautiful Kretuonas lake's main island, a precious place of mating and nesting for the birds of the park: more than 15000 nests on the ground! We even saw several rare birds... Then, we sailed to another island of the lake where grow very rare flowers, which exist only in this place. Magical! Here are some pictures of Asta working.

Je suis allé en monitoring pour la première fois, et c'était incroyable! Trois biologistes du parc, Asta, Bronius et Tautgirdas m'ont emmené sur la superbe île principale du lac Kretuonas, un précieux lieu de nidification pour les oiseaux du parc (ici, principalement des mouettes): plus de 15000 nids sur le sol! Nous avons même eu la chance de voir quelques "oiseaux rares"... Puis nous sommes allés sur une autre île du lac, plus petite, qui abrite des fleurs n'existant qu'à cet endroit. Ici quelques photos d'Asta au travail.

Ka galima pamatyti... du.

 

 

Traditional Lithuanian “margučiai“ (painted eggs)

Before Easter Lithuanian people paint eggs. It is very interesting because they use some traditional methods. The most difficult way - decorating boiled eggs with melted wax. I and Vincent tried to do this.



We were invited as special guests for event in the local library where people of the local community together got ready for Easter. They learned to decorate eggs with complicated drawings, they taught their children, grandchildren and us the art of decorating Easter eggs. We learned many interesting facts about Easter traditions of Lithuania. We presented Easter traditions of our country (Moldova & France). But, of course, most importantly, we were able to decorate Easter eggs that we ate 2 weeks ago…But I have nice pictures, as the memory of our masterpieces))



My pictures look like a children's creativity.



Unlike me, Vincent is very talented. His creativity you can see even here. :D









Decoration of the wax is hard work. You must have melt wax and a tool with a sharp tip to apply the wax on the egg. The wax dries very quickly, so it's important to do everything very fast. You have to put the egg with the wax down into the paint and, finally, to delete the wax.  Pooohhhhhhhh…)





I prefer the other way. On eggs are pasted small flowers, leaves, or an onion peel. Then they are packed  with a thin thread and they are lowered into the paint. After this, all plants are removed from the surface of the egg. We can see a beautiful image!



                            GERAS!!! :)

Tautiniai maistai (National meals / Semaine du goût)

Praėjusią savaitę, mes organizuotas tris tautinius maistas: Prancūzijos (aš), Moldovos (Marta) ir Italijos (Giulia, viena italijos draugas). Buvo labai skanu ir įdomus, mūsų amerikos savininkas, Matthew, labai miego !

We had last week 3 national meals: French (me), then Moldovan (Marta) and finally Italian (Giulia, an Italian english teacher who works in Ignalina, friend of Matthew's family)... Delicious! You maybe know that our owner, Matthew, is american? Fortunately, he didn't cook!! (I'm joking, of course...)

Avec notre propriétaire américain Matthew ainsi que sa famille, Giulia, une italienne qui est prof d'anglais à Ignalina dans le cadre d'un échange européen, et Marta, nous avons cuisiné la semaine dernière une série de repas nationaux! Français, moldave et italien... nous avons heureusement évité le repas américain!!

Italijos (Italian, Italien)

nauja pasivaikščiojimas (new walk, nouvelle balade)

 

 

The Cocktail of pictures and events

Today is April 1 - Day of humor. Weather joked. Today, instead spring, we have winter. Snow fell today. We have just returned from Kaunas. This is the second largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius. Nice town with clean streets and cozy center. The weather was not very good, so it seems that people in the city center are sad and inhospitable. We really wanted to visit the museums of Kaunas, but they were closed. We only saw the city. May be next time our trip will be better. :)























The only museum that we visited - the museum in the House of Culture in Ignalina. Very interesting!  We saw the famous pictures on a piece of wood, folk art objects.







In this museum I liked very much “verbos” - compositions of dried plants and flowers. I would say the traditional Lithuanian Ikebana.)) People make it for Easter.







Last Saturday, I and Vincent walked 20 miles through forests, villages, fields and forests again. We have seen traces of large wild boar and deer. It is good that we have not seen the animals themselves), they can be dangerous. During the trip, we climbed to the highest point of our National Park. From this point we can see at least seven lakes.







We also walked through the broken bridge )) and saw real water mill. I will still talk about water mill in the future.





But the main thing! We have seen snowdrops. This means that the spring comes into its own, and soon we will enjoy the warm weather. :)