Tuesday, September 24, 2013

How two days turned into two weeks

As the summer is over and the tourist streams decreased, it got quite boring at the office. I was even alone after Daniele left for his bike trip around Lithuania, and I hate staying alone for a long time, so I decided to spend a couple of days of my holidays and to visit my fellow-volunteers in Kurtuvenai Regional Park - Silvia from Spain and Perica from Croatia. But first I had to go to Vilnius to buy some presents for my friends and family as I am going to leave next month, and also to say "Goodbye" to the sweet Adrian who is also leaving earlier to begin his studies. Luckily, there were other volunteers in Vilnius, also staying with Lenka and Adri, so after I spent the afternoon exploring the shops and spending a fortune on useless stuff, we all went out together for some nightlife. We were going from club to club and it was impossible to like any place due to the shitty music they were playing or to the big amount of money they wanted from us to just enter the club. So finally we went back home early, which was a good opportunity for me to take the early train to Šiauliai, where Silvia would come to pick me up.

I was quite excited because this was the furthest I would have gone in Lithuania, and I also wanted to see Silvia very much, as I haven't seen her since the mid-term training. I also knew that Daniele would be there and would continue his trip on the next day, and I really wanted to check up if he was still alive and in one piece.. So after picking me up from the bus station in Šiauliai, Silvia, Daniele (who was with her) and I went to the Hill of Crosses - one of the biggest places of interest in that area. There are thousands of crosses there, but frankly speaking I  expected a bit more. Anyway things always look more impressive on pictures, don't they? But still we managed to make our own cross and to place it on one of the side hills.




  

After a quick look of all weird crosses and sculptures of Jesus, we went to Maxima to do the shopping for the pizza Daniele was going to prepare in the evening. I also did some shopping as I wanted to prepare my special Banana-triple-chocolate cake. With full bags and a lot of excitement we finally set off to Kurtuvenai. It is a very small, but a very beautiful village. As all small villages in Lithuania it also has a huge church which you can see from far away. And the autumn has come for sure - it has colored the landscape in warm and pleasant colors and has put a beautiful carpet of leaves on the ground.





Kurtuvenai doesn't have volunteers only to the EVS programme, but also to some German programme which they work for more than 10 years with. As Laura had left, the new ones have come recently - they have spent only a couple of weeks in Lithuania before I arrived. I met them, we had some coffee and lunch and then went around the park - they showed us the campsite, the stables, the lake. The best part was when Daniele and I got to ride horses, but before that I trained a little..



We caught the owner of the stables in a very good mood due to some drinks so we didn't have to pay anything for the riding. God bless the liquid fire! And then the pizza time came - we went to the campsite and started preparing it. I even persuaded Daniele to make a video of him making the pizza in "Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time" style, but I promised him not to upload it on the internet, but you can write me a private message and we can make a deal :D Later in the evening we enjoyed a movie, actually I enjoyed just a half of it as I went to sleep quite early.

Daniele left on the next day early in the morning and I had a couple of more days to spend in Kurtuvenai. As a matter of fact I didn't have a clear plan how long to stay, but I was thinking about spending the first half of the week there and then go to the seaside and to be back by Sunday. But we all know what usually happens with plans - they fail! So instead of two days, I spent two weeks in Kurtuvenai! Well, I went to the seaside and the best thing is that everybody joined me!

So the whole week we were enjoying the sun by the lake ( the weather happened to be so great - almost like summer), having cinema nights in the evening with a lot of beer and popcorn, I made my banana-triple-chocolate cake and it was over within one day (of course, with all that chocolate!)! And on Saturday morning we set off to the seaside. According to my experience so far with the Lithuanian weather I wasn't surprised but I was truly pissed off - after a weak of very high temperatures, the weekend was cloudy and quite cold. Anyway - we couldn't wait to go and see the Curonian Spit as everybody was talking of this place as some kind of a nature miracle! And it was really REALLY nice - the sea on the one side, a very beautiful forest on the other, small villages with colorful houses, yep - this is definitely the most beautiful part of Lithuania!



Before Nida we stopped at Juodkrante where we visited the Hill of Witches where you can see lots of wooden sculptures of scary creatures:













Once we arrived in Nida we couldn't wait to go and see the beach and the sea. The boys even swam in the watter no matter that it was freezing (even though I swam too, but on the next day when there was a little sun!). After seeing the small city, we went to the dunes, where everybody enjoyed the sand hills and we spent some time just relaxing. The view of the forest turning into sand is just magnificent! We enjoyed the evening on the beach, but the honey vodka I drank occurred not to be a very good idea, so instead of sleeping with everybody else on the beach, I spent the night in the car!






I was supposed to go back to Ignalina after Nida, but I decided to stay two more days which turned into another week, but I had apologetic reasons for that: 1st - there was a meeting with Deineta and other volunteers in Kurtuvenai and I wanted to see them, 2nd - there was a festival in  Šiauliai at the end of the week, and 3rd - there was a special pagan celebration on Sunday night, so how could I go?! And so I stayed. This time it was raining the whole week without stopping - we all thought it would never stop, so we spent our time indoors, watching movies and cooking. It was quite overcrowded in the house in the end of the week as Giovanni stayed with us for two nights, and other 3 German girls came for the weekend - but as I like to say - the more the better!

The festival in Šiauliai  was quite nice, even though we went only for one evening, but we enjoyed a concert with very nice medieval music and fireworks. After that we were quite hungry so we went to a restaurant to eat some pizza and drink a "bear" and then we went to one club which was a DISASTER.. So we went back home, had enough rest and on the next day we took part in the pagan celebration in the forest, which, despite the bad weather, turned out to be very nice! The rain didn't scare us and once we helped "the earth to turn over", we went to the pub to watch the final match between Lithuania and France for the European basketball Cup with some local people. Unfortunately, Lithuania lost, but we had great time!








And this is how my two or three days of holidays turned into two weeks. But you cannot help it when you have such a great time! I was sure I was going to miss them all, but it was good for my liver to take some rest :D

Thanks to Silvia, who shared her room with me for two weeks and also gave me a very nice present which I adore! Thanks also to Kim and Malte, the German volunteers, for the trip to Nida, the crazy jumping in the lake in the middle of the night and for the cinema nights! And thanks to Perica for the speakers and the projector most of the time :)


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