What follows is a description of one of the best weeks of my life. I try not to spare details, and yet it was so full, I am certainly missing something. I achieved so much that I feel victorious despite the emotionally draining feeling of leaving home, which is what Lithuania became in 10 weeks.
A few weeks ago, I went to speak to a class of university students about the difference between higher education in the US and in Lithuania (or Europe in general). It was a really interesting experience, and I left feeling like I had a good sense of the benefits of both systems. (I’ll spare the details—but if you’re interested, ask me about it some time.) At the end of the discussion, I told everyone in the class that if they were ever in the DC area, they were welcome to stay with me. Everyone left, but then a boy came back into the room, and asked for my email address because he hopes to come to DC this summer. It was funny because Mallary, who came with me that day, had just said how cute this boy was. Jonas and I swapped email addresses, and I told him I’d contact him.
After a few emails, we agreed to meet for dinner last Friday. I told him I’d be playing guitar on the street until we meet, and he said he would bring his along. So, when he met me, we played a few songs on the street. I saw instantly that he was a skilled player with a good ear. We had a dinner of pancakes, crepes really; I had a banana stuffed one with ice cream on top and a strawberry and cottage cheese stuffed one. Delicious, rich. I enjoyed talking to Jonas, so I told him we should go get a beer somewhere. I asked him to take me to one of his favorite places; he chose Snekutis. The man who runs this bar, Mr. Snekutis, had a long gray beard, and all of the brews were homemade. There were no free seats, so we shared a table with a stranger, Gediminas. I’m glad we met him because he suggested the must-have beers in the place. After a dark beer that reminded me of rootbeer and pepper, we tried a traditional beer that changed my life: Jovary. I worked for Doug Fabbioli at his winery, and he told me that good food or drink makes you remember a lost memory. This beer, which was “alive” as the Lithuanians say (the yeast was still active), reminded me of playing in the hay loft in my grandfather’s barn: the musty, warm, heady smell of dried plants and flowers. Gediminas liked this description, and he said it makes sense because the beer is full of native and even wild grains.
After Gediminas left, I pulled back out my guitar, and convinced the initially-shy Jonas to play with me. We played some blues songs I wrote, and the next thing I know, two girls asked to sit with us, and Lithuanians in the bar were clapping along. They really liked my favorite song—“Where did you sleep last night?”—Leadbelly style, though I like Nirvana’s take on it, too. Between songs, someone asked where I was from—I could tell he was American; when I said Virginia, he freaked out and told me he was on exchange from VMI. Small world. After reminiscing about good old Virginny, I traded email addresses with him, and said we’d get a drink sometime on the other side of the Atlantic. For a bar, this place closed early; once on the street, I decided I still didn’t want this night to end, so I called one of my friends from the Embassy. She told us that she and a few others were at In Vino, a wine bar near the Gates of Dawn in the heart of Old Town.
At this point, Jonas was high on life, so it took no effort to get him to come along with me. This In Vino was pretty chic and had a lot of seating. My friends were all the way in the back. After they all met Jonas, in their kindness they shared some Prosecco; we returned the gift with songs. Now that it was later in the evening, and all of Lithuania was a bit more intoxicated, the seemingly-shy Lithuanians cast off their barriers. Everyone was shouting requests and one group pulled their table up to ours; perhaps unsurprisingly, Jonas knew way more Americans songs than me. Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was a big hit, along with “Sweet Home Alabama,” and “Wild Thing.” I even played guitar with Jonas while the Lithuanian’s sang some of their songs.
Eventually, this night had to end (4 am?). I would have been sad, except I had big plans for the morning. Daiva, the language instructor at the Embassy, and mother of the oft-mentioned Jore, invited me to see village life in Lithuania. Her friend, Laima, inherited a small village cottage from her parents, and she was kind enough give an American a glimpse of Lithuania’s private fairytale world. After waking up at 8 am, I traveled by bus to Laima’s place. After she showed me her small but cozy flat and gave me a gift of intricately hand-painted eggs, we piled into her very small car: me, Laima, Daiva, Jore, and Pifas—Laima’s 14-year-old blind/deaf dog. The ride to the village was lovely, if a bit cramped. It was snowing when we left Vilnius, but Daiva promised better weather when we arrived at the village. She kept her promise because the sun came from behind the clouds just as we arrived.
“Fairytale” is the best ways to describe these village communities. It’s almost unbelievable how quaint and natural everything is. The homes are almost all identical—log cabin like structures painted gray, with intricately carved white wood-siding around the windows. There is no plumbing in the village; everyone has a well, and there are a few community outhouses. I am a bit of a water snob because in Lucketts our taps are supplied by wells, but this was probably the first water I’ve ever had that was better than Stumptown’s. After opening up the cottage to air out and starting a fire in the woodstove, we spread out a big picnic lunch on the cottage porch. Laima told me some of her family’s history, and the history of the house. Her grandparents built the house in 1913—Laima showed me the board with the number carved into it. She also told me about her mother, who spent 10 years in Siberia after the Soviets deported her for singing a Lithuanian national song when she was 16 years old. The pain in Laima’s face when she told this story was apparent—because of this action against her mother, Laima refused to ever join the Communist party, which meant she could not go to school in Soviet Lithuania. This moral stand came at a high price when it came time to find a career. She also told me that Lithuanians often joke they are all related because of Siberia; the people that survived their time there met and had children with a Lithuanian from a community they would otherwise never have integrated with.
After lunch, we went for a walk to the river Merkys. As we walked through the pine forest, I saw so many wildflowers and small plants that were new to me; this was very exciting. We bumped into several strange mushrooms, though they are most plentiful in the fall. The soil was remarkably sandy; actually, it just was sand in most places. This composition and plentiful rain-fall cause Lithuania’s forests to be carpeted in soft moss. We came to a ridge overlooking a winding river; it made such a bent U, it was almost a complete circle. If man was a river, he would take the straightest path to a destination; I love how inefficient and unconcerned nature behaves. Because of the sandy soil, this ledge is constantly eroded by the river. Many of the tall pines were on the brink of falling into the river; Daiva told me one falls every couple of weeks.
When we walked down and along the river, I saw wild strawberry and raspberry plants. Laima told me that you can visit the village in the summer and not bring any food because there are enough wild berries and mushrooms to pick and fish to catch that you won’t go hungry. She told me the locals in this poor district joke, “If not for mushrooms and berries, the girls would be naked.” After seeing her small cottage filled with sunlight and that pure smell of wet earth, I realized that someone could spend the best month of their life living in one of these homes. Just live off the land, farm some simple crops, and spend all day fishing in the sun. This is a dream of mine now; we’ll see if I ever make it back to Lithuania as I hope to, let alone have a free month to live here.
I completed my quest to know Lithuania by swimming in her waters. I found a very shallow bank on the Merkys and stripped to my shorts—I usually completely strip, but it wasn’t appropriate in front of the ladies or the conservative villagers. The Lithuanians clearly thought this was crazy, but Daiva brought me to the village because I expressed how important it was that I swim in a Lithuanian river. Of course, the water was near-freezing (Laima said it's cold even in the summer), but it was exactly what I wanted. My heart stopped the moment I jumped in, and it wasn’t sure if it wanted to restart. It was so extreme that I sort of lost control of my brain: a bit of screaming and roaring felt very healthy. Pifas jumped in with me because he is so brave. My good friends know that I’m not a big pet person, but I respect wisdom, and Pifas had plenty to teach me. One would never guess that he was 14 years old (or blind or deaf), which is 100 in human years; he was sprinting through the open fields like a puppy. He was the only one happier to be out of the city than me.
After returning to the village, Jore and I had to prepare to catch the train back to Vilnius. Laima and Daiva stayed in the village for the evening. Before jumping on the train, we had one final thing to see in the village. After crossing a “monkey bridge,” which was barely suspended and shook in the wind, we came to the village-house of one of Laima’s friends. When we approached the door, an old, short woman, burst out of the door and began hugging me and everyone else. She brought us into her house and pushed me into a chair and gave me cookies, then immediately pulled me out of her seat so she could demonstrate working at her wooden spinning wheel to make thread—old school. Laima and Daiva kept referring to her as a “philosopher.” They weren’t using this title in the way I would, but this woman was certainly full of philosophy. The real reason for the visit was to give me a true taste of Lithuania—homemade liquor made from rye flower. This 70% clear alcohol is illegal and made by “some man in the woods.” It really did smell like rye bread, but it mainly tasted like burning (yes, that’s a taste now). Of course, the 80-year-old woman took her shot faster than anyone else. After Jore and I returned the favor by singing a song, they sang some songs in Lithuanian; the lyrics were translated to me as a mother asking a daughter, “Where have you been?” to which the daughter responds, “I shared a word with a boy beneath a tree.” Despite how inviting this philosopher’s presence was, we had to run to the train. On the train back, Jore and I drank a beer, hiding it from the ticket-collectors. Jore kept saying she felt 16 again.
When I got back to Vilnius, I went to my sister’s house: not my blood sister, of course, but my Lithuanian sister. Renata and her mother fed me weeks ago, after the Kuzukio fair, and when a woman makes me a meal, she becomes family (whether she wants to or not). When Renata invited me to her place again for a dinner, I eagerly accepted. It was lovely to meet her brother again and his son, Cristopus (I’m sure that’s spelled wrong, but it’s phonetically accurate) and her beautiful cousins. After she stuffed me to the seams and gave me a dozen glasses of wine, I sleepily sat and listened to the hum of the Lithuanian language. I went from the village and the river by morning to wine with new friends by evening—rarely are days fuller.
Sunday should have been a day of rest, except that I was invited to go to Grutas Parkas, and this was not a weekend for no’s. (Actually, I’m not sure if I’ve said no to anything since I’ve been here…anything morally healthy that is.) As a private venture, a businessman decided to buy the old Soviet relics and statues around Lithuania and set them up in an outdoor park. Initially people disliked his idea, preferring that the Soviet propaganda be destroyed, but now it is a favorite place in the country for reflecting on their history. There is something beautifully ironic about someone making a business out of paid-viewings of Soviet statues; it’s so wonderfully Western, and seeing Lenin and Stalin poked and prodded by smiling tourists makes one think they’re getting their comeuppance. There were many good photo opportunities here, and there’s even a petting zoo for the children. I remember an American colleague at the Embassy said there is something completely off-putting about placing a petting zoo next to a solemn museum of Soviet occupation; my Lithuanian colleague responded to this by saying: “It actually makes perfect sense because the Soviets were running a zoo in Lithuania.”
On the drive home from the park, we stopped along the road to see what someone was selling on the hood of their car: mushrooms! I had heard that a special type of spring mushroom was ready for picking, and I hoped to try them so I could complete my full quest to see Lithuania: her river and her mushrooms. The group of us bought a bag of them for around two dollars, and I said we’d have a pot-luck dinner at my place during the week, and I would serve them there. Bobausis (pronounced bo-bo-say) are toxic mushrooms, so they must be prepared carefully. It was difficult to get education on their preparation at first because many Lithuanians don’t eat them. I read that in Scandinavia and the northern Baltics they are popular, but they are avoided in France and Poland; Lithuania is right in between. Finally, someone from the Embassy who enjoys them told me that I need to boil them three times for 30 minutes, changing out the water each time. I was also told to keep all the windows in my kitchen open because the steam is full of the toxins, too. On the first boil the water turned blood red and the smell gave me a queasy feeling, so I just opened every window in my flat. By the third boil though, the mushrooms that previously looked like a death-trap, looked very tame. I sautéed them with onions using a hunk of pork fat and some butter. We had quite a spread at this pot-luck; in fact, I was eating left-overs until the day I left. But the mushrooms were rather anti-climactic after all the fuss; they tasted much like any other mushroom, or even less. I’m not sure how anything can taste good after you boil it three times, though. Most Lithuanians say the autumn mushrooms are better, so I’ll have to return for them. I’m glad I can say I ate them, though, and that I prepared something that could have killed me.
My work is completed at the Embassy. As the week ended, I shared several heartfelt farewells with my colleagues, including the Ambassador. I enjoyed my time there, and I signed up to take the Foreign Service Exam this summer. I’m not certain I want to be a FS officer, but there’s no harm in taking the test. Friday, my last full day in Lithuania, was beautiful: 72 degrees and sunny skies. I met many of my American and Lithuanian friends in Uzupis, and we drank and chatted outside. I said goodbye to many people, and met many new people, which was bittersweet. I wandered through the streets with Jonas, Jore, and Giedre, and to the end was going to new places I hadn’t seen. Jonas and I played guitar everywhere we went, and I can say I went down singing. I really do hope I can return to Lithuania one day. Time will tell.
Now I’m in London, and I plan to continue writing about my travels. The itinerary by city is: London; Berlin; Hamburg; Bremen to Haugesund, Norway (just points of transit); Bergen (with Thomas); Prague (with Mal); Vienna; Salzburg; Florence; Rome; somewhere in southern France; Paris; and Washington! I wish I was excited about the first leg, but it largely feels like one awkward, long path to Mallary. Ignorance is bliss, and because I lost that ignorance and I know how good it is to be with the person I love, I’m hardly satisfied when I’m not. (It’s a good thing I love Thomas, too! I can’t wait to see Norway with him.) Plus, though cheap travel through Europe is possible, it’s tiring. Because of strange flight times and locations, I will probably sleep (try to, that is) in airports two of the next three nights. I’m young, though, so I should do this while my body can. For a month, I’m living from a small school book bag. Thankfully the weather is warming up, so I didn’t need to pack bulky winter clothes. I will be re-wearing my socks and growing a gnarly beard; how freeing! Believe it or not, I feel less up for it at 23 than I did at 20 when I did this last. I want to keep pushing the limit, though. I am well aware that it will not be possible to take a whole month like this in the coming years. That’s also why I’ve dismissed my guilt over the cost of the trip: in ten years, I won’t remember starting the payments on my school loans one month earlier, but I will remember this trip.
Keep reading, friends; I’ll have stories to tell. In fact, rather than a rambling narrative, this blog may become brief vignettes. And I may use this venue to post some poetry I’ve been working on as well.
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