Babilonas Kaunas

WELL WHAT CAN I SAY THIS OPENS YOUR EYES SLIGHTLY,
THERE I GO , WELL FIRSTLY VERY WARM PEOPLE, FELT LIKE A KING ALL OF ELINAS FAMILY, MADE ME FEEL VERY WELCOME,
KLAIPED'A IS WHERE WE STAYED EVERYBODY LIVES IN APARTMENTS WELL THAT'S THE WAY IT SEEMED, VERY FEW HOUSES. FANTASTIC BEACHES YES THAT'S RIGHT WHITE SANDS , BIT COLD WHEN I ...

... Es wird immer einmal die Woche gekocht. Ich hab mich schon bereit erklärt meine deutsche Spezialität zu kochen: Rouladen mit Knödeln und Rotkohl.. oh ich bekomm Hunger... 
Ich hoffe das das alles so weitergeht. Tomas hilft mir eine Wohnung zu finden. Er führt Telefonate und fährt mit mir dort vorbei und verhandelt. Bis jetzt war noch nichts dabei. Naja, morgen gehts zur Taufe! Dann mehr davon!
Liebste Grüße
Eure Martina

Our hostess in Kaunus, Laura, made us very welcome. Her parents-in-law and Grandmother also live there. The kids, particularly Saskia and Eartha went out of their way to endear themselves to everyone. They miss Grandma, so a surrogate set of grandparents was not to be passed over. Nick was well fed before Laura took him to the airport. I ...

... motioned that I could follow her car back to the right road. I was very grateful. We had to go back into Alytus, but then I was on my way again.

The remaining journey was uneventful, and we got to Kaunus airport about 5 minutes after Nick came through what amounts for customs. Incidentally, I haven't had my passport checked since I got off the boat in Holland. The borders are truly porous.

The kids were thrilled to see their Dad after a week of separation.

... to find the hotel. Just up the street but it involved me going in through a gate - with around 2 inches clearance on either side of the car. David enthusiastically signalled me forward while I was unhappily sure we'd scrape somewhere. Then when we were inside the gate he said to me something like "are you right for me to leave you now?" (meaning that he would find where our room was or where we should go next). I had to bite my tongue to hold back the vehemence of my ...

... according to some other as much as 82. What I didn't know, and I am sorry that I did not, was that you could go up to the church roof and have view of the city. If I had known it, I would have entered. This way, I just skipped it as I don't view those modern churches as something you should in no way miss. Gone are the times when tons of money and tens of years were lavished on inner and outer decorations of churches. Nowadays it's not like that any more. Today you enter one of ...

... guess what was to come next for us? FOOD. Both Vik's mum and her sister are good in front of the stove and they didn't let me down. I am not usually a fan of eating pork, but they did something that made me not notice. Vik made a cake of sorts called 'Tinginys' which was made of only four ingredients: buscuits, butter, sweetened condensed milk and cocoa. For people who have never seen it, it is hard to imagine, so I will simply ...

... For all its pretty corners, Kaunas is a little mundane. Without question its setting on a long, flat stretch of land beside a river amidst forested hills is charming. And strangely enough it hosts one of the largest shopping malls I've yet seen in Eastern Europe just up the river from the train station area (so evidently the economy's not hurting too badly). But I can't say the city's made any particularly lasting impression on me. Still, it's good to ...

... Kaunus, who had been partying in Vilnius the night before. The car that picked us up was not what one would imagine for HH: a baby-**** brown 1984 Subaru...it was in fact a very nice Chrysler with bucket seats and ample leg room. The guy who picked us up was a business man who was on his way home from the capital. It took us about one hour to get to Kaunas, which was 100km away - maths buffs with be able to work out our approximate average speed ...

... ich zeig euch dann die fotos, falls gewuenscht. wir gingen danach zu sechst erstmal ne "pica" essen, ich will wirklich nicht so bald nach italien, nur pizza hier... und danach in die bar "blue orange" die ich in drei tagen dreimal sah... dort war alles total voll, und als wir nach oben gingen, trafen wir emily, 31, aus LA. von beruf macht sie tanzlehrerin und manchmal modern dance festivals... :) wir haben erstmal gemeinsam die tanzflaeche gestuermt und dort mit yaq, ein ...