Holiday Inn Vilnius

... Zealanders called Tanya and Eric spotted us in the street and just so happened to be going to the same hostel, so they showed us the way.<br><br>After we had got to the hostel and rested, we ventured out into Warsaw again which seemed to be full of massssssssssive roads of a million cars, and ridiculously huge billboards..dwarfing everyone in the city. We also kept seeing lots of Dreadzone posters and reminsced about their XTV interview. After lots of walking around ...

... time for dinner and prepared to spend some money. After spending an afternoon in Latvia a few weeks ago, where one lat = two dollars, we were not looking forward to overpaying for food again. So it was a nice surprise that we were able to eat a solid dinner - meat-filled dumplings with either bacon or sour cream - and drink a Coke for roughly $4-5 each. Lithuania wooooooooooo<br><br>That's really about it for our first time in Vilnius. Nothing terribly exciting happened and neither of ...

... three meters in the air, had a ladder up to the top at each end, then a single narrow pole stretching about three meters horizontally with nothing but meat hooks underneith it. The kids seemed to like it though, and happily ran climbed and dangled around risking thier lives over the solid concrete landing pad. After retracing our steps to the hostel and asking for a map, we discovered the Old City. The old city in Vilnius is a beautiful, but ...

... Estonia. We checked into our hotel & came upstairs to find that we have a very grand & luxurious "deluxe room". David can't remember why we have a luxury room, but the location in the Old Town is wonderful, so maybe it is all that is left. Oh, while I think of it, I must tell you about Lithuanian toilets! We've met this in the past, and I saw it occasionally in Latvia too - but it's consistent in Lithuania. After using toilet paper, one is supposed to throw it in the bin ...

... names and functions as beds. Without further ado, I left my stuff and bundled only the most necessary things into my little backpack. Then I got out into the street. And much as I had "just" arrived in Vilnius and "merely" left my belongings in the room, when I started my sightseeing, it was already four in the afternoon. Bernardin&#371; gatv&#279; itself is one of the Old Town's back streets, a rather appealing narrow lane lined with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century houses ...

... to take me to one of the largest green areas of Vilnius - Karolinðkiø Park. In its on way, the day was splendid, so we were not the only ones there. When the wind died down, in spite of -8°C you would think you can dress down to sweater only. In such moments we ran in the snow like kids and, of course, searched precisely for those untrodden spots. But as soon as the wind picked up, the winter would menacingly bare its teeth and it felt as if no amount of clothing sufficed to fully ...

... of year. Cobbled carriageway was clean, but everything else was under snow. And it was almost completely empty. Of course, everything was closed, so we strolled back to Ruta's "Rover", drove to Pamënkalnio gatvë and then walked up to Taurakalnis, the Hill of the Tauras. It started to snow again, but it also meant that the temperature was pleasant - somewhere around zero, without a whiff of wind. Hence we were in no particular hurry. Of course, Ruta had been there many times ...

... pocket change because we felt bad at the sorry state of the church. We ended the day's sightseeing in Uzupio, a ramshackle alternative enclave of artists. The residents are a little eccentric and proclaimed themselves an independent republic. It was a little dead while we were there - most of the studios were closed for the day. Though a little early, we decided to have dinner in Uzupis since we were already there. The food ...

... spoke it well enough for us to understand (the exception being the HI hostel where the chose to speak English only). We saw the famous Gate Mary (Matka Boska Ostrobramska ) to which thousands of pilgrims go each year, and the stone stairs are well worn out by peoples knees as they make their way up to see the famous portrait and thank or ask for healing. Many pilgrims leave behind a token of thanks, in the form of a metal engraved heart that is then attached to a wall with thousands ...

... punti, alttrettanto le scarpe da skate. Lo zaino, quello che io chiamo la mia "casa" praticamente sta cadendo a pezzi, il mio pile e' una groviera a seguito dei diversi falo', mi si e' rotta la zip della felpa, poi...una maglietta bianca mi e diventata rosa. Il mio morale e un po schizzofrenico, passo da momenti di depressione e nostalgia a momenti di estrema euforia e irresponsabile divertimento. In generale sono comunque ...