What Makes Your Heart Beat?

This.

To: Kaunas

Lauren, Danica, Gracie and I made a little weekend trip to a nearby city - Kaunas. It's just a three(ish) hour bus ride from Klaipeda and offers the little change of scenery we were craving.

After classes on the 14th, we got to the bus station, hopped on and were headed to Kaunas. We got to our hostel, The Monk's Bunk and crashed. I don't think the guy there knew what to do with us - he kept asking what kind of bar we wanted to go to...or maybe a concert? We wanted girl time and sleep. Typical.

The next two days consisted of walking around Old Town, exploring old churches and cobbled side streets. We spent way to much time inside of coffee shops, but I don't think any of us would complain. It was just nice go get away for a little bit. 

I think even my unedited, iPhone pictures will capture the few days better than my words will at this point. So here ya go:

Big church? Impressive.

Four girls, just adventurin' to find the hostel late at night. Finally found it in a back alley. Our parents love this, I'm sure.

Breakfast the next morning. Best pastry I've had to date. Had to document.

Books on books on books on the main street.

We couldn't go in this church, but it was massive. And goregeous.

Remaining section of the fortress(?) in Kaunas. There's a river to the right, and the Old Town sits to the left. If you look far left, you'll see part of the church that's captured in the photo below.

Imagine that behind where I'm standing as I'm taking the picture, that there's a huge, sad looking sanctuary. Except, pews line the aisle and colored pictures are hung on the walls. 

We saw a WEDDING. For those of you who have been following my Pinterest board, you'll know I've been into those lately. Ring-by-spring am-I-rite.

Cookie shop. Those chocolate ones, front and center left? Yum.

The main walking path, which we spent 99% of our time walking, was great to the directionally challenged (me). Took us straight from this beautiful church to our hostel directly down to Old Town. Dream.

Danica - Me - Lauren - Gracie

The cutest old man took this picture. No English, but big smiles all around.

'merican Burger

The other night, Lori came in and said she was craving a burger. I thought, you know what? I am too. So I had my first bite of beef in six weeks and it was wonderful. We caught the bus to Old Town, backtracked a little bit and walked out to the end of the street, which ends at the ticket office to the ferry boat. In the ticket office, there sits a great classy little burger place.

Please, look at the thick fries, real ketchup, and while it doesn't look like it from this angle, thick piece of BEEF.

'Merica.

File Under: My Bad

For the five or six of you who regularly check in, you might have recently noticed a lack of regular posts. File under: My Bad.

So many incredible things are happening. Incredible in the great-big-awesome kind of sense of the word. And when these incredible things happen, I just want to write and write and write about them - sharing the little details with you in an attempt to let you see what's going on through my eyes.

Except, when I finally sit down to write it all out, the stories and thoughts just seem long-winded and flat. And I HATE that because that's not how they are at all.

Take Valentines Day. I've sat down to write that at least three times and it still doesn't feel like I've really captured it. Not to mention I only took one picture, so I can't even speak through those.

Take Kaunas. Great weekend of exploring another Lithuanian city, or just kind of hopping from coffee shop to cookie shop back to coffee shop. Except, we did wander through Old Town and we did step into the most beat up old church only to see pews still lining the sanctuary and crayon-colored pictures strung up on the walls. Incredible.

Take my 'merican night. Dropping 21 litas on one meal never felt so good. I hadn't eaten beef in 6 weeks, and I cannot express how delicious that thick burger and fries tasted. Chalk that one up to simple things in life.

Take volunteering at the Baby House. How can my heart feel so beat up but so full of love at the same time? I can go from near tears to gut-busting laughter with those littles...stories to come.

Or take today. Going into Old Town to do homework only to spend at least half of the time if not more in an incredible conversation. A conversation that made me feel about 100 different ways and challenged and gave hope and food for thought. Top tenner for sure.

Take that last thing, today, and bring it back to that first thing I talked about...how it's so difficult to make these things come alive for you as they are for me but how badly I want that to happen. I try and type like I see and talk, but lately it seems like a different language. A roommate of a friend remarked that when she speaks English, she doesn't feel like she can be herself. That's how I feel with this little space...at least recently.

I wish I could sit with you and just talk about it. Have my pictures all lined up in a cute little Prezi and flip through them like I did with my church after coming back from Nepal. Or better yet, lay them all out on the coffee table with hot mugs and have all afternoon to catch up. Some day.

While writing, this song and this song and this song played.

Russia Timelapse

I'll be here in about two weeks. To say I'm excited is an understatement.

In Your Atmosphere by John Mayer

Two of two classes were cancelled today [#sameprofprobs] so it made for a lazy morning and a halfway productive afternoon at Coffee Port & Max's. 

Today's listening:

Stick around until 4:30 - that's where it really gets good.

Stanton & Stories

"We all love stories. We’re born from them. Stories are who we are. We all want affirmations that our lives have meaning. And nothing has a greater affirmation than when we connect through stories. It can cross the barriers of time – past, present and future – and allows us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others, real and imagined."

Andrew Stanton: The Clues to a Great Story

One of the things that has struck me most in the past month have been stories. Stories of living here 20, 50, 100 years ago. On walks to Max Coffee or church on Sundays or to Iki, I try and imagine these stories -- wondering if I was walking these streets that long ago what I would have been thinking and seeing and feeling. I try and piece together the little known before and the little learned since -- about World War I & II and the Soviet occupation and the people who stood for their independence and freedom and what it all means to be one who lives in Klaipeda or Lithuania or greater Eastern Europe since. 

These stories are so recent, so fresh. Those who defended and supported both sides of the conflict still live. There are those with grandparents who were deported - some who lived to return and continue living in their homeland. There are those who worked for the KGB headquarters still living in Vilnius.

I think to 1991, which happens to be year I was born. That year, 1991, marks the time in which Soviet power fell in Lithuania. That's only 22 years ago. 

Stories surround us everywhere we go - and I love Stanton's quote, written above. It's spoken to me before, but take a quote out of one context, put it in another, and it claims a different meaning. Stanton says a story "can cross the barriers of time -- past, present, and future -- and allows us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others, real and imagined." 

Through the stories being told, I am crossing the barrier of time and experiencing a small look into the lives of others. These stories I'm hearing are opening up new doors. Changing perspective, maybe in small ways, but ways all the same. Shifting a worldview. More similarities are being seen and show me that when it comes down to it, we're all just people. And I don't mean this in a way that belittles our differences or doesn't celebrate individuality and uniqueness. It's more said in awe and appreciation, if that makes sense.

Gratitude, Lately

Here's to gratitude. To some of the things I've been grateful for over the past few days...

For quiet streets and long walks home.

For coffee shops and the steady pace they set.

For bright oranges that kick the morning off right.

For finding brown sugar & vanilla to make chocolate chip cookies. "A little taste of America" as one of the European students said. 

I agree.

 For these woods.

For roommates who talk and laugh and listen and explore and adventure and make our little space a wholeheartedly good place to be.

...because gratitude changes everything.

Russian Dumplings

We made dumplings the other night. Simple process, but time consuming. As we began, I asked where they got the recipe, expecting it to be an old family secret or tradition or something like that.

Google.

So in four less-than-ideal pictures, here ya go. If you want the more detailed version I'm going to point you where my new friends directed me and say, ask Google.

Dough: egg, oil, flour, water

Roll out, cut with cup. 

Fill with potato filling & seal tight. Otherwise you'll end up with soup.

So after two hours of mixing, tasting, rolling, stirring, sealing, etc etc etc we had dumplings. Everyone sat down to a family meal, and it was good. So good. If you come over to my place (t-minus x months), I can now make you Russian dumplings.