Study Abroad: Lithuania

To try and capture some of our time studying in and around Lithuania, we were assigned a video project. This is ours.

Easter on the Beach

I've never spent a holiday on the beach, but that's what we did yesterday. Which, by the way, wins an award for being the most beautiful day in Lithuania yet. The sun was bright, air was hot, breeze was cool, and the water was calm. Guys played soccer, girls laid out and talked. 

Roommates. Gems.

 Caught a bus to church. Got an iced latte. Rocked that ^ same outfit to church, by the way.

Summer get at me.

Then we decided to bring back French Toast night as an Easter dinner celebration. Complete with simmered apples, nutella, peanut butter (!), and the like. We played a Taylor DC classic, apple fork or whatever they call it, and introduced Kristen to the game. I have a video somewhere.

All in all, I missed my family, but a weird holiday is good every now and again. Takes us out of the norm and reminds us of what is really important - and for Easter, it's the incredible reality that Christ overcame death. He is risen!

Friday in Pics

The weather is turning here in Klaipeda and the beautiful summery Lithuania is peaking through. We made the most of the weather yesterday, walked down to the Baltic did a little bonfire action and walked back, seeing a little hedgehog on the way. 

Last night reminded me a lot of living up north every summer, and got me so pumped that in less than two months I'll be there again. Lithuania has been great, but I'm ready to get back to family and familiarity of home. 

Less than two weeks until I see my mom and five weeks until I'm back on US soil. I would be lying if I said I didn't have a countdown going.

Caramel & Pear

Hey caramel & pear yogurt I don't know who thought of putting your two flavors together but I like you a lot. A LOT. I may have to put you on the "do not buy" list next to ice cream and cream cheese chocolate bars. Hot dang.

That is all.

Sleeping at Last

(see Riga highlights below) 

Those who have heard of my sleeping habits issues this semester might think that with that title (^) I'm starting to get over them. FYI that's false, but Sleeping at Last is the moniker of Ryan O'Neal, this great guy based in Chicago who has just so happened to write, wait for it, the soundtrack of my year.

His latest installment just came out. See, this guy does not just make an album and let it go. He picks a theme - for this year it's "Atlas" - and goes from there. Space 1, Space 2, Light, Darkness, and Land have been on repeat for the past couple of weeks and it just doesn't get old. O'Neal blends so many different lines and words and sounds together that each time you listen, the meaning is new.

Introducing "Oceans" over on Relevant. It's a sort of pre-release. Take a listen. Yes, it's instrumental. If you want words, check out Space 1/2, Light, Darkness or Land.

Riga Highlights

Saturday afternoon we loaded up with Slingshot to take the bus to Riga. Five hours later, we were there in time for dinner and exploring the city by night. After some Turkish fast food, riding in a bicycle taxi and getting lost too many times to count, we went to bed.

Sunday morning, Palm Sunday, we went to an english-speaking Anglican Church. Dream come true. I had forgotten how much I missed the Anglican service, which to me blends so well tradition and scripture and beauty and mystery of the faith.

We wandered more that day but mainly just spend time in a tea shop drinking the best tea of my life. Anyways, on to the highlights reel: 

Probably the worst picture of the trip, but captured so much of the night. Lots of lights. Crazy bike taxi. Just a blur.

The next morning was rainy, but we still had fun walking around. This is just some random street.

Hunter, Joel and Jonathan saw a tree hanging out over the water. They had to climb it.

Lori introduced us to this place. We loved it.

Danica eating her chocolate cake and me drinking the  b e s t  tea of my life.

This isn't the Anglican Church we went to - but isn't she beautiful? Walking down many of the side streets you could peak up through the breaks in the buildings and see the spire. Incredible. Favorite picture of the trip.

Thankful to have these experiences with such an awesome group of people. So many things seen and heard, taught and learned. Cannot imagine this time spent any other way. Filled with gratitude.

Tallinn Highlights

This weekend, the study abroad group took a trip to Tallinn and Riga. After an overnight bus trip from Thursday to Friday morning, we woke up to a great breakfast in Tallinn, went on a walking tour of the medieval city center and then basically wandered around for the next day and a half. This included drinking chai at a coffee shop older than the U.S. of A., seeing some sweet overlooks, eating pancakes as big as our FACE and spending too much at the cutest little shop. Enjoy -some- of the highlights:

"Hey guys! I want a picture of y'all!" And instead of getting together, you know, smiling and everything they just start 'arguing'...typical.

Jonathan's sly little look...classic.

The red roofs always get me on these views. If you take a gander to the left you'll notice a little strip of sea. Across it lies Finland, which a few of us took the ferry to visit for an hour or so. I stayed in Tallinn, waiting until Mom gets here to explore Helsinki.

After that overlook, I turned around, took a left and saw this big white wall. Not sure why I liked it so much, but it jumped out.

I wandered alone for a while and loved it. There was an artist who sat and painted on this road, you can barely see him. His art was beautiful.

The streets. These streets were so fun to walk up and down and all around. The shops and apartments were such pretty colors even through the cloudy day. 

Riga tomorrow.

Just Dysfunctional

Seth Godin has been writing some phenomenal posts lately. The latest hit especially close, mostly because I have been worrying about disappointing myself (mostly) and others (to an extent). So when the title "meandering toward nowhere special" - (which is what it seems like I'm doing with this after-graduation job/general life-purpose search) popped up in my email, my clicker was on the permalink like white on rice.

He names five behaviors which, when gathered together, lead to disappointment. The five behaviors being, drumroll please, big dreams (check), poor work habits (ish), shortcut seeking (definitely), lottery thinking (define that? oh. yeah.), and lack of self-awareness (oops).

Wow, so I'm five for five on the dysfunctional list. So, then, what can I do about it?

Then how can I switch these habits to instead focus on the meaningful and impactful. Focus on the difference I make for one instead of one hundred?

How will I pursue inspiration and how can I change the daily processes to expose something new, where do I need lessons to better myself and my skills?

Where is the long route? Let's find it, let's journey on it, and let's learn a thing or two while we're fumbling and grumbling with that map.

Let's bring it back to reality: it can always be better. Negative reviews? The critics are sometimes, if not more times, right than you are brilliant. Listen and get back to work.

So that's my thought of the day.

(To round it out, I thought one more set of () and a nature pic would be good.)

Pienas, not Kefyras

Melissa and I went to the little Iki by Kepeklele today. When I began this post, the intention was to talk about how in Lithuania, they take their hot dogs and dairy seriously. Except, when I looked at this picture, a rookie mistake was realized.

Kefyras is not milk. Pienas (no jokes, people) is milk. We had been cautioned of this the beginning of the semester, because kefyras is definitely buttermilk, not milk. Big difference. I guess I'm making buttermilk pancakes and/or french toast tonight to cover my mistake.

The hot dogs are a big thing here too - I only just jumped on the bandwagon. Mix them with pasta, put them in a tortilla with cheese, eat on the side of potatoes or just plain with Ukrainian ketchup and you have a meal.

Also, toilet paper.

Morning & Night

Last night: celebrated Melissa's birthday with Chinese from up the street, cakes from Maxima, and blurry bad pictures that capture everything I love about our room.

This morning: sat in an empty - and clean, thanks to inspection - room, reading The Fault in Our Stars, drinking Starbucks (thanks, Katie), eating a Kepeklele lemon pastry and enjoying the quiet. 

A Few Good Walks

We've been having some great weather over here on the Baltic. PTL. Good enough for daily walks to the sea, shamelessly buying ice cream cones, and overall happy moods despite the "what the heck am I going to do with my life" crisis happening in my corner. 

I took that picture (^) at an intersection and got weird looks galore (because: - coat // + ice cream). Except at this point, weird looks are the norm.

Looking up, this is all I see. No clouds in sight.

Lots of people come down to the beach after school/work hours. It's a gathering place and I like it.

Sandy boardwalks.

  

On the way back, a big tractor came up behind me to clean the sidewalk. He gave me a sheepish smile, because he knew he was kicking me off the concrete for a while. I didn't mind, because I got to walk through the woods. #happyplace

Finally, his slow crawling tractor (would have been faster if it was a JD, because nothing runs like a Deere) passed by and I walked up the stairs over the bridge...

...to see a train going by. You can see the caboose wayyyy down there. If you would follow the left fork, you would find your way to downtown Klaipeda.

Finally a sunset - almost gave a Midwest sunset a run for it's money. 

Thankful for walks like these.