Mong's Beach Bar

Drive a scooter around Koh Lanta for the day, and you'll inevitably see at least a dozen wooden signs nailed to trees, advertising "Mong's Bar" with an arrow pointing the way. Some of them say "In Bud We Trust". Others say "Your Ticket To The Moon!". Either way, I had to check this place out.

If you're lucky, you'll be at Mong's on a night where some gullible sap (usually a 19 year old British guy with tons of bracelets on one arm and impossibly perfect hair) is convinced to let Mong play Five Finger Fillet with their hand. First with a sharp bar knife. I can barely watch. Next with a cleaver. I have to turn away but I'll watch it on video once its over, if nothing bad happens. And then with a power drill on full blast. I kid you not. I had to physically leave the bar. Partially because I figured the blood would spray everywhere and partially because I was about to puke. But nothing went wrong at all. In fact, I saw Mong do this to two different people in one night. In Mong I trust. I also saw his collection of fermented vodka- one with a dead scorpion, another with cobra & cobra blood and one with monkey brain. From a monkey he had hunted and killed himself, naturally.

On the Mong's Menu, you'll notice "Happy Shakes" and "Banglassies". Happy Shake = magic mushroom shake, from Mong's farm of mushrooms up in the hills of Koh Lanta. Banglassie = some kind of drink with marijuana. I didn't order either of these drinks because they were about 8x the price of a Chang Beer. Also, during my first night at Mong's, a group of hippie Spanish folk at the "table" (big beach blanket with low tables and triangle pillows that serve as perfect neck holders while star-gazing) next to us tried to get their money back from the Happy Shake they ordered. They could barely feel the effects... but they also couldn't get their money back, said Mong. Buzzkill.

My favorite night at Mong's was the night where we all stayed up until 3am, in hopes of seeing a shooting star in the perfectly clear Thai night sky. A few nights prior, there had been "tons" of shooting stars in the sky, according to a few of the bar flies. I've never seen one but have always wanted to, so it wasn't hard to convince me to stay up late/early enough to take part in Shooting Star Watch 2010. With Kings of Leon playing at the bar (the good songs, not the pop ones) just loud enough so that we could still hear the waves crashing only about 20 feet from us, we all laid out on the big wooden deck at Mong's with our triangle pillows supporting our necks and Chang beers in hand. Erin from Australia pointed out the Southern Cross constellation, which she can see from home all the time. Jeff and I argued about whether we were looking at the Big Dipper or Orion's Belt or maybe they're part of the same constellation? We spotted tons of planets and stars and constellations- more than I have ever see before, but no shooting stars. But thats ok. That time at Mong's was one of the best nights I've had on this trip. Save the shooting stars for another time; from Mong's party tricks to hanging out with new friends from far away places, plus the clearest night sky I've ever witnessed, it'll still be a night I'll never forget.

Unconventional Travel Gear

Happy two month anniversary to me and my "little" trip. Since I've been officially living out of a backpack for over 60 days, I thought it would be appropriate to make a list of my Most Useful (and somewhat unconventional) Pieces of Travel Gear. Enjoy!

1) Sarong: Definitely an item that you should buy while travelling, since sarongs tend to be expensive at home. At the Krabi night market, I purchased the MOST beautiful sarong for 120 baht (less than $4). So far, I've used mine as a dress, a skirt, a top, a light blanket to sleep with, a shawl, a beach blanket and a towel. 8 uses for $4? Basically, a "must have" for any beach vacation.

2) Rope: With a little rope, one door handle and a bed post, you can instantly MacGyver (or MacGruber?) a drying line to air out bathing suits and towels. Also useful if you need to secure a backpack or bag to a motorbike or taxi roof.

3) Whistle: This was one of my bon voyage gifts from Jess. Definitely the cheapest and smallest form of protection I can think of, and more user-friendly than pepper spray. In sketchy buses, trains or hostels, I sleep with my whistle under my pillow. Fortunately, I haven't had a reason to use it yet, but I would imagine that it would attract a lot of attention very quickly. Props to Jess for the idea.

4) Student ID: Am I still a student in college? No. Do I show my old student ID to get discounts at museums, hostels, restaurants? Absolutely. Is it illegal? Technically, yes. Is anyone in harm's way if I save 50%? Not at all. Rarely do people even look at the dates or picture on the ID card. If you have an old one lying around, I highly recommend bringing it along if you're on a "every dollar counts" trip, like yours truly.

5) Quick Dry Towel: From soaking wet to bone dry in two hours flat. What more is there to say? The best $20 you can spend on your trip, I guarantee. You seldom see a backpacker without one of these gifts from the REI Travel Gods.

6) Overnight/day trip bag: My 16 kilo backpack doesn't get to go everywhere with me, no way jose. For my day trip to Phi Phi and then my 2 night stay in Tonsai, I filled my Longchamp bag up with necessities and left the Big Bertha at a guesthouse in Krabi. Boarding a long tail boat with a small shoulder bag > boarding a long tail boat with all of your belongings. Most hostels/hostels are more than happy to hold the bigger bag in a safe place for you until you return.

7) Sleeping mask: When I was a kid, we used to put a blanket over our bird's cage in the evening, to trick the little guy into thinking it was night time so he would fall asleep. Sleeping mask = same idea. Sleeping pills make me nervous, since I would feel vulnerable if I took them on a train or bus. Sleeping mask works just as well for me, without the drowsy factor.

8) Alarm/Clock: BYOC. Bring your own clock. Hostels very rarely have clocks on the walls. Bungalows? Forget about it. Maybe some of the nicer, more Westernized hotels have time keeping devices, but I wouldn't count on it. Keep in mind that most cell phones and ipods have alarm clock capabilities; two birds, one stone.

9) iPod Touch or iPhone: Shout out to my genius friend, Deanna Ho, for recommending that I bring an iPodTouch on my trip, instead of a laptop or netbook. The iPodTouch is basically an iPhone without talking capabilities (that is... until you download the Skype application and buy a microphone) and without a camera. I'm able to pick up WiFi almost everywhere I go and with iTunes built in, I've been able to keep up to date with my favorite podcasts, download new songs, etc. LOVE my iPodTouch. Best $200 I spent on this trip.

10) A Really Good Digital Camera: (not pictured, but used to take the picture) Some of my amazingly thoughtful & generous friends gave me a Canon PowershotSD780IS for my birthday this year. Best. Gift. Ever. From the "Sunset" setting to its ability to crop & edit pictures on its little screen, this little camera is my absolute favorite travel accessory. I've been able to record a video of the Thai jungle in Railay & have some excellent photos of butterflies from the exhibit on Mainau Island. Buying a worthy and durable digital camera seems like a must for anyone who wants to document their travels.

11) Headlamp: Another Deanna Ho tip! A cheap headlamp from REI ($14) is a great investment and very useful piece of travel gear. You can rifle through your backpack with two hands in a dark hostel dorm room. Walking along the beach, you can find your way back to your bungalow at night. You can read your book in bed on a night train without disturbing the rest of the people in your compartment. And, like I experienced four nights ago, you can sleep with it on your head so that when rats crawl into your bungalow in the middle of the night, you can turn on the headlamp to scare them away.

Hope you were able to find these suggestions useful! Thanks for reading.

Welcome to Paradise

When it comes to traveling, Spain is definitely my first love. And Thailand is undoubtedly my true love. It feels SO good to be back here. Four years ago, Jess and I headed down here on a whim, after deciding to treat ourselves to some travel after teaching English in Beijing. I'd heard great things about Thailand, and after only a little research, we decided to fly into Bangkok for a few days and then take a night train down to Surat Thani to catch a ferry to Koh Samui. Why Koh Samui? I honestly can't remember. But I vividly remember arriving at the ferry terminal at Koh Samui and noticing a girl with a backpack and a wicked dark tan standing by herself, waiting for the ferry back to Surat Thai. For some reason, the image of her standing there stayed with me for a while. Could that be me someday? Could I eventually come back on my own, with only a backpack and stay in Thailand long enough to turn that dark from day after day spent on Thai beaches? It seemed like both an impossible and enchanting idea. We were only able to stay in Koh Samui for four days, but I couldn't imagine a more beautiful place to call home for a month... or two... or three. During that visit, I made it a goal for myself to make it back there one day and stay as long as I possibly could.

April 28th, I arrived in Bangkok at 6am and had to 7 hours until my flight to Phuket. Thank goodness for free wi-fi (and a fully charged ipod touch) and a good book! From Phuket, I took a minibus down to Patong Beach and arrived at SeaBlue Guesthouse, where I had reserved a dorm bed for 5 nights. Unfortunately, I immediately disliked Patong. Lots of fluorescent lights, loud bars, Thai "women" "for sale" (if you know what I mean...), and the beach itself looked more like Cabo San Lucas than Thailand: think jet skis, para sailing and hundreds of lounge chairs for sale. On the plus side, I met some really cool people at SeaBlue and ended up having a great time getting to know my new friends. I also rode on a motorcycle with a British boy named Brad, who clearly had a "need for speed". 110mph on a Honda speed bike with only a helmet? That hour tour around Phuket was 60 of the most terrifying moments of my life. Speaking of terrifying, I also attended a "Ping Pong show". This is one of those things that everyone will tell you that you HAVE to see when you visit Thailand. Google it, if you're curious. No way am I tainting my blog by describing it. But let's just say that was my first and last "Ping Pong show". And no, I don't have photographic evidence to prove that I went. You pervert.

My next stop was Karon Beach (shout out to Seana Norvell for the tip!), where I had three very relaxing and cheap days, compared to my stay in Patong. I'm now in Krabi Town (which is even CHEAPER than Karon- yay!)with two of the girls I met at Pineapple Guesthouse in Karon. They're both 20 years old; one from Germany and one from Australia. I'm the Mama Hen of the group. =) Today, I finally did my first touristy tour in Thailand. I avoid them, since they usually end up feeling like a rip-off, but we actually got a great package deal which included visits to four different islands (Tup, Poda, Chicken and Phranang) with a picnic lunch on Poda- all for about $10 US. Definitely my favorite day of the trip so far! The pictures (see above- that little dot on the left is me!) are unreal. Every single moment of the day was postcard-worthy.

Tip of the day: The absolute best time of year to visit Thailand is the beginning of May. Literally all of the hotels/guesthouses/tour companies drop their prices by 50% on May 1st. The weather is still perfect, the beaches are far less crowded and Thailand magically becomes even MORE affordable!

Germany = a bicyclist's paradise

Gutentag from Deutschland! This is my second trip to Germany and I've had such an amazing, fun, hilarious, delicious and active visit with Liane this week. Four years ago, I had the chance to spend two weeks in Germany with Jess when she was studying at the University of Tubingen. We had a crazy/fun time (including a very memorable Christmas day together!)and I remember being anxious to return to Germany again some day, preferably in the spring, summer or fall-just no snow, please. Lucky me, here I am again- four years older, oh so much wiser and yet... still sleeping on the floor of a German dorm room. Huh? =)

The weather has been picture perfect in Germany this week- today, it was an ideal 75 degrees with light breeze. What a stellar day for a bike ride, we decided! Liane and I headed to the main train station in town and rented bikes for 5 hours (only 2 euros per hour!) and after reviewing the map with many, many options in terms of bike routes, we decided to head towards a location called "St. Barbara" which had the icon of a wine glass next to it. Hah. We figured it was a winery, but it turned out to be a family restaurant nestled in the hills with beer/wine/food. First of all- let me clarify "nestled in the hills". Our bike route started out really great... a flat, paved road along the river that runs through Freiburg. Next thing we knew, we were headed straight up a hill that resembled California Street between Grant and Stockton in San Francisco; aka: miserably steep. We ended up walking our bikes up the monstrous incline and each curve we came around proved to have more uphill challenge ahead for us. Awesome. After about a mile, we finally started seeing signs for St. Barbara and pushed on through- moral of the story? Promise me a cold glass of wine at the end of something, and there's almost nothing I won't do. Once we arrived at adorable little German oasis, we opted for beer (far more refreshing than wine, no?), took pictures with the view to prove our accomplishment and headed back downhill to find more paths and... well, beer.

After St. Barbara, we decided to keep heading South along the Kirchzartener Straube, destination: the little town of Kirschzarten. The bike path looked like something out of a German Tourist Ad- most of it was lined with grassy fields full of daisies with an occasional wooden bridge over a quiet little stream. One field we found had two big mountains behind it; it looked just like the one Julie Andrews runs through in Sound of Music. What choice did we have, but to stop and take some self-timer photos? When we arrived in Kirschzarten, we picked a table in the shade at a bustling little cafe in the main square and chowed down on schnitzel, grilled potatoes, salad and Banananweizen. Banananweizen = hefeweizen with banana puree, a local specialty. A-mazing/highly recommend it.

After a full day of exploring the German countryside via bike, we took our sun-kissed faces, sore thighs and banana beer buzz and made the 14km journey back "home" to Freiburg. I had such a fantastic time biking with a good friend, getting lost and stopping at scenic points along the route. A new goal of mine is to head back here one day to do full bike tour through Germany-- who's in?

Can I get a t-shirt that says, "I Survived the Eyjafjallajokull Ash Nightmare of 2010"?

It sounds too strange to be true. One time, in the year 2010, there was an ash cloud from a volcano in Iceland that suspended all European flights for almost a week. What a strange situation I'm in, along with over 6 million other people trying to travel within and through Europe. When Caren and I first heard about "THE" ash cloud on Thursday evening, our first reaction was that we were thankful that we had opted to buy bus tickets to Berlin versus airplane tickets. Our trip was still on. However, on Friday morning, Caren had realized she lost her wallet at the bars the night before, the ash situation had developed into a full-blown travel nightmare AND we missed the bus to Berlin. Believe it or not, the clock on my ipodtouch that I'd been referring to all week was an hour behind actual time. Amateur mistake- and rather embarrassing. I was keeping an eye on the time while Caren was calling around to cancel bank cards & contacting the lost & found office at the Copenhagen Police Station. Finally, as we were on our way out and walking towards the bus station across town, we compared clocks and realized that we had two minutes to make it to the station. Oh, did I mention it was the Queen's birthday in Copenhagen that day? Most of the streets (including the one Caren lives on) were closed in preparation for a parade in honor of her birthday. Ash cloud + wallet + clock + parade = basically, some kind of force was keeping us from getting to Berlin.

Since we had only made reservations and not actually paid for our seats yet, we cancelled the trip to Berlin and decided to spend the day being touristy together in CPH. We rode free (FREE!! my favorite word!) bikes around the city, ate lunch in the gorgeous Nyhavn neighborhood (see photo from my post below) and then visited the Carlsberg Beer Factory. We had an absolute blast together and the good times transitioned into bar hopping around the city center later that night. Two thumbs up for my favorite day in Copenhagen so far.

Since then, I have spent at least 5 hours each day figuring out what in the world (literally?) I'm going to do next on my trip, since air travel is completely suspended in Copenhagen. The original plan, pre-ash cloud, was to head to London to catch my flight from Stansted -> Dusseldorf -> Bangkok. After a visit to the booking desk at the Osterport Train Station, I learned that the next seat available on a train headed to London was on Wednesday. 1 day after my flight to Bangkok. Not going to work. Thanks to the Facebook Group, "Carpool Europe", I communicated with a few different people about getting rides down to London but decided, instead, to focus my efforts on getting United to let me skip the London flight and catch the flight in Dusseldorf instead. At this point, it would be much easier to get to Germany than the UK. After 196 minutes of waiting to speak to a representative, "Wanda" went ahead and made the change for me. I booked a train from Copenhagen to Dusseldorf and thought my plans were finally set in place.

Guess again. Today, I found out that my flight from Dusseldorf to Bangkok has been cancelled. I'm getting really tired of having my plans change every few hours & logging into BBC.com to read the latest on this "ashy situation" so new plan: head to Freiberg, Germany and stay with Liane until next Tuesday, when I leave for Bangkok out of Frankfurt Airport (United Airlines Customer Service = amazingly great to work with!). Liane is VERY excited to have a visitor- she just arrived in Germany last week to begin her Masters in German Studies! I'll take a train from Copenhagen-Hamburg-Freiberg tomorrow and am excited to have this random, albeit, exciting visit to Germany with Liane! Plus, I've scheduled over 4 months to enjoy the heaven that is Southeast Asia, so there's certainly no "rush" to get there. Guess it's true what they say- there's a silver lining to every ash cloud. =)

Cute Little Copenhagen

Today is day 3 in Copenhagen. What a gorgeous little city! My brother, Brian, lived in CPH for a few months while he was playing for a pro basketball team & I'm so disappointed that our paths didn't cross in this city. Unfortunately, he was here during the worst winter Denmark has experienced in over 25 years, and was anxious to return to sunny California when he had the chance. Ironically, an opportunity came my way to visit Copenhagen only about one month later. Caren Currie, my friend from high school, has been living here since January while working for an architecture firm. Even though we hadn't seen one another in a few years, she saw via Facebook (classic) that I was traveling and invited me to stay with her. Lucky for me, I'm here just in time for the sunshine! Copenhagen is currently transitioning into Spring and it couldn't be a more beautiful or bustling time to be here, from what I keep hearing. San Francisco is similar- on a sunny afternoon, the outside cafes/bars/parks are packed with people. Maybe because most of the locals live in apartments and therefore, don't have their own backyards? Maybe because it is a welcome break from the fog and an extra excuse to be social? Whatever it is, the vibe has been similar here in CPH the past few days. Plenty of people have dusted off their sunglasses, left their jackets at home and are outside, basking in the sun for the first time in months. I love it.

I have a nice little routine here in CPH. Wake up around 9am when Caren leaves for work. Check my email/read my book/leisurely get ready for the day. Around 10:30am, I have a cup of coffee and a danish (hah!) at the Beresso Cafe up the street. There is a seat by the window which I particularly love- it faces Kongens Nytorv, which is the main center square of Copenhagen. I make that one cup of (rather expensive) coffee last about an hour while I read my book and people watch and plan my day. From there, I'll either visit a museum or walk down Stroget while taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the largest shopping street in Scandinavia. Lunch has been either a traditional open faced Danish Sandwich (smorbrod), or a Doner Kebab, which I developed an obsession for while I lived in Madrid. Feels good to be reunited with my lover, the donor. Cheapest/most delicious meal in Europe, in my opinion. For the rest of the afternoon, I walk around aimlessly through the canals & windy streets of the city and stop to read my book whenever I see an empty bench with direct sunlight. =) Yesterday, I stumbled into the cutest little bookstore with a small selection of used books, in English. I talked to the owner, who offered to let me trade the three books I've already finished for three new ones. Very exciting, since the bigger Borders-style bookstore up the street was selling The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for over $20 US. No thanks. My friend Caren gets off work around 5pm, and then we grab dinner and head out for drinks and shenanigans on the town. Two thumbs up for my leisurely and budget-friendly Copenhagen schedule!

Tomorrow, Caren and I will take a bus to Berlin for the weekend. Its her favorite city in Europe and although I visited Jess when she lived in Germany a few years ago, I never made it to Berlin- also, its certainly more affordable than CPH. From there, I'll fly to London (on Ryan Air. gag.) on Monday afternoon and then to THAILAND on Tuesday. My happy place. My heaven. My home for the next few months... I'm sad to see the European portion of my zig-zag come to an end, but I'm also crazy excited to return to the land of cheap hostels & hot weather and thrilled that I can finally pull my bathing suits and flip-flops out from the bottom of my backpack!

Vi ses!
M the E

My 2 Lovely Weeks in Lithuania

Labas, everyone! Figured before I leave Lithuania (in two hours), I should at least quickly give you an update of what my visit was like. I somehow knew that I would really enjoy a visit to Lithuania but I had no idea that I would have SUCH a fantastic time. Over the last two weeks, I had a chance to meet tons of relatives, see interesting parts of my heritage and really get a feel for the Lithuanian lifestyle. Two thumbs up. I love it here and can't WAIT to come back someday.

Day 1- Arrived here around 2pm, met Asta & Ramune and their adorable mini-schnauzer Sky, took a long walk around Vilnius (they live right in Old Vilnius-awesome location.).
Day 2- Learned how to decorate authentic Lithuanian easter eggs from the woman in town who is most famous for her decorating abilities. I'll put up a post later with details, so you try to repeat the process; it's very different than the American way! My teacher said that I have a natural talent for this method of decorating the eggs & kept asking if I do any drawing or painting at home. Hilarious, if you know me. I'm the least artistic person I know. Or so I thought... after Easter egg decorating, we picked up fresh bread & cheese & veggies at the "eco-market" (farmer's market) and then my cousin Vejas from California picked me up and I had lunch with him and his new wife and their hilarious Russian friend, Katya. After lunch and some shoe shopping (flip-flops and running shoes weren't going to cut it in a trendy and cold city like Vilnius), I met Richard back at Asta's place. Richard is 29 and his mother is the accountant at Asta's office. Since he's close to my age, speaks a little English and is currently unemployed, he was assigned as my tour guide for Vilnius. He took me to the apartment of his friend Vladas, who is an up and coming artist in Lithuania. Very impressive stuff. http://vladasart.com/
The three of us went to Cafe Paris for dinner & then I headed home. Long day!
Day 3- Asta was generous enough to hire an actual professional tour guide for me; we walked all over the city for about four hours and she took me into places that require a guide, like the catacombs below the main cathedral in town. Afterward, Ramune made Lithuanian Potato Pancakes (yum!) and then Richard picked me up to take me to his friend's 24th birthday party. Such a great night, but pretty ironic too. Guess how a Lithuanian girl celebrates her birthday? She throws a house party, makes a bunch of finger foods, buys beer/vodka/chasers, makes a new playlist on her ipod and invites all of her friends over. Pretty sure that is almost EXACTLY how my friends and I have all celebrated our birthdays for the past few years. Everyone was incredibly friendly & wanted to know all about life in California. Too much fun.
Day 4- We packed up the car and headed to Ukmerges and Hill of Crosses. Hill of Crosses is about three hours from Vilnius and Ukmerges is about half-way between. In Ukmerges, we visited the house and grave of Simonas Baskauskas, my great-grandfather. Currently, Inga and her husband live in the house and haven't been able to afford to make too many improvements on the house, so its almost in the same condition as it was when Simonas lived there. Inga made us some blackberry tea, from the bushes outside and chopped up some honeycomb to suck on as a snack. She told me what she remembered about my great-grandfather and his son, Vytautas. They were both very generous and sweet men and Vytautas was apprently very handsome and always incredibly well-dressed. Go team Baskauskas. After visting Simonas' grave, we headed up to Hill of Crosses. Amazing and overwhelming- hard to even explain it with words. There are about 100,000 crosses on this one small hill in Siauliai; the first crosses were put there in 1831, but more recently, during the Soviet era, Hill of Crosses took on new meaning as a way of peaceful resistance against Russia. It is common for people to bring their own cross when them when they visit and leave it there, which is how it grew to be such a huge demonstration. Very impressive and beautiful site- I highly recommend a visit, if you're ever in Lithuania.
After Hill of Crosses, we stopped in Panavezys to visit some more relatives. Asta had asked them to make an authentic Lithuanian meal for me, so we had lots of potatoes, fish, Lithuanian black bread & homemade moonshine. The father's friend had made it, so denying the drink would have been a huge insult. Instead, I took a shot every time he offered one to me. 5 or 6 shots later... it was cake time. Ramune made a delicious Devil's Chocolate layer cake. It was such a hit that she ended up making it THREE more times this week, since relatives had heard rave reviews and wanted to try it. Not mad about that at all.
Day 5- Easter! Went to Easter mass at St. Anne's church with Asta, where we actually sat about 5 rows away from the former President of Lithuania. Very cool. The service was in Lithuanian, but I really enjoyed it. About halfway through the mass, the sun broke out from behind the gray clouds and came beaming through the windows of the church. Magical. After mass, we had Easter Brunch at Ramune's mom's apartment. Food, food and more food. And more of the chocolate layer cake. Two thumbs up. After brunch, one of my distant cousins (Solveiga) and her boyfriend came by to pick me up and take me out. We visited Belmontas, which is a park with bridges and walk paths and a small cafe- a great place to visit after eating and eating and eating... after a hike through Belmontas, they took me to the TV Tower, where we had a beer and enjoyed the view from 1071 feet above ground. The TV Tower was the site of a tragedy in 1991 when 14 unarmed civilians lost their lives and 700 were injured opposing the Soviet military seizure of the tower. Nowadays, its a bittersweet reminder of the Soviet era with a nice view of the city.
Day 6- Asta and Ramune took me to a Lithuanian Heritage Festival! We walked all around the park, visiting the examples of different houses from various regions of Old Lithuania. We sampled homemade honey beer, sausage made from potato and potato/meat dumplings called Zepelins. Delicious!
Day 7- Richard and Vladas took me to Trakai for the day. Trakai was built in the 1400's and is a gorgeous castle built on an island. We walked around, took pictures and had a nice little visit. On our way back to Vilnius, we grabbed some beer and a bite to eat and then visited six (yes SIX) museums/galleries for the rest of the afternoon. Blame it on the fact that I was with a local artist? He kept insisting we "had" to see this one more exhibit... but it was great and I had a blast with Richard & Vladas. And now I know more about Lithuanian art than I ever thought was possible!
Day 8- Solo day. Walked around Vilnius, got caught up with some of my blogging/photo uploading, shopped a bit (I found a Zara! yay!) & got some reading done. By the way, HIGHLY recommend The Book Thief- awesome read.
Day 9- Day trip to Ryga, Latvia for the day with Richard and his sister Renata. Lengthy post about that later. Had a fantastic time.
Day 10- Was a gorgeous day, so I spent most of it outside, walking around Vilnius and getting some sun. Had lunch with Asta and Ramune at their place and then went out with Richard, Vladas and their friends at night. We went to the opening of a club called X Factory, which until about 2 weeks ago was a gay club called Men's Factory. Pretty sure the bar staff didn't get the memo about the change, since they were all wearing white speedo shorts with gold suspenders & sailor hats. REALLY bummed I forgot my camera that night.
Day 11- Went to the flower market with Asta and Ramune, since we had to pick up flowers as gifts for Uncle Jonas' 80th birthday later that night. I am obsessed with the Lithuanian tradition of giving people flowers every time you visit them. Flowers here are more beautiful but less expensive and for about $10 US dollars, I picked up a gorgeous bouquet of tangerine colored roses for Uncle Jonas. Later that evening, we headed out to his birthday party, which was at a Chinese restaurant in Vilnius. Sweetest and happiest and HEALTIEST old man you've ever met. We didn't speak the same language, but Asta was a fantastic translater for us. Its standard for each guest of the birthday party to give the birthday boy a toast, so I toasted him after dinner and Asta was able to translate it for him. Very special moment. During the dinner, I met a few of my "cousins" (our great-grandparents were cousins, so the relation is pretty distant) who spoke English. One of them, a gorgeous little 15 year old girl, is a professional dancer in Ireland and recently placed 9th out of over 200 couples in a European Ballroom Dance competition- so cool! Two of the boys offered to take me to Pacha (European club chain) in Vilnius, so at about 1am when the party was over, Asta dropped us off at Pacha. Had an absolute blast partying until about 6am, when we headed back to Uncle Jonas' house to crash on his sofas in his living room. For about an hour before we went to bed, I played clips of American music for them on Uncle Jonas' computer while we drank champagne. I think I sold them on Gavin Degraw. =) But their favorite song was "Players Club" by Rappin' 4 Tay.
Day 12- Asta and Ramune picked me up at Uncle Jonas' the next day with a fresh change of clothes & some sparkling grapefruit juice. They really are the best Moms I could ever ask for. They took me to Europa Park outside of Vilnius, where they have an annual membership, and we went for a small (flat!) hike around the park while Sky ran circles around us for about three hours.
Day 13- Today, I leave Lithuania. Ramune's mom is cooking some homemade Zepelin's for me right now and then I'll head to the airport. I've had SUCH a fantastic visit to Lithuania, all thanks to my awesome hostesses, Asta and Ramune. I already can't wait to come back - Kate and I are hoping for a Lithuania/Estonia roadtrip sometime in the next few years.

Now its on to Copenhagen for a few days before I fly to Thailand on the 20th!!

Literally having the time of my life. <3 Thanks again to all of you for your support and love from back home!