Off the Top of my Head, Drunk . . .

The title of this blog is Vai's response to my request for a translation of 'New Adventures'. She is strong enough to hold any conversation in Lithuanian, but sometimes struggles for words that have synonyms that could, in conversation, be used instead.

It is nearly 5am here. And the sun is rising. And I have had a couple too many Svyturys.

Can someone please e-mail me? As much as has happened here, a lot has happened at work as well. Is my assistant the best, the worst, or somewhere in between? I'm hoping for the best or in between.

This vacation would necesitate a journal and a strict devotion to it to accurately describe my experiences. Simply too much has gone on. Even though I've spent nearly the entirety of the daylight hours in bed today with an illness.

Yesterday, apart from other minor things, was spent at a July 4th Lithuanian American festival at the American Chamber of Commerce where InCulto performed, as well as the head man's wife from Skamp. There performance was absolutely of studio quality. I honestly believe that his look and his act could make it100% in the States. The performance itself was sharp, and as an added bonus, they had a Bull Mastif puppy that was as friendly as can be.

Celebrity is a very odd thing here. As a politician, Vaiva's mother is in full page spreads in things such as 'People' magazine here. They don't have anything congruent to Hollywood. These musical performers are 'celebrities' in Lithuania, but completely approachable and gregarious. I had conversations with both of them as they sat with their dog. They had been signing autographs previously. Simply amazing.

Today I experienced fatigue most likely brought upon by the cold and the rain in Preila a couple of days ago. I slept until 2p, and as I was about to travel, the skies opened up and it started raining heavily. Vaiva went off to practice a dance for the wedding at 330, and I was stuck in the apartment building.

I flipped on the TV and it was among the most surreal experiences that I have had since being here. They don't use sub-titles here, but a dubbing system that is entirely awful. There is one translator (for both men and women) that is purely monotonous. It rendered any programming for me, and anyone, entirely unwatchable.

When Vai returned from her dance practice, that went extremely well despite the fact that several participants had never danced before (the groom to be is a native Bostonian), me, her, and her mother went out to dinner at a place whose name I will not attempt to spell. However, there was a live, three man band composed of a violinist, an accordian player, and some sort of wind instrument reminicent of a recorder that played lively music as we ate and drank. We ordered 'the pitchfork', which was literally a pitchfork's head with huge portions of meat and tiny portions of fruits and vegetables attached to the 3 prongs (although this is supposed to feed 4-6 hungry people, I don't doubt that Robins could have cleared all three skewers and been looking for more). The experience was surreal, completely fulfilling, and entirely decadent. I left with a full belly, several liters of beer in my stomach, and a ridiculous amount of all brands of livestock digesting deep inside me. This is not a country for those who turn their noses at eating previously living creatures.

At night we went to Pubas (translation, Pub) where we drank heartily and listened (and danced poorly) to songs that were never exactly popular in America but played at loud volumes there. I'm not kidding when I say that the song 'What Is Love' was not met with Will Ferrell head bopping, but attractive Lithuanian girls shaking their assets on the undersized dance floor. I unenergetically tapped my feet and was ridiculed. By the time I had a sufficient amount of beer in me to shake my moneymaker, the music had stopped and we decided to head home for the evening as opposed to going to a club that would be open until 6a.

The sun is bright in the sky now, and I must rest my weary head. I hope the 4th found everyone in good spirits and, although I am having a ridiculous blast here, I also long for the company of people who will address me in English before they realize that I am foreign and strange. I hope this finds all of you in good spirits and I will see you shortly.

Further Adventures

*Full Disclaimer - I'm past my DetFest limit*

It is 4am while I start transcibing this, and I apologize for any spelling mistakes in advance (I've reviewed that sentence twice for quality control, and I am sipping a strong Lithuanian Beer (Stipriausas) as I type this).

So, the Baltic Sea. I didn't see much of it (pun intended). I arrived at Nida, this link probably doesn't work, but it is basically a spaghetti strap that hangs off of the west coast of the country. While waiting for some guests, we missed the prime time to be on the Baltic Sea which has breath-taking views and crystal blue waters that you would expect in the Caribbean (so I hear). Due to traffic, miscues, and other general time wasters, I arrived at 8p, culminating a trip that spanned across the entire countryeer.. I settled into my hotel room and cracked a beer.

After a short ferry ride, and a half hour bus ride, I arrived at a beach town called Preila. It being 9 O'Clock, I thought nothing of the promised 5k walk to the beaches of Nida on the Baltic Sea as the sun set between 11 and 12. Unfortunately, the walk took over two hours and the sun was escaping beyond the horizon as we scrambled for a place to eat. We eventually found a chain restaurant called 'Cili Pica' that would serve us, a Lithuanian Pizza shop. My group was walking significantly faster than the group behind us. We were well into devouring our personal (and, quite frankly, delicious) pizzas when we heard a call from behind. 'Hey Guys!', the sound of a now sprinting friend could be heard, almost Doppler Effect like, as she raced towards the outdoor space where we were shovelling down slices of pizza. The scene was totally out of a romantic comedy. She had been drinking tequila and she whole-heartedly smashed into the glass door. If she had broken her nose, it probably would have ceased to be funny, but she had some minor cuts, and a bloody, although unbroken nose, and once the hubbub had died down, it was generally agreed that the sound of the whole collision alone was priceless and will stick in my mind for some time to come.

We agreed with some poor taxi driver to pick 12 of us up at 10 lits (roughy 3.50) a piece to drive all of us back to our hotel in Prehlu, a ride of about 10 minutes, at 3am. The ride home was filled with Lithuanian drinking songs, songs of comraderie and easily hit notes. I wish that Americans had incantations such as these. All I can think of is 99 Bottles of Beer, and that hardly counts for anything. But these songs conveyed a spectacular amount of emotion and brotherhood that were impossible to ignore, despite not knowing the language. I will forever be jealous of our inability to unify on a whim in song.

Today was unfortunately, for lack of a better word, miserable. It was pouring out, and the entire expanse of the atmosphere was gray. I had to tred unprotected in downpour for roughly a half mile with Vaiva to get to the bus stop. We waited nearly an hour and a half for the bus to arrive. When it dropped us off, we had to experience a bone chilling ferry ride with a bunch of grumpy folk, and a half hour walk after that to arrive at the MicroBus station for a ride back across the country to Vilnius. MicroBus is unfortunately a misnomer. As opposed to being a small bus, which would by just about any standards be large, it is about a normal sized van. I rested my heavy eyelids for the 4 hour trek back across Lithuania.

When we got back me and Vai quickly ordered some cherborraki (spelling is almost certainly not correct) which is basically mystery meat deep fried with dough. Delicious. We scarfed those down with some wine, beer, and bacon buns and were set for the evening as it was well after 8 when we got back.

I am running out of steam as it is 4:15.

At night we traipsed around town and ended up at Broadwejus, a Lithuanian dance club named after our beloved Broadway in New York. Before I go further let me describe to you the Lithuanian women. Before I came, Vaiva explained to me that they were good looking. That is almost a hysterical understatement in retrospect. There are women with, prior to this visit, unimaginable beauty. I honestly can't imagine tea time here, someone would sprain their neck. Let me give you a quick description. There are women with legs taller than their bodies and eyes of electric blue that can split you in half. Obviously, word for word, that creature sounds horrifying. But let me tell you that there are women here that are simply sublime.

I am too tired to explain my trip to the club that I went to tonight, except that Lithuanians are probably among the poorest dancers in the world. Vaiva explained to me that it has progressed in leaps and bounds in the last 6 years. That fact is frightening. I have never seen dancing this poor since Freshman year in college at the Engineering frat. It was discombublated (spelling) and jerky and just unpleasant. I enjoyed several half liters of beer and headed back to her mom's apartment.

It is time to hit the hay (just kidding, Lithuanians sleep on beds). I will try and write tomorrow.

Early Lithuanian Adventures

Have you ever had that feeling where you stayed out late the night before, woke up in a strange place, couldn't reconcile what was going on, and then realized that you were in Lithuania? Yeah, me too. I woke up blurry eyed and walked directly into the bottom of Vaiva's mother's spiral stair case, speaking what was probably perceived as gibberish to a bunch of Lithuanian's who had spent the night there as well. Long story that I won't get into now (feel free to ask upon my return).

I arrived in Lithuania without too much trouble as the flights went with only slight (20 minutes on both legs) delays. The only odd part is that as I left the terminal in Copenhagen to go to the gate to catch my connecting flight to Vilnius, the stamp put on my passport was for June 32, 2007, a completely fictitious date and now officially marks International Theodorson Day. Hopefully, this faulty stamp won't cause any inquiries or hiccups on my return to the US.

Upon arriving in Lithuania, I thought to myself, this place is nothing like Long Island. . . As a completely unexperienced traveler, I really have never found myself in a situation where the go-to language was something other than English. If questioned, I would try to grab Vaiva's attention or otherwise look confused enough that they would pose the question in English. This method has worked out fairly well so far. Upon exiting the airport, I saw a visibly drunk teenager passing a nearly empty bottle of a strange liqour among his friends and grinning ear to ear. I saw someone peeing on a tree in broad day light. Vaiva and Darius explained that these kind of things, in general, were not specifically frowned upon here. I was beginning to wonder what I'd gotten myself into.

The airport was located on the outskirts of town, and a fifteen minute cab ride took us to Vaiva's mother's apartment which is located in what is referred to as 'Old Town', or the portion of Vilnius that has maintained the historic architecture and style of the city. It is undeniably beautiful. Ornate churchs and towers, and even a castle, grace the horizon in any direction you look. After saying hello and meeting several people at a social gathering at the apartment (I am glazing over so much here, the attendants were ambassadors to different country's and other people who, like Vaiva's mother, appear in tabloid publications with consistency), we departed to Darius' friend's house, just a short walk away. The space was among the finest structures I've ever set foot in. Aside from having a ludicrously large gazebo in a courtyard that was overlooked by a building long balcony, there were countless rooms with huge windows featuring picturesque views of the city. The toilet on the top floor is positioned so that a sky light faces the bell tower of Svento Jono, one of the largest churches in Vilnius. It was unbelievable in every sense of the word.

The main disadvantage of not speaking a language is that you can easily not pick up on something that everyone else knows. For example, the owner of that ludicrously nice house had hired a server for the party that they were hosting. Me and Vai arrived and she said that wine was good for the two of us, and this woman who I assumed was simply being a good host grabbed two glasses and generously filled up our glasses. It took me until about my fourth glass of wine when we were about 50 feet from the bottle where she saw I was getting low and asked if I wanted a refill (well, she motioned to the glass and said something I couldn't comprehend) and I said no, don't worry, I'll get it for me to realize something was up. I turned to whoever was standing next to me and asked what was up and he filled me in that she was just doing her job. I literally had no idea.

The night progressed and things go hazier and I got more tired and me and Vai headed home and so much happened before the morning that I again can't write all of it down. I slept on and off until late afternoon today, struggling with a vicious headache and 7 hours of jet lag. I then proceeded to walk around Vilnius for four hours, seeing the sights that are much more easily described through the photos that I took. One thing I can write about is dinner. I went to Cili Kaimas for dinner, a kitschy restaurant with a small, open pond and some roosters cock a doodling as we ate. I ordered the most decadent thing on the menu, deep fried 'cepelinas'. Roughly the size of potato, the dish was described by Vaiva as a meat ball wrapped in a french fry, and there is no more appropriate description than that. Needless to say it was superb.

I got back here around 1 AM as we are leaving early tomorrow for the coast on the Baltic Sea. Arkliu Gatve (Horse Street) will take us a majority of the way there. I probably won't be back to fill you in for a bit, but I'd like to let you know that I already have a billion things that I'd like to share on this but don't have the time or clarity of thought to accurately describe them. The nine days that I am spending here will undoubtedly be far too little time.