Holiday Break

Over the holidays I had the opportunity to travel a little with my host family. Though some of it seemed a little spontaneous, I'm so happy we were able to go and have fun. To start of four days of straight traveling around we went to Kaunas. Kaunas is the second largest city in Lithuania and was once the (temporary) capital of Lithuania. It is about in the center of Lithuania and only about 103 kilometers or 64 miles and takes about a hour and fifteen minutes to get to from Vilnius. We went because my host sister and father had a jump diving competition and they thought it would be nice to show me around at the same time. So we got up early (well, early for the break), packed up the car, and headed towards Kaunas. First we dropped off my host mother's mother at the bus station for her to go back her home in Klaipėda and then dropped my host father and sister off at the school in which they were competing at. My host mother and I then went  to the Old Town of Kaunas where she showed me some of the main attractions including where her and my host father got married, the town hall square, and the old president's house. Within the square was the Kaunas Christmas tree which changes each year and the next one's planning starts right after the current one is put up. This Christmas tree was interactive meaning that if you did something on an object, an ornament on the tree would move. In order to move the ballerina or to make her turn one had to say a poem or sing into a microphone. If you wanted to move the rocking horse you would have to get on the life one below the tree and rock it. In order to move the train's wheels you had to turn a lever. There was a bicycle in which you had to pedal on in order to move the owl's head. Finally, inside the tree there was a bird that if you put your hands on it and warmed it up some lights would turn on. My host mother and I had a lot of fun trying to figure all of these out and taking pictures.

Kauna's Christmas tree

After that we headed to the competition where my host father and sister were competing. They did quite well and received the second place award for their category. After the competition we met up with some of my host parent's dear friends and went to have food at Piano Piano (a pizzeria that is quite popular in Kaunas, they weren't even sure we'd be able to get sits there). After enjoying some pizza, we all headed back out the square to look at the tree in the dark in which it started snowing! This made me feel so wonderful because I love snow and we haven't really had any until now. We then said our goodbyes and headed home. 

The next day my host family and I went to Druskininkai, which is sort of a resort town, like the one we went to in the Czech Republic (please see that post for reference). My host mother told me that a good way to remember the city is that it has a salt lake and is basically the Salt Lake City of Lithuania (like that of Utah in the U.S.). A lot of people come to this city to relax and be pampered, including a lot of people from Russia. Some people even buy apartments there and rent them out sometimes. However, we didn't stay very long here and we didn't venture the city because that was not the objective of the trip. Our objective was to go to Druskininku Vandens Parkas, a water park. My host family and I had a lot of fun going on the different slides, swimming in the lazy river as well as the wave pool, and swimming in general. After spending a good three hours at the water park we went to get some good food at a nice burger place and then headed home.
The next morning we started our journey to Latvia and Estonia. Neither of these countries are quite far from Vilnius as they are neighboring countries of Lithuania. It only took us about four hours to get to Riga, Latvia which is about in the middle of Latvia, about 294 kilometer or 182 miles, right on the coast of the Baltic sea. Before we arrived in Riga we stopped at Cinemaville which was a movie set that for a basketball movie, a world war two movie, and are currently getting ready to film a movie about the only real 'king' of Lithuania (when Latvia and Lithuania shared the same country). We got to walk around the set and watch a group of people make a pretend movie. We had a lot of fun learning about how different scenes in movies look though it will sort of ruin watching movies for us. For example, some of the actors needed to ride in a trolley bus and in order to move it they had to connect it to a tractor. Our guide told us that it was typically how a lot of scenes like that were made. After spending around an hour there we got back into the car and headed towards Riga.  There we were able to see the Laima clock which is an old meeting place and also a very good brand of chocolates (though I can't judge that because I never tried it), the old town which looked quite similar to the Vilnius old town as well, and got to climb up St. Peter's church's tower. There I got to see the start of the night and the city lit up from the sky. After we finished viewing the city we headed back to the car and started the 4 hour drive up to Tallinn, Estonia. I really enjoyed my time in Riga though it was quite short and very cold (like 0-5 degree Fahrenheit, I learned what real cold was and am now very prepared for more cold to come). Overall I still had fun and would love to visit and spend more time in Riga again. 

Riga' Christmas tree

   The car ride to Estonia wasn't that long, I actually really enjoyed sitting in the car and seeing the Estonian countryside (even though it was dark and mostly forests). We arrived in Estonia around 11pm and went straight to bed. The morning we started our day a little early (well early for me because I was still on break and was very used to going to bed around 2am and getting up around 10am), around 8 am, had breakfast at the hotel, then headed out to explore the city. In Estonia we mostly walked around the old town. The Tallinn old town is actually quite different from Riga and Vilnius's, it looks quite bit more medieval and older than them. While in Tallinn I got to walk on the city wall which was built in the 13th century and completely surrounded the city. It is actually one of the most still intact old city walls in Europe as well as possibly the world. We also got to visit the oldest, still operating pharmacies which also had an exhibition for us to view about it's history and different old remedies such as dried hedgehogs and different herbs. We then got to try some roasted almonds that were quite typical as well. These almonds were roasted in sugar and a lot of different spice, everyone seemed to enjoy them. We tried to see one of the oldest working water toilets but the place wasn't allowing people to see it due to the cold weather/winter time. After that we walked around the old town a little bit more looking at the different shops, headed back towards the car to have some lunch at not very Estonian restaurant and then went to car to head back home to Vilnius.I really liked Tallinn, you could really feel the history throughout the town and it was super beautiful. Over all I am very grateful for the opportunity to travel with my host family some more and see other parts of Lithuania and the world.

Tallinn