Getting Around

Long time no write! Argh! To start this post, I'll need to back up about three weeks. Two Saturdays ago, Damian & I were invited by some Lithuanian friends to see an opera. We initially thought, 'great, this will be a chance to increase our cultural education!' so we said yes to the invitation and began researching a little more on the opera. I have to admit that I was quite confused after a little google-ing, since most of my search words led me to links about an opera in New York. As the natural pessimist that I am, I asked Damian to ask our friends if the opera was, in fact, in Vilnius. Turns out that the actual performance was in New York but numerous live-in-HD versions were broadcast all over the world, including here in Vilnius. I then did some more research on the opera, Wagner's 'Twilight of the Gods' (Götterdämmerung), and realized the performance would last 6.5 hours! No, that's not a typo.....6.5 hours, of course with two intermissions. On the night of the opera, I loaded up with coffee and tried desperately not to fall asleep in the cozy and plush seat, however, my eyelids were ostensibly very heavy that evening and I took a quick cat nap during the first act. Oops! Luckily, I had a strong cup of coffee during the first intermission and I was ready for the remaining two acts! Overall, I enjoyed the opera, the third and final in Wagner's series, and now I'm curious to see the first two (which are 3 hours long each....phew!). What I liked about viewing the opera in a cinema format was that there were subtitles in English, quite helpful since I don't speak German.

A few days before the opera, Damian and I were thinking about what we were going to do for the upcoming President's Day holiday. It dawned on us that, because of the Lithuanian National holiday around the same time, we could take a long weekend vacation somewhere! Next step was to figure out where. First, we thought about going to Dubai. Well, that was quickly scratched off of our short list as the ticket prices were exorbitant.....$3,000 per ticket. No, thanks! Next, I said 'how about Israel?' and Damian's eyes opened and he replied, 'yes, how about Israel!' Immediately, ticket searching began. Much to our pleasant surprise, ticket prices were reasonable so two days later (after getting the go-ahead to get Damian a new passport), we booked our tickets. As my longtime dear friend of 17 years lives in Israel, I thought the trip would be that much sweeter. I hadn't seen her or her family in a few years so the reunion was much anticipated and this was the first time that Damian would meet her parents. Damian had never been to Israel and I had been only once before with my mom when I was three, for 10 days, en route from Romania to Greece and then to our final resting spot, the US of A.

View of Tel Aviv from Yafo

What an incredible and magical place Israel is, filled with so much history and culture! We spent our first day in Tel Aviv/Yafo, exploring the city on foot with my long time friend. Some parts of the city reminded me of DC, with small cobble stoned streets and various eclectic boroughs, sprinkled with quaint off-the-beaten-path restaurants. Our morning started with a hearty breakfast at a bistro-like restaurant with yummy Israeli food followed by walking around and a pit stop, after all that walking!, to indulge our sweet craving for gelato. Heaven in a cone. After traversing through one of Tel Aviv's largest and more well known streets, we were shockingly in the mood to satiate our appetite and quench our thirst. One of the first things that I noticed about the food in Tel Aviv was the great freshness of the ingredients, which amplified the delicious flavors and melded everything together. Later that day after returning to our hotel for a mid-day/early-evening nap, we met up with my friend and her sister for dinner at a restaurant where my friend had to make a reservation almost as soon as I told her we were coming. Man, was the early reservation worth it! Although the restaurant had no overt Asian influences, a few items on the menu were Asian-inspired and after the server's 5 minute introduction to the entire menu with specials, I pined for the salmon tartar, spicy Asian beef salad, and sea bass with udon noodles. My expectations were surely met and then some!

Half-naked full bodied women?

Little market filled so many things I wanted to buy!

Great friends!

Our second day was dedicated to J-town, or more commonly known as Jerusalem. The intensity of being in a place with great importance, albeit intermixed with conflict, was palatable. To be sure, there was no mistaking the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish sectors from one another. I wish I could have spent all day walking around and getting lost in the Old City. But, alas, we had to move on but not before stopping for a quick lunch break and eating falafel sandwiches! Amazingness would be the word I'd use to describe the little balls of joy mixed in with different vegetables and topped with spicy and tahini sauces. I told my girlfriend that I could have falafel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I stand by statement wholeheartedly!  Luckily, and thankfully, she gave me falafel mix as a going away present and now I truly can have it anytime of the day :).

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Western (Wailing) Wall

The following day started out a little later than anticipated, however, the fantastic hotel breakfast buffet spread helped ease our tired bodies. That day we visited Me'Arat Hanetifim, stalactite and stalagmite caves recommended to me by my former colleague. Located in between Tel Aviv and J-town, the caves were nestled in the backdrop of luscious, green forests. A guided tour group had already started when we arrived so we piggy-backed onto that one. Unfortunately, the tour was in Hebrew and Damian and I could not understand one thing. However, we were still able to get the gist of certain details from the tour guide's mannerisms and hand movements. One of the cool things she showed us was how some of the natural rock formations seemingly looked like actual objects or people. The first one that she showed us was the formation that looked like Santa Claus. That got a few chuckles out of people. One of the later ones she showed us was a formation that looked like the Ayatollah Khomeini. Not one chuckle from the Jewish tourists but a laughing grunt out of Damian and I. I mean, come on, the irony of the situation was the funny part. We wouldn't have seen the similarity had the tour guide not shown us....

Cool stalactite....not in the shape of the Ayatollah

Me'Arat Hanetifim

After viewing the stalactite and stalagmite caves, Damian and I were on the road again, this time to Bethlehem. I should note that my girlfriend kindly declined to join us in Bethlehem as Israeli passport holders are prohibited from entering this Palestinian Authority occupied area (or at least that's what the signs said). A tall and very large cement wall separated Bethlehem from the other parts of Israel and after telling the machine-gun clad soldiers we were USA citizens, we were allowed to pass freely through the checkpoint. We wanted to drive through and visit some of the famous historical sites but the numerous signs kept directing us to the wrong places. However, we were still able to get visual and photographic memories. More than anything, driving through Bethlehem was an experience in and of itself, which was one of the biggest reasons we decided to go there.

Probably the most PC thing (written in English) from the two walls in Bethlehem filled with graffiti

On our fourth and final day in Israel, again after a late start, we embarked on a heavy day of driving. From Tel Aviv, we went north to Haifa, a metropolitan beach town, to view the Baha'i Gardens in the middle of the city. After taking a few photos and driving around the town, we were off to Nazareth, the childhood home of Jesus and now known as the biggest Arab city in Israel. In order to keep up with our tight schedule, we could only stay in each location for a short period of time, so after a quick tour of the Church of the Annunciation, we hit the road. Next on our itinerary was the Sea of Galilee, another lovely beach resort town with amazing scenic views. By this point in the day, we were both starving and we stopped at the place that advertised 'the best falafel in town' (naturally). After lunch, we jumped on the local road and headed north to Tabgha, the traditional site of the miracle of multiplication of the loaves and fish. However, as luck would have it, the Church of Multiplication was closed that day! Argh. Took a few photos of what we could and began our journey south, to Beit She'an, a city located about 10km from the Jordanian border. The Beit Sh'ean national park had an incredible display of archaeological ruins from Roman, Crusader, Egyptian, and Ottoman eras. Phew! Our day long journey was complete! We headed back to Tel Aviv to meet up with my girlfriend for dinner at a traditional Israeli restaurant. What a great last night dinner! Fresh fish, colorful and tasty spread of starter salads, and homemade bread.

 Ruins at Beit She'an

Israeli style dinner....yum!

 

A trip with a lifetimes worth of memories....

Frozen Experiences

About a week and a half ago, some good friends invited a group of us (Americans, Brits, Germans, Japanese) to tour a Bison Ranch about two hours away from Vilnius. I was immediately intrigued so Damian and I hopped on the band wagon (also known as our friends' car) and made our way to the Bizonu Ranca. Disclaimer - I should note at this point in the post that the story of the Bison Ranch does not end well for one particular animal. Yes, we tour the ranch and view the herds and take pictures and smile and all that jazz. However, one of the points of going to said ranch is to partake in the primal tradition of consuming.......consuming delicious, tender, lean bison meat!

Hello, bison!

Puppy!!!

Along the way to the ranch, we stopped and walked around several historical and modern sites located pretty much in the middle of nowhere. One of the things that Lithuania is known for is having numerous churches, something close to 4,000 (4,000! In a country with a population of roughly 3.5 million people, that's equivalent to 1 church for every 875 people!), so two of the sites we saw were (naturally) churches. Europe is sprinkled with an incredible amount of churches, and although there are those travelers who snub their noses at the sight of another 1,000 year old church, I relish each and every one that I encounter. Although I grew up with a Romanian Orthodox upbringing, I am not a terribly religious person. In other words, I attend church every now and then and try not to miss Romanian or Greek church festivals if I can help it (yummmm sarmale or maybe gyros). Ok, I'm getting off topic with the thought of food! Back to churches. Each one has it's own character and background story that makes it unique and interesting. We did not go inside the two churches, only walked around the perimeters, so we spent only a short time at each location. I should mention that it was very cold. How cold, you ask? VERY! Close to zero degF. After our scheduled detour stops, we were all getting anxious and hungry. We finally made it to the ranch and were greeted by the resident Mastiff doggie. So cute he was! The owner of the ranch gave us VIP access and we drove up to the bison herds and were as close as 10ft from the glorious creatures! It was so cool! I remember thinking, "if these beasts get pissed, we lose!" After the tour, we sat down in an incredible open space reception-like room to consume bison meat! The large strip and filet that I had were tender and surprisingly light. I didn't feel like a lard ball after eating, which was very nice!

Forgot to take a pic before I started eating :)

Cured Bison displayed on a ...... wood platter in the shape of a Bison

Moving on from the bison....Tuesday nights are quiz nights! A local bar basically shuts down to the general public and hosts the quiz night. There are about 15 teams with an average of 8 people on each team so almost every seat in the house is taken. Of the 15 teams, ours is the only majority American (with 3 Lithuanians) team. There is one other international team but the remaining 13 teams are Lithuanian. Since we don't speak Lithuanian at the level of understanding quiz questions, the quiz MC asks the questions in both Lithuanian and English. I joined the team long after it was formed so had no input into the team name, which is "Condoleeza and the Rice." No comment. Anywho, some of the questions are extremely difficult! For instance, last week there was a guest round from another quiz team on the Grand Duke of Lithuania. 10 questions on the Grand Duke? Ugh. Luckily, we had one Lithuanian person show and we ended up getting 2 points. Not bad when the Lithuanian teams averaged 5 points! Our team should do a guest round on Andrew Jackson and see how well the Lithuanians do! :)

Some of Condoleeza and the Rice

Alright, to end this week's post, I want to touch on a few things. First, before coming to Lithuania a former colleague asked if I was a huge Frank Zappa fan. To his shock (and perhaps to you all), I had no idea who Zappa was. I actually had to Google him and found out that he was beloved by so many Lithuanians! Why? Who knows why, but the Lithuanians erected a statue (more like a bust) in his honor and lucky for me, it's located about 100 yards from where we live. Second, I would just like to note that the delicious treats here will make me gain 15-20 pounds. And the caffe lates and cappuccinos? Forgeddaboutit. Finally, I may need to pour a glass out in memory of my two plants that are on their way to plant heaven. This past Saturday, I bought a lovely green plant and a beautiful yellow-purple orchid and in the five minute walk home from the grocery store, they were both flaccid! Damn you sub-zero temperatures!

Cheers to you, Zappa!

The sweet, delicious, yummy culprits

Happy Monday!