Vilnius

Well, I'm in Vilnius, Lithuania. The center of action seems to be Stotis. You want to be near Stotis, but just about all the buses will take you there. Stotis has the Iki, and is walking distance from Senamiestis. And a really cool place is Užupis. I hear that Šnekutis is really happening, too, but I didn't make it there, and might not have time to go there on this leg of my trip.


Odds are that you have no idea what I'm talking about. Here I am, in a part of the former USSR, though I don't think that most of the Lithuanians were all that happy to be in the USSR. The Lithuanian language is in the Baltic family, distantly related to the Slavic languages, and just weird and incomprehensible to this native English speaker (even though I speak bits and pieces of a bunch of languages). In fact, I don't know a single word in Lithuanian for actual communication as of when I'm writing this, other than the words I used above for some locations. Not "yes", not "no", not any numbers, not "thank you" (which is probably the most important one). I just give a nod for "thank you". I tried. I looked up some commonly used words, but they were so unlike anything I'd ever seen that they just didn't stick in my head. I might give it another pass at some point. The Lithuanian language is apparently about the most unchanged language from Proto-Indo-European, so it's popular with forensic linguists. I have seen a few words in the street that are like words in some Slavic languages, but not many.


But let me decode some of the words I used above.  Stotis is the bus and train station. My hostel is near Stotis. Just about every bus that comes back to the center of the city is headed for Stotis, and it's also where you catch a train. It also seems to be near where all the street prostitutes in Vilneus hang out, if you're into that. They aren't terribly bothersome or aggressive like they are in some cities. 


The Iki is a huge supermarket. I've seen other Iki stores around town also. I think "iki" may be a Lithuanian preposition because I've seen it in some sentences and it appears to fulfill that niche. But I really don't know; I'm just guessing.


Užupis is an artist and musician colony where there are a lot of squatters, and it has purportedly "seceded" from Lithuania. It has its own "government" that issues visas (though nobody checks them) and a Constitution on display in the streets with some truly interesting and bizarre clauses. The center of Užupis has a huge sculpture called the "Angel of Užupis". And Šnekutis is a local bar and restaurant that supposedly has some of the best Lithuanian food. I haven't made it there yet, and might not on this trip here, but I'll be back here in a few days, and might check it out. I have been mesmerized the last few days by this Lithuanian pancake restaurant that has all different varieties of pancakes. I've already eaten there twice. The buckwheat pancakes are especially delicious. They have all kinds of fillings, and you can order different dipping sauces for them. Instead of being made from buckwheat flour, they appear to be made from the groats just fused together, with a crispy veneer of a crust on the outsides. Man, they are good.


Vilnius is an amazingly beautiful city. Every street in the center, centered around the Old Town, or the Senamiestis, has wonderfully constructed really old buildings. It has a very European vibe with a flavor of old Soviet utilitarianism left over. The travelers here at the hostel are definitely more Eastern European than most of the places I've been so far in the last few months, which makes sense, since this is Eastern Europe.


Vilnius also has this homey quirkiness, exemplified by the aforementioned Užupis, and things like the Museum of Illusions, and the Frank Zappa memorial statue. There's even a commercial center called Zappa Square across the street from the Zappa memorial. Vilnius is a great place to just wander aimlessly in. Its tiny little Old Town twisting streets have some interesting surprises, and you never know what kind of ancient stuff you will run into. The old City Wall is mostly gone, but a few sections of it remain, connected to the antique Bastion, which is now a museum, and the Gate of Dawn, which is the last remaning gate of ten gates in the wall.


Today I'm leaving for Minsk, Belarus for a few days, then coming back to Vilnius. Some of the people in the hostel were telling me this morning that Minsk is a place where the Soviet Union never stopped existing; it was described to me as being very much like the USSR in the 70s. I'll guess I'll see for myself when I get there. I talked to a woman from Minsk at the hostel yesterday,  and was telling her about my round-the-world journey; she seemed mostly sad and curious about the fact that I was alone on my quest. Yes, it's lonely at times, I told her, but worth it to see the world.