It's getting harder to find times to post. Now that they are shooting on the sound stage, Tyson has internet access. Since his job is mostly to watch the door and keep people quiet, he has lots of extra time on his hands. So he now takes my computer with him to do homework - and lots of other things he's not supposed to, like watch videos - during the day. He has been able to keep up with his classes, though his teachers haven't done very well to keep up with grading what he's turned in. It should all work out in the end, though.
Tuesday was our cleaning day, so we were diligent in getting out of our flat by 10. I have been wanting to visit the Jewish Museum, so Jacob consented. It wasn't much of a museum, but it allowed me to teach Jacob about the Holocaust and it's effects on this country.
We took the popular Gedimino Road back towards home. It's the hip part of town - a real mixture of old and new. The road ends at the Vilnius Cathedral.
Across the street from the Cathedral is probably the only Mexican restaurant in town. A local recommended it to us and as I'm a huge fan of Mexican food, we decided to give it a try. Mexican food in Europe is probably never a good idea. It was a waste of an eating out experience. Duh!
Wednesday, Baltic Films gave us the use of a car and driver. We left they boys home (to the relief of everyone - boys just plain hate to shop), but Maya came with us (cause us girls just love to shop!) Our driver, Vitas, took us out to the mall where they have a supermarket called a Hypermarket. We get a kick out of calling it that.
I've decided that having a driver, especially on these small and sometimes oneway streets, is a luxury I'm starting to enjoy. They will even jump out to open the door for you. I might have to stuff one of them in my suitcase to bring home. I wouldn't mind a driver - especially after school to cart the boys around to all of their activities. So another driver, Victor, came to pick me up today. Our bank wants some papers signed to get us moving forward on finishing with our remodeling construction loan. But they couldn't make it easy and wanted us to have the papers notarized. It took one of the girls at the office hours to find out how to do that (we couldn't do it because we don't speak Lithuanian). She called many banks before learning that we had to do it at the American Embassy. How convenient of our bank to make us have to do this when Adam is working 12+ hour days. Our driver took us there during Adam's lunch break... and then we didn't have the right documents printed and they wouldn't let us take our computer in and they wouldn't reprint them for us. So I guess the bank will just have to wait. But I got a shot of the embassy exterior (is that legal?).
In the first picture, Jacob is standing by the yellow wall you see further down in this picture. I like to take pictures without the graffiti because I think they are prettier, but in reality, there is a lot of graffiti around. You can also see in this picture how damaged the street and sidewalks are. With the harsh weather here, I'm surprised it's not worse.
Tuesday was our cleaning day, so we were diligent in getting out of our flat by 10. I have been wanting to visit the Jewish Museum, so Jacob consented. It wasn't much of a museum, but it allowed me to teach Jacob about the Holocaust and it's effects on this country.
We took the popular Gedimino Road back towards home. It's the hip part of town - a real mixture of old and new. The road ends at the Vilnius Cathedral.
Across the street from the Cathedral is probably the only Mexican restaurant in town. A local recommended it to us and as I'm a huge fan of Mexican food, we decided to give it a try. Mexican food in Europe is probably never a good idea. It was a waste of an eating out experience. Duh!
Eko Tako was at least organic
And it had this great window of cactus plants - also probably the only in Vilnius.
Wednesday, Baltic Films gave us the use of a car and driver. We left they boys home (to the relief of everyone - boys just plain hate to shop), but Maya came with us (cause us girls just love to shop!) Our driver, Vitas, took us out to the mall where they have a supermarket called a Hypermarket. We get a kick out of calling it that.
The little street sign says "Rimi Hypermarket" - but then I noticed the name of the store in the background and laughed. Jacob couldn't remember the name of the cameraman (Travis Cline), so he started referring to him as Marco Polo. Several times I have almost called him Marco to his face!
We found a few souvenirs at the mall to bring home. We even stopped at a few little lesser known shops in Old Town that we found while searching online. All in all, it was a successful morning that ended at the sound stage where we met the guys in time for lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the filming.
I've been asked what the sets look like. It's hard to get a picture of them. It is basically an old warehouse that they built sets on. But the sets are small, representing the interior of homes. Some of the walls come away so they can be removed for moving the camera into different positions and angles.
This is a replica of one of the courtyards we shot in. It's here so that when they open the door to the cobbler shop, it will look like it's really opening onto the courtyard. The building/church on the left is really just a picture printed on a large screen, but on film it looks real.
Today after some laundry and homework (have to keep it real - it's not all play), we walked over to the only synagogue left in Vilnius. We were met by a nice Jewish woman who spoke English and she gave us a tour. Before the war, there were over 100 synagogues to service the Jews living in Vilnius, who made up 40% of the population. Today there are only about 1200 in all of Lithuania. Most were killed, a few emigrated. Any who did come back, came from work camps they were sent to in Siberia during the war. The only reason this synagogue survived is because the Germans found it handy for storing weapons.
Once again, I forgot to take a picture, so this one's from the internet. It's good to know the sky can be blue here.
However, this interior picture I did take.
We learned on our tour today that doorways with steps (on the left) were homes and businesses to the Jews and without steps (on the right) were Polish - who made up 45% of Vilnius' population before the war. Most Lithuanians lived in the country and were farmers. The Jews were actually the most intellectual and skilled of the population, which they realized after they put them all in ghettos. They had to separate out the learned and skilled into their own ghetto and have them keep working so that the town could survive. Hypocrites!
And I got a shot out the window of our car of the cool Russian Orthodox church near the embassy.
At least I got a free ride to set to watch more filming, which I did for the afternoon.
Thankfully, Jacob wasn't bored and alone all day. He went with the Kendalls to the Money Museum - who knew such a thing existed!
To end, I thought I better give a little clearer picture of what Vilnius is like. For example, here is the cute little street we live on. Picturesque.
But if I take the picture from the start of the street, this is what you see.
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