Adjusting to Life in Vilnius

Sunday, January 31, 2016

We’ve now been here several days and we feel like we’re starting to get the hang of things.  We had a production driver, Vitas, and an interpreter, Birute (By-Roo-tay), pick us up on Friday morning and take us to the mall with a supermarket in it.  It took us almost 2 hours with 5 kids to walk around the store and figure out what we wanted to buy.  We were there primarily to stock up on the necessities that will get us through the month.  Most of our shopping will be done at our local little store, Rimi.  The kids were happy just to be together, getting to know each other.

Saint Casimir Church (1616)

Next to Saint Casimir is the little Rimi grocery store near our apartment.

It is the farthest door on the right in the row of dark buildings

 and down a flight of stairs.  Directly across the street is Town Hall.

As soon as our lunch was over back at the apartment – we had each picked out a fun pastry from the store to have with fruit – we all got so sleepy.  It was nighttime at home after all.  Knowing we had to battle the jet lag, we bundled up and headed out the door.  We had been told there were maps at the Town Hall, so we headed there.  Boy was Jacob thrilled to get his hands on several maps of Vilnius.  He came home and spread them out on the table and proceeded to mark out all of the points of interest and made a schedule of what to go see each day.  He has figured out a lot about where we are and is getting good at getting us around.

Town Hall.  (Rebuilt in the neoclassical style in 1799) 

The door on the left was an Information center where we found maps.  

The interior is a gallery for paintings and contains offices.

The boys are pretty bored with me, so we weren’t out long that Friday afternoon before they were wanting to meet up with the Kendalls again.  Luckily, they wanted to hang out with us, too.  We did more exploring around town and found a shop that sold crepes.  The interior was decorated like a kids pancake world – over the counter was a roof made of pancake-shaped shingles, green carpet was on the walls to look like grass, tails were on the back of the chairs which were painted in animal patterns.

Tearing up the town with the Kendalls (taken on our first day out by Christianne)

The crepe restaurant

Each night it starts to get dark around 5, and then it gets really cold.  That's about the time we are ready to be home.  I've been cooking a homemade dinner every night.  I still worry about Adam's health, and after a long day of working with the production crew overseeing the sets, costumes, auditions, etc., he is tired.  I don't want him to have to go back out for food, so I cook.  The kitchen is a bit sparse on pans, dishes and "tools", but I have managed.  It's an adventure to use what I can find and make it work.  We are all sleepy by about 7 or 8, but then I often am awake by 1 or 2 in the morning.  Christianne and I have to keep the Kaleidoscope accounting going, so we are both working from our laptops here.  It's a bit slower and more work for some of those back at the office, but it's working.  I often use those early hours to do my jobs.  Because the boys also have to do homework online, someone is almost always on my computer.  I have to use it when it's free.

The husbands were mostly free on Saturday.  We took a taxi to the old Soviet KGB Building, which has been set up as the Genocide Museum.  The displays there tell the story of Lithuania's Soviet and German occupations since 1940.  It wasn't until 1991 that they regained their independence.  I was so oblivious to anything going on here during that time.  Pathetic!  The Lithuanian people were so mistreated!  The basement prison was part of the exhibits.  It's truly horrifying to witness how inhumane people can be towards one another!  There was a thriving Jewish population prior to Germany's occupation, when they were annihilated.  During the Soviet occupation, hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians were deported, executed, imprisoned and tortured.  Jacob seemed particularly touched by what he learned.  He wants to have a family home evening lesson where we all share what we learned and felt.  It is something he seems to still be processing.

We walked home from the museum to give us time to absorb our surroundings.  There are beautiful buildings at every turn.  Travis, the DP (director of photography, ie. the camera man) was with us.  His wife was born and raised in Lithuania, though her parents are Russians who came to Lithuania during the cold war years.  They lived on the coast where her father was a boatman.  Of course, when the Russian occupation ended, it became awkward for them to still be in Lithuania, so they immigrated to the United States.

The KGB Building; the creepy entrance to an arts theater;

Vilnius Cathedral (1801); Pilies - a delightful pedestrian street

Part of Town Hall Square - we passed this on our walk home

A beautiful cobbled street of Old Town Vilnius

Unfortunately, we missed church this morning.  Adam didn't believe me when I told him last night that I thought church was at 10.  He was sure it was at 2 because they had been to church when he and Russ were here a few weeks ago.  We found out too late that it was at 10.  In the end, that was probably ok.  Adam slept until 11 this morning.  Sleep seems to be really important to how he is feeling.  With his work days being so long, he probably really needed the rest.  However, Tyson instantly volunteered to put a lesson together.  He looked up the youth curriculum online and after about 30 minutes had a lesson about the nature of God and his tender mercies to his children.  When we got stir-crazy, we took a walk and found some more beautiful churches to explore.  Jacob is already sick of them, but he soon had his maps out and charted a course around the neighborhood for us.  We could have been out longer, but our faces were freezing, so we headed back home after about an hour.  We have found that every other part of our bodies stay toasty warm.  We need face masks, and then we could be out longer.  Actually, we have 2 of them for the shoot days, but no one will wear them around town.  LOL

Off on today's adventure (The windows in the red roof 
are all to our apartment left to right: the dining room, 
the family room, Tyson's bedroom)  

We can see this red dome roof from our apartment window.  
Our first goal today was to find the church it belonged to.  We found it, 
but it was locked, so we don't know much more about it. 

More amazing Vilnius streets