Filming began yesterday. Tyson has decided to work on the shoot, even though it means his play time here will end. Their call time was 6:20 am. They had to really bundle up as they were going to be outdoors all day.
Director Adam Anderegg getting ready to leave on is first day of shooting.
My cute lunch date.
This is a sauce they love to put on their pizza. It tastes similar to Thousand Island dressing, but perhaps a little more vinegar and pickle in it. The locals will squeeze it all over their pizza.
The main street, Vokieciu (translated: German St), that our alley, Mikalojaus (translated: Nicholas - because St. Nicholas church is on this street), leads to, is the street that separated the two Jewish ghettos that came into existence with German occupation in 1941. The first ghetto housed skilled workers - those who were educated and useful. The second and smaller ghetto was for the old, sick and more useless population. This was the ghetto that was liquidated more often. And the first ghetto fought to keep people healthy so they would not end up in ghetto 2.
The second ghetto's boundary was a square covering only a few blocks. There were a few signs and a statue in the area, but not much else to show what had once been there. I don't know how much Lithuanians want memorialized from these events, as the people of the 1940s assisted in ridding their city of its Jewish population.
Right above Jacob's head is a sign with a Star of David on it. If I could remember more of my Hebrew, I might be able to tell you what it said. This street would have been in the heart of the second Jewish Ghetto.
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As today is Tuesday, we had to be out of the flat by 10 am for the cleaning lady. We headed south today to go back to the market. Adam is wanting a lighter-weight coat to wear over his layers, and the market had the best prices. Most of the shops right around us are more boutique-style and carry "labels", so they are much more pricey. It was bizarrely quiet as we walked down there.
Exterior of the market.
Inside the market. Here you can see fruit sellers with glass enclosed booths behind.
This building is across the street from the market and there are always birds on the wires on top of the building. One day as we walked past, a lady threw down a whole bag of seeds. The birds went crazy!
Birds enjoying a dumped bag of seeds.
We chose to take the long way home, which took us along one of the only pieces left of the wall that once surrounded and protected the city of Vilnius, and then through one of the only existing gates through the wall, The Gate of Dawn. (The Russians sure destroyed a lot while they were here. Why did they think that was their right?) They will be filming along this wall later this week. We got to the Gate of Dawn to reenter Old Town, when we heard drums and noticed a group of people marching. We decided to stop and see what was going on.
Old wall and Gate of Dawn into Old Town
Parade of drums and marchers coming through the Gate of Dawn.
Front side of Gate of Dawn. In the upper window is a picture of the Virgin Mary, with a church that was built to her standing next to it (not shown in picture). People trek here from around the region just to pay homage to this site. Jacob wrote a report about it, so I'll post it at the end for any interested readers.
Later, back at our flat, I googled and learned that it is the Restoration of Lithuanian Independence Day. We had asked our production crew friends what holidays were happening while we were here. I'm not sure why they didn't mention this one. On February 16, 1918, Lithuania declared independence as in individual and free country separate from the Germans and their occupation during WWI, and separation from any other countries in the region. Unfortunately, I didn't last long, but it's the country and principles they came back to in 1991.
I don't know if everyone's Google homepage looks like this today or if it's just in Lithuania, but this is the tower of the Vilnius Castle and this symbol represents their Restoration of Independence Day.
But this holiday explains why we once again found many shops and restaurants closed again. We walked from the gate back towards the center of Old Town, but needed to spend more time out for the cleaning lady (I have to have some reason to keep Jacob out. He is such a home body!) We have become more comfortable with getting around and less worried about getting lost, so we decided to find interesting new streets and walk down them. This cute little street was too fun to just walk by.
We meandered down roads for about 10 minutes, then stumbled across this gem that we then walked around.
This is another gate and wall fortification that was also around Old Town Vilnius. It was closed today because of the holiday, but we now have somewhere to come back to. And from here was this beautiful view north towards the Vilnius Castle and Hill of 3 Crosses.
Castle Tower (right above, next to red dome) White towards top of hillside - 3 Crosses
(right above)
We continued our meandering. I love coming around a corner and finding an unexpected treasure. There is constantly something new to see here and it makes me feel so thankful we've had such a beautiful and interesting city to discover.
This church seems to epitomize what happened to so much of this city during the Soviet occupation. All of the churches were forced to cease as places of worship and became storage or places for exhibits. The buildings were not treated well and most still show much wear. They have had to work to restore their churches one by one. The smaller ones get attention last, but I love that they are working to restore places of beauty.
Our plan had been to stop somewhere for lunch, but all of the places we wanted to try were closed. We ran to Iki's market instead. I discovered they had Buffalo mozzarella, so we had a yummy lunch anyways in our clean flat!
This splurge made me SO happy! I love that our flat has an ice cube tray. Heaven!
You can't really see the Buffalo mozzarella, but it's on there and it was delicious!
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Jacob's Report:
The Gate of Dawn
By Jacob Anderegg
The Gate of Dawn is a building in old town Vilnius where I
am. It was built between 1503-1522. There was a wall built around the city of
Vilnius to protect it from harm and the Gate of Dawn was one of the gates in
the wall. The Gate is the only left gate in the Vilnius wall because the
government said to knock most of the gates down. The gate has some religious
items in its chapel that the people of Vilnius thought could guard them (wrong)
and bless travelers.
There is a picture in the gate of Virgin Mary. People say the painting has miraculous powers
and people all over the world come and pray and light candles. The gate is a really important at a celebration.
The date for the celebration is November. The celebration is the Blessed Virgin
Mary Mother of Mercy Festival.
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