When I'm stressed out, I usually can't feel that I'm stressed out. Not until I can't catch my breath anymore on a daily basis or I start waking up with my blanket clutched to my chest in horror, most often to prevent whatever jeering audience is in my head from looking upon my nakedness. Lately, I've been having trouble breathing regularly and last night I woke up in a panic three times only to nurse myself back to sleep and wake up again, this time in a different but equally horrifying scenario.
Dream #1: Scott and I were only halfway packed for Lithuania when we realized that our plane departed in exactly two hours. We threw everything we could in a couple pre-used garbage bags and jetted out the door.
Dream #2: We must have been successful in making the flight because the next thing I knew we were being taken to a creepy, rundown shack with no plumbing or electricity in the middle of the Lithuanian woods where someone was to pick us up daily in a Landrover, take us to work at the university, and then take us home immediately afterwards.
Dream #3: After being unceremoniously punted from the Landrover, I found myself at the "university", which turned out to be conspicuously similar to my high school. Although I was in familiar terrain, I could not find the room in which I was supposed to teach. I wandered up and down the main hallway, back and forth, each time losing a crucial piece of clothing, and finally found myself in my "classroom", which was filled with students I knew a little too well as they had all done poorly in my classes before. Although already shouldering a heavy and bitter defeat, I looked down at my lesson plans, determined to give the task my best despite the consequences. Of course, these plans consisted of a few pieces of loose leaf covered only in sketches of various cartoon characters. Their only redemption was that they were at least large enough to cover the key parts of my body which I then realized was much larger than I had previously thought and, you guessed it, completely naked.
Scott's response to these dreams was that my subconscious obviously doesn't think much of my interpretive abilities.
I think at this point it's safe to say that I'm a little stressed out. My classes begin this Tuesday at 8:30 am. I'll let you all know how the first day goes. Until then, wish me luck!
Saturday 29 August 2009
Wednesday 26 August 2009
My New Office
Here's my new office, a view out the door, and yours truly pretending to be hard at work.Monday 24 August 2009
The Camo-Barbie Onslaught
Scott and I recently discovered that Klaipeda roughly translates to "dirty foot" in Lithuanian. Which explains the numerous mud-encrusted brass imprints of feet scattered throughout the city. It may also explain the tendency of women to wear utterly ridiculous, sometimes downright punishing shoes. But, let's be honest, it also explains a lot more than I would prefer. I can hear it now.
"Oh, you lived in Europe? I lived in Europe, too!"
"Cool! Where?"
"Dirty Foot."
"...Oh."
It's a great city, don't get me wrong. It's just that the city’s name sounds bad enough without knowing it’s been christened "nasty hoof." All I can hope is that Klaipeda is not, in addition, the name of some rank fungal infection, especially not one contracted by wandering around without shoes. Luckily, my Lithuanian will most likely never reach the level of identifying fungal infections. Thank God.
Regardless, the historic city of Dirty Foot is the one where now our own dirty feet tread, end to end, old town to university and back again. We’ve estimated that, on our short days, we still log about 5 miles and, on long days, close to 10. With all that plodding back and forth, something’s bound to happen. I knew, with the prevalence of alcohol abuse, that there was the chance of getting harassed by a drunken person or two. What I didn’t expect was what actually happened.
It was Friday evening, and Scott and I were walking back from a faculty dinner. We’d been told that it’s best to speak at a moderate volume and avoid eye contact with people on the street-with some men doing otherwise can be seen as a challenge-so we were minding our own business and trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. One thing that remains conspicuous, however, is our speed. With our long legs and capitalistic sense of time management, we pass Lithuanians as though they’re standing still. Not so, though, when we passed the inebriated flock of life-size Barbies in their skin-tight, camouflage tank tops and, of course, matching forest-green stiletto heels. At the precise moment of our passing, they erupted into riotous giggles, lunged at Scott with their pea-colored fingernails, and began chasing him around a human-sized shrub in the middle of the sidewalk. In the twilight, I watched his awkward dance from the other side of the tree as he side-stepped, ducked, jumped, and dove his way out of what has probably been, at some point, the impossible fantasy of many teenage boys.
At that moment, besides horror and confusion, I also experienced a deep sense of pride. I imagined us having the conversation back in the relative boredom of our apartment. “No, seriously, if, like, 10 beautiful women threw themselves at you, all at once, what would you do?” “Run away.” He’d been telling the truth!
Scott finally extricated himself from the roiling mass of beauty queens and came running at me full speed, his face full of a frenetic, terrified glee. Suddenly, out from the shadows, two Barbies pounced, one from either side, and caught hold. One held him still while the other brushed back his hair with her hand and planted a greasy, red kiss on the center of his cheek. Poor, bewildered Scott could not find his words. They were laughing and shouting something in Lithuanian. “Nekaulbu,” I said. “Nekaulbu Lietuviske.” We don’t speak Lithuanian.
The laughter stopped. The head Barbie spoke. “She’s getting married tomorrow. It’s tradition to give 100 men 100 kisses.”
Scott clapped awkwardly. “Congratulations!” he cried.
“What a strange tradition,” we remarked to each other as we continued home.
At least it had nothing to do with kissing dirty feet.
"Oh, you lived in Europe? I lived in Europe, too!"
"Cool! Where?"
"Dirty Foot."
"...Oh."
It's a great city, don't get me wrong. It's just that the city’s name sounds bad enough without knowing it’s been christened "nasty hoof." All I can hope is that Klaipeda is not, in addition, the name of some rank fungal infection, especially not one contracted by wandering around without shoes. Luckily, my Lithuanian will most likely never reach the level of identifying fungal infections. Thank God.
Regardless, the historic city of Dirty Foot is the one where now our own dirty feet tread, end to end, old town to university and back again. We’ve estimated that, on our short days, we still log about 5 miles and, on long days, close to 10. With all that plodding back and forth, something’s bound to happen. I knew, with the prevalence of alcohol abuse, that there was the chance of getting harassed by a drunken person or two. What I didn’t expect was what actually happened.
It was Friday evening, and Scott and I were walking back from a faculty dinner. We’d been told that it’s best to speak at a moderate volume and avoid eye contact with people on the street-with some men doing otherwise can be seen as a challenge-so we were minding our own business and trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. One thing that remains conspicuous, however, is our speed. With our long legs and capitalistic sense of time management, we pass Lithuanians as though they’re standing still. Not so, though, when we passed the inebriated flock of life-size Barbies in their skin-tight, camouflage tank tops and, of course, matching forest-green stiletto heels. At the precise moment of our passing, they erupted into riotous giggles, lunged at Scott with their pea-colored fingernails, and began chasing him around a human-sized shrub in the middle of the sidewalk. In the twilight, I watched his awkward dance from the other side of the tree as he side-stepped, ducked, jumped, and dove his way out of what has probably been, at some point, the impossible fantasy of many teenage boys.
At that moment, besides horror and confusion, I also experienced a deep sense of pride. I imagined us having the conversation back in the relative boredom of our apartment. “No, seriously, if, like, 10 beautiful women threw themselves at you, all at once, what would you do?” “Run away.” He’d been telling the truth!
Scott finally extricated himself from the roiling mass of beauty queens and came running at me full speed, his face full of a frenetic, terrified glee. Suddenly, out from the shadows, two Barbies pounced, one from either side, and caught hold. One held him still while the other brushed back his hair with her hand and planted a greasy, red kiss on the center of his cheek. Poor, bewildered Scott could not find his words. They were laughing and shouting something in Lithuanian. “Nekaulbu,” I said. “Nekaulbu Lietuviske.” We don’t speak Lithuanian.
The laughter stopped. The head Barbie spoke. “She’s getting married tomorrow. It’s tradition to give 100 men 100 kisses.”
Scott clapped awkwardly. “Congratulations!” he cried.
“What a strange tradition,” we remarked to each other as we continued home.
At least it had nothing to do with kissing dirty feet.
Sunday 23 August 2009
Saturday 22 August 2009
My Second Childhood
It’s important as an adult to never forget what it’s like to be a child, to never forget how long five minutes can last, how terrifying the dark can be, or how exciting and overwhelming life can feel because everything is so new and often mysterious. That’s what it feels like here sometimes, it feels like a second childhood. Mundane things fascinate or horrify you. Simple tasks turn into undertakings that require a herculean effort. And sometimes you wish you could just pop your thumb in your mouth and tuck yourself behind your mother’s skirt or sit in front of the TV and watch an entire season of Blue’s Clues while eating bowl after bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
Case in point, the grocery store. Yesterday I sat down to my morning Muesli with yogurt and discovered I had instead purchased sour cream, which had been selected after a full five minutes of painstaking label comparison with other things that might or might not have been yogurt. And tomatoes. I bought a rotten tomato. Even though, come on, it’s obviously a tomato and all you’ve got to do is give it a little squeeze to make sure it’s edible. I was so desperate to put something recognizable in my basket, I didn’t even check to see whether or not it was good.
After wandering around the store for a good 20 minutes and finding exactly five things to buy, two of which were either inedible or something entirely different from what I had hoped, I lined up at the check-out. Here they want you to move as fast as is humanly possible. By the time the cashier rings you up, you’re supposed to have finished bagging your junk and have gotten the hell out of everyone else’s way. I knew this, so I immediately started shoving the scanned items into my bag. This is survival mode at the grocery store. Say “Labadiena” with a believable accent. Act like you know exactly what’s going on. Bag your stuff. Locate the total on the screen because you can’t understand spoken numbers. Pay. Say “Aciu.” Leave. And all the while, pray to God that they don’t say anything to you. Halfway through my believable ruse, the cashier spoke, and it was all over. My face, I’m sure, washed white with a blank and awkward stare. Maybe I grimaced. Maybe she thought I had a cramp. So she said it again, loudly and more slowly. And again. There aren’t a lot of foreigners in Lithuania, so the woman was probably confused. I wanted to say I didn’t understand Lithuanian. I even know how to say that I don’t understand Lithuanian. But I couldn’t. Instead, I just panicked and shook my head and grabbed my debit card and left. I still have no idea what she was talking about.
So we try fast food sometimes, which is better here than it is in the states, and slower. The other day we went for kababas. Kababas is like a kabob pita sandwich stuffed with a bunch of meat that’s been shaved off a spit, cabbage salad, onion, and four mystery sauces. It’s delicious. And, because I am in my second childhood, strangely fascinating. The spit is vertical and wrapped in a slowly-twisting meat tornado. The machine buzzes as it roasts. Flies swoop in and out through the open doors and windows. Happily for Scott, I remember the Lithuanian word for onions, which he hates. I also remember the word for no. When our turn comes, I try to be as Lithuanian as I can. I say “Good day.” I order two big kababas, one with no onions. Unfortunately, the “two” comes out French, and the “one” comes out German. My gig is up. When our kababas are finished, the woman hands them over the counter. She points to one. “This one has no onions,” she says, in perfect English. I thank her. Translated, I say “Very thank you,” which probably sounds just as bad in Lithuanian as it does in English. Despite my taking a sledgehammer to her first language, she smiles and nods. We take the kababas and walk home.
As we walk, I think about my students back in the states: the refugees, the single mothers, the young professionals, the teenage boys and girls. I wanted to come here for many reasons, but one big reason was so that I could better understand what they go through when they come to the United States either to study English or merely to survive. Already, I understand that each thing they experience is probably more consequential than it might seem to anyone casually watching. A patient bus driver. A kind cashier. A simple explanation repeated for the sake of clarity. A map drawn on the back of a receipt by a stranger. Small, simple kindnesses that may indeed be just that simple but are definitely not that small.
Case in point, the grocery store. Yesterday I sat down to my morning Muesli with yogurt and discovered I had instead purchased sour cream, which had been selected after a full five minutes of painstaking label comparison with other things that might or might not have been yogurt. And tomatoes. I bought a rotten tomato. Even though, come on, it’s obviously a tomato and all you’ve got to do is give it a little squeeze to make sure it’s edible. I was so desperate to put something recognizable in my basket, I didn’t even check to see whether or not it was good.
After wandering around the store for a good 20 minutes and finding exactly five things to buy, two of which were either inedible or something entirely different from what I had hoped, I lined up at the check-out. Here they want you to move as fast as is humanly possible. By the time the cashier rings you up, you’re supposed to have finished bagging your junk and have gotten the hell out of everyone else’s way. I knew this, so I immediately started shoving the scanned items into my bag. This is survival mode at the grocery store. Say “Labadiena” with a believable accent. Act like you know exactly what’s going on. Bag your stuff. Locate the total on the screen because you can’t understand spoken numbers. Pay. Say “Aciu.” Leave. And all the while, pray to God that they don’t say anything to you. Halfway through my believable ruse, the cashier spoke, and it was all over. My face, I’m sure, washed white with a blank and awkward stare. Maybe I grimaced. Maybe she thought I had a cramp. So she said it again, loudly and more slowly. And again. There aren’t a lot of foreigners in Lithuania, so the woman was probably confused. I wanted to say I didn’t understand Lithuanian. I even know how to say that I don’t understand Lithuanian. But I couldn’t. Instead, I just panicked and shook my head and grabbed my debit card and left. I still have no idea what she was talking about.
So we try fast food sometimes, which is better here than it is in the states, and slower. The other day we went for kababas. Kababas is like a kabob pita sandwich stuffed with a bunch of meat that’s been shaved off a spit, cabbage salad, onion, and four mystery sauces. It’s delicious. And, because I am in my second childhood, strangely fascinating. The spit is vertical and wrapped in a slowly-twisting meat tornado. The machine buzzes as it roasts. Flies swoop in and out through the open doors and windows. Happily for Scott, I remember the Lithuanian word for onions, which he hates. I also remember the word for no. When our turn comes, I try to be as Lithuanian as I can. I say “Good day.” I order two big kababas, one with no onions. Unfortunately, the “two” comes out French, and the “one” comes out German. My gig is up. When our kababas are finished, the woman hands them over the counter. She points to one. “This one has no onions,” she says, in perfect English. I thank her. Translated, I say “Very thank you,” which probably sounds just as bad in Lithuanian as it does in English. Despite my taking a sledgehammer to her first language, she smiles and nods. We take the kababas and walk home.
As we walk, I think about my students back in the states: the refugees, the single mothers, the young professionals, the teenage boys and girls. I wanted to come here for many reasons, but one big reason was so that I could better understand what they go through when they come to the United States either to study English or merely to survive. Already, I understand that each thing they experience is probably more consequential than it might seem to anyone casually watching. A patient bus driver. A kind cashier. A simple explanation repeated for the sake of clarity. A map drawn on the back of a receipt by a stranger. Small, simple kindnesses that may indeed be just that simple but are definitely not that small.
Wednesday 19 August 2009
Thoughts on Process and Perfection
I know I’m not alone in the sense of accomplishment I reap from a finished product, from things being done. My gut tells me that this is a very American thing, the admiration of things in their perfect states, in the states after we have perfected them: supermarket packages lined up in gleaming, colorful rows, clean laundry tucked into closed drawers, a spotless floor, a living room that looks as though it hasn’t been lived in, cars that look as though they’ve never been driven, even people who look as though they have not lived their entire lives in their own skin. There’s a certain obsession with wanting things to be perfect, with wanting things to be done, with wanting things to look as though we’re not messing around with them. In other words, there seems to be an overwhelming desire for product and a shunning of the process it takes to get there.
I had the same realization about life my freshman year of college. I was standing in the shower and bent over to get something. The water hit the back of my head, trailed around my face and shot off my nose and chin in two perfect streams. I felt like a flesh-and-blood fountain. I’m not sure why that struck me then, but it made me think, “Here, now, this is not a hurdle to be jumped over, not just a block of time I have to get through before going on to something else. This is an experience to be opened up and enjoyed or, if not enjoyed, at least noticed.” Of course, I was in college, so that didn’t last very long. I hadn’t really thought about it much until last night, when I hung the laundry up on the drying rack.
The laundry here, as I mentioned, takes two hours to wash and a couple of days to dry, once it’s hung. We don’t have a car, so we walk the 30+ minutes to campus, then back when we’re finished. Food doesn’t last as long, so people go shopping every couple of days, again, usually on foot. If you’re not cooking, you’re ordering from a restaurant, which takes just as long, sometimes longer, because the restaurant staff isn’t in a rush either.
I think the reason that we Americans tend to be the way we are is because we can have everything so fast, so it makes us move faster, simply because there’s nothing to wait for. In the states, it seems ludicrous to lengthen processes that could much more easily be shortened. Why hang laundry on the line when there’s a dryer in the basement? Why bake bread when you can buy it at the store? Why walk to work when you can drive there? It just seems like bad sense. I try my best to fight it, but it does. Foolishness. You could get an extra job with all that extra time, or earn another degree. In the states, I struggle to slow down, to take notice of things. But here, so far, life has just sort of slunk along and done it for me. Outside the early whisper of fall in the crispy leaves, the sad, chilled-earth smell. The rain outside our window which sounds, I swear, like someone is pushing a broken shopping cart across the cobblestone. And inside Scott’s black socks, my blue, the sea-green towels, the brightly patterned shirts, all folded so carefully and slowly drying over the heavy lines of wire.
I had the same realization about life my freshman year of college. I was standing in the shower and bent over to get something. The water hit the back of my head, trailed around my face and shot off my nose and chin in two perfect streams. I felt like a flesh-and-blood fountain. I’m not sure why that struck me then, but it made me think, “Here, now, this is not a hurdle to be jumped over, not just a block of time I have to get through before going on to something else. This is an experience to be opened up and enjoyed or, if not enjoyed, at least noticed.” Of course, I was in college, so that didn’t last very long. I hadn’t really thought about it much until last night, when I hung the laundry up on the drying rack.
The laundry here, as I mentioned, takes two hours to wash and a couple of days to dry, once it’s hung. We don’t have a car, so we walk the 30+ minutes to campus, then back when we’re finished. Food doesn’t last as long, so people go shopping every couple of days, again, usually on foot. If you’re not cooking, you’re ordering from a restaurant, which takes just as long, sometimes longer, because the restaurant staff isn’t in a rush either.
I think the reason that we Americans tend to be the way we are is because we can have everything so fast, so it makes us move faster, simply because there’s nothing to wait for. In the states, it seems ludicrous to lengthen processes that could much more easily be shortened. Why hang laundry on the line when there’s a dryer in the basement? Why bake bread when you can buy it at the store? Why walk to work when you can drive there? It just seems like bad sense. I try my best to fight it, but it does. Foolishness. You could get an extra job with all that extra time, or earn another degree. In the states, I struggle to slow down, to take notice of things. But here, so far, life has just sort of slunk along and done it for me. Outside the early whisper of fall in the crispy leaves, the sad, chilled-earth smell. The rain outside our window which sounds, I swear, like someone is pushing a broken shopping cart across the cobblestone. And inside Scott’s black socks, my blue, the sea-green towels, the brightly patterned shirts, all folded so carefully and slowly drying over the heavy lines of wire.
Tuesday 18 August 2009
...and there was music
Yesterday afternoon, joy of joys, I spent almost three hours hammering away on a new Steinberger. And, happy madness of happy madnesses, this (grand!) piano is available whenever the lecture hall is not being used, which means I can practice every day without troubling anybody. When the Academic VP showed us how to request the key and unlock the door, I could have lunged around the stage singing undeserving hits from misogynistic musicals, I was that happy.
So I've decided that my basic goals for the year are to relearn Haydn's Variations in f minor and Schumann's Fantasiestucke, then try to work up Ravel's Menuet Antique (for Scott), two Chopin Nocturnes, and, of course, Bach, the Italian Concerto, because nothing I've found is ever as good for the soul as some good ol' Bach.
So I've decided that my basic goals for the year are to relearn Haydn's Variations in f minor and Schumann's Fantasiestucke, then try to work up Ravel's Menuet Antique (for Scott), two Chopin Nocturnes, and, of course, Bach, the Italian Concerto, because nothing I've found is ever as good for the soul as some good ol' Bach.
Sunday 16 August 2009
The Morning Realizations of a Reluctant Yuppie
In the morning I open the windows that face the square. The windows are tall and have no screens, so that I can bend out, like someone in a poem, and test the air with my arm. If I smoked, I would definitely lean out the window and exhale in slow, contemplative sighs, but as I don't, I'll content myself with simply breathing in and out while listening to the rumbling buses and shuffling feet on the cobblestone streets below.
I read and pray, practice Yoga poses to wake up, and then eat my Meusli with yogurt and drink my strange-tasting orange juice which I hope is actually orange juice. Then I boil water and make my coffee with the French press we found for 10 litas at the big grocery on the other side of town. I am in love with our French press.
Mornings here are as picturesque as a story book, but even while leaning out a window and imagining myself as a quaint character in some Eastern European folk tale, I am aware of a few less picturesque differences between here and home.
At home, I was able to both recycle and compost. Here there is no place to compost, which is not surprising, but I can't recycle either. My neighbor told me yesterday that walking your recycling to the containers located around town does no good because the country no longer has the money to collect and process it and, as a result, it all gets dumped in the trash. I cringed. Egads. So much for that. Scott and I will have to change our tactics and instead buy things that have as little packaging as possible.
It's more difficult to do one's part to take care of the Earth, but it's also more difficult to take care of one's body in the way I have gotten used to as an American. At home I am a bit of a health nut. I read packages obsessively and usually only buy things that are low in sugar, low in saturated fat, and have no hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, nitrates, or bleached flour. At home I know how to differentiate between the claims that different products make on their labels, and I know how to discern what is healthy and what is pretend. Here, I see a pretty picture of a tomato or a happy cow and I think, "Do I eat this or rub it on my face?" As far as I can tell, though, it's not only my lack of language that's the problem. The things I used to scour the stores for at home don't seem to exist here. In other words, I am starting to understand how much I have as an American and to wonder how much of what I usually consume is actually necessary for good health.
Now, just because those things aren't available here doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of good things going on that generally don't happen in the states. The obesity rate seems pretty low, and I think that's because most people walk or ride bikes instead of drive. Also, the markets are open every day until winter, when the market reduces its hours to twice weekly. The things people buy require less transportation, as they are more local, and they also require fewer preservatives, I think, since people go shopping every couple days and don't seem to cherish the longer shelf life that we do.
That's all for now. My coffee is finished, the sun is climbing, and I'd like to make the 30-minute walk to the university before it gets too high and hot for a comfortable jaunt. As to non-poetic technicalities, our faculty/staff orientation begins this Wednesday, and classes start September 1st. We are both excited for the working part of this adventure to begin.
Love to all our family and friends, and thank you for all of your comments! We cherish them.
I read and pray, practice Yoga poses to wake up, and then eat my Meusli with yogurt and drink my strange-tasting orange juice which I hope is actually orange juice. Then I boil water and make my coffee with the French press we found for 10 litas at the big grocery on the other side of town. I am in love with our French press.
Mornings here are as picturesque as a story book, but even while leaning out a window and imagining myself as a quaint character in some Eastern European folk tale, I am aware of a few less picturesque differences between here and home.
At home, I was able to both recycle and compost. Here there is no place to compost, which is not surprising, but I can't recycle either. My neighbor told me yesterday that walking your recycling to the containers located around town does no good because the country no longer has the money to collect and process it and, as a result, it all gets dumped in the trash. I cringed. Egads. So much for that. Scott and I will have to change our tactics and instead buy things that have as little packaging as possible.
It's more difficult to do one's part to take care of the Earth, but it's also more difficult to take care of one's body in the way I have gotten used to as an American. At home I am a bit of a health nut. I read packages obsessively and usually only buy things that are low in sugar, low in saturated fat, and have no hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, nitrates, or bleached flour. At home I know how to differentiate between the claims that different products make on their labels, and I know how to discern what is healthy and what is pretend. Here, I see a pretty picture of a tomato or a happy cow and I think, "Do I eat this or rub it on my face?" As far as I can tell, though, it's not only my lack of language that's the problem. The things I used to scour the stores for at home don't seem to exist here. In other words, I am starting to understand how much I have as an American and to wonder how much of what I usually consume is actually necessary for good health.
Now, just because those things aren't available here doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of good things going on that generally don't happen in the states. The obesity rate seems pretty low, and I think that's because most people walk or ride bikes instead of drive. Also, the markets are open every day until winter, when the market reduces its hours to twice weekly. The things people buy require less transportation, as they are more local, and they also require fewer preservatives, I think, since people go shopping every couple days and don't seem to cherish the longer shelf life that we do.
That's all for now. My coffee is finished, the sun is climbing, and I'd like to make the 30-minute walk to the university before it gets too high and hot for a comfortable jaunt. As to non-poetic technicalities, our faculty/staff orientation begins this Wednesday, and classes start September 1st. We are both excited for the working part of this adventure to begin.
Love to all our family and friends, and thank you for all of your comments! We cherish them.
Apartment Pictures
Here you have our carefully chosen selection of books, living room, dining room, and kitchen. Quite lovely, though I say it myself.Top 10 tiny reminders that we are not in Kansas anymore:
1) the toilet button
2) the washing machine, which takes two hours and is the size of a shoebox
3) the laundry rack, on which our clothing dries to a crisp
4) the burner settings: 1 being the highest, 6 being the lowest (the acquisition of this knowledge requiring the sacrifice of 2 precious eggs and a slice of mystery cheese)
5) the pervasive belief that carpeting/area rugs/anything cushy underfoot is something for which only soft, dirty, foreign cretins feel the need
6) the mullet trend
7) the shopping cart deposit
8) the lack of blue jeans that aren’t vacuum-packed to young people’s gams
9) the woman at the sprawling Saturday market who pours fresh milk from a stained, green bucket that looks as though it must have, at some point, also hauled manure
10)the man down the street who, although he wears an American-flag-print headband, sings only Lithuanian songs so sadly it would break your bursting American heart
2) the washing machine, which takes two hours and is the size of a shoebox
3) the laundry rack, on which our clothing dries to a crisp
4) the burner settings: 1 being the highest, 6 being the lowest (the acquisition of this knowledge requiring the sacrifice of 2 precious eggs and a slice of mystery cheese)
5) the pervasive belief that carpeting/area rugs/anything cushy underfoot is something for which only soft, dirty, foreign cretins feel the need
6) the mullet trend
7) the shopping cart deposit
8) the lack of blue jeans that aren’t vacuum-packed to young people’s gams
9) the woman at the sprawling Saturday market who pours fresh milk from a stained, green bucket that looks as though it must have, at some point, also hauled manure
10)the man down the street who, although he wears an American-flag-print headband, sings only Lithuanian songs so sadly it would break your bursting American heart
Friday 14 August 2009
First Impressions
Labadiena!
We arrived in Klaipeda last night at around 6:00 with all of our luggage. This is good news. However, it does mean that I was unable to use one of my five Lithuanian phrases, “Kur yra lagaminai?” or, “Where are the suitcases?” which, it turns out, I have over-rehearsed, along with “Ar cia saugu plaukioti” (Is it safe to swim here?) and, to my chagrin, “Ar ju suprantita Lietuviske?” (Why would I want to ask anyone if they understand Lithuanian? So I could then ask them where my suitcases are?)
Instead, I should have over-rehearsed the politeness words: “please,” “thank you,” “sorry,” and “cheers!” Then, at the Ikiukas corner grocery, I would not have sincerely apologized to the woman who rang up our milk, nor would I have toasted a glass to the harried man whom I gouged in the stomach with my shopping basket. Ah, well. Such things come with time. So says the overly-optimistic, overly-enthusiastic American.
As to particulars, we have unpacked our clothes and books and settled happily in to our apartment, which is surprisingly homey despite that it is a former Soviet building. We have also made acquaintances with our landlord, a kind and patient man despite that we blew out the entire building’s electricity in one fell swoop, then accidentally stole all of the high speed Internet for ourselves. Today we are meeting our new friends (recruited by the university), who will help us trade in our dollars for litas, negotiate the daily market and bus system, and find light bulbs.
Thus far, I have found a few natural ways in which Lithuania resembles home. For one thing, here too the clouds are all flat on the bottom and heaped up on top, like a bunch of mutated meringues on a sheet of Plexiglas. (I’m sure that’s true of clouds everywhere at one time or another, but having noticed it as the plane dipped down, I couldn’t resist the description.) The weather here is also emotionally unstable: blindingly bright one minute, then darkly morose, then sobbing. The trees are the same as well: balding cedars, ubiquitous maples, tall and slender clumps of white-limbed birches, poplars with their whispering disks of leaves. Lithuania is remarkably flat, as southern Michigan is, with a brown water meticulously filling any and all depressions, be they mud puddles that line the roads in a beaded necklace or entire lakes. And that, so far, is where the similarities end. The infinite differences will be forthcoming.
We arrived in Klaipeda last night at around 6:00 with all of our luggage. This is good news. However, it does mean that I was unable to use one of my five Lithuanian phrases, “Kur yra lagaminai?” or, “Where are the suitcases?” which, it turns out, I have over-rehearsed, along with “Ar cia saugu plaukioti” (Is it safe to swim here?) and, to my chagrin, “Ar ju suprantita Lietuviske?” (Why would I want to ask anyone if they understand Lithuanian? So I could then ask them where my suitcases are?)
Instead, I should have over-rehearsed the politeness words: “please,” “thank you,” “sorry,” and “cheers!” Then, at the Ikiukas corner grocery, I would not have sincerely apologized to the woman who rang up our milk, nor would I have toasted a glass to the harried man whom I gouged in the stomach with my shopping basket. Ah, well. Such things come with time. So says the overly-optimistic, overly-enthusiastic American.
As to particulars, we have unpacked our clothes and books and settled happily in to our apartment, which is surprisingly homey despite that it is a former Soviet building. We have also made acquaintances with our landlord, a kind and patient man despite that we blew out the entire building’s electricity in one fell swoop, then accidentally stole all of the high speed Internet for ourselves. Today we are meeting our new friends (recruited by the university), who will help us trade in our dollars for litas, negotiate the daily market and bus system, and find light bulbs.
Thus far, I have found a few natural ways in which Lithuania resembles home. For one thing, here too the clouds are all flat on the bottom and heaped up on top, like a bunch of mutated meringues on a sheet of Plexiglas. (I’m sure that’s true of clouds everywhere at one time or another, but having noticed it as the plane dipped down, I couldn’t resist the description.) The weather here is also emotionally unstable: blindingly bright one minute, then darkly morose, then sobbing. The trees are the same as well: balding cedars, ubiquitous maples, tall and slender clumps of white-limbed birches, poplars with their whispering disks of leaves. Lithuania is remarkably flat, as southern Michigan is, with a brown water meticulously filling any and all depressions, be they mud puddles that line the roads in a beaded necklace or entire lakes. And that, so far, is where the similarities end. The infinite differences will be forthcoming.
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