Our Fourteenth Day

Sunday June 10, 2018

Tim and I had such a lovely day today!

It was a slow start as we hung out at the flat most of the day. We finally headed out around 2PM grabbed a trolly bus downtown to do some sightseeing around Old Town, Vilnius. We have heard from several people that we needed to check out this huge Cathedral, so we made plans to meet up there with one of the teachers who we have become friends with.

But first! We really needed to get some pizza. Seriously, we haven’t eaten any pizza in over a month and that’s just not ok. So, we found this restaurant called Casa de Familia with great reviews on Google Maps, that apparently had a vegan pizza option. Let me tell you: The reviews did not lead us astray! This must be one of our best experiences at any restaurant, ever. We ordered a beetroot salad, a small vegan pizza, and a small pitcher of apple Kombucha to share. The salad was quite large and was a perfect blend of high quality greens, thinly sliced beets, a mix of pine nuts and walnuts, and a good amount of goat cheese (which we asked for on the side), all tossed with just the right amount of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Tim and I agreed that the pizza was the best vegan pizza we have ever had, with vegan “sausage” and mushroom toppings. The Kombucha was, again, the best we’ve tasted in our lives so far.

After our delicious meal, we walked down the most charming and classic “old town” street that made us feel like we were in a movie. In Lithuania, you can’t walk 3 meters (10 feet) without seeing a stunning church. According to the friend we met at the Cathedral, there are around 150 churches here, and some of them are “secret” or basically hidden back inside various courtyards. But regardless of how many gorgeous churches we have seen, there was no mistaking the Cathedral when we found it. It is a very large, white structure in the middle of an expansive square – aptly named “Cathedral Square”.

We found our friend outside the main entrance and began our quasi-tour. She told us some information about who was depicted in the statues and paintings, what nobles were buried in the basement, and some basic historical facts about the Church and Lithuania in general. One particular story that stuck with me was about a painting of a man where the artist was unhappy with how one of the hands turned out, so, he painted over it and created another hand in a more appealing position – but when he returned later, the paint had been scraped away, revealing the covered-up hand, and thus giving the figure three hands. Kinda creepy…. Don’t you think?

After that she took us through a park, which used to be an amusement park with very outdated rides. Apparently, someone broke their ribs on one of the rides and sued the park, at which point it came out that the park didn’t have the required documentation for their rides. So, they tore down the amusement rides and turned the place into a large public park – and a rather picturesque one, at that!

The park eventually led us to another church that had an interesting story. Upon observation, you can see that the bottom of the church is made of brick, but abruptly it turns to a flat stucco toward the top. The reason for this was because the benefactor who was funding the building of this church ran out of money, and so the original design was not completed. Despite this, it was still a very pretty sight. We popped into a couple other churches on the street, including the oldest church in Lithuania, and then decided it was time for a little ice cream break.

We headed to a very busy street full of restaurants, ice cream carts, and cafés. After our ice cream we were all craving coffee, so we stopped into a nearby café. The rest of our time together was spent just wandering around and chatting about various topics until it was time for us to head to the school to meet with our fellow teacher, and friend, Marija about our plans for next week’s camp. It was a very productive meeting, and we got a lot accomplished as far as crafting our schedule and creating a list of materials we will need for all the activities on our agenda.

It’s quite late here, and we still have to walk to the flat of the owner of AKS, who is waiting for us to return!

Sending love from Lithuania! <3

Checkout all of our photos in our European Adventure 2018 album:

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0WGrq0zwG7hjZE