Our Seventh Day - Relaxing Day

Sunday June 3, 2018

And on the Seventh Day, they rested.... sorta!

It really was a pretty relaxing day today, but we were far from inactive. Since we didn't really have any plans until 6PM, we took our time getting up and moving this morning. We got dressed and hung out around the school's office scrolling around on the internet. Around 10:30AM we started to get a little hungry for something other than the bananas and orange we had eaten for breakfast.

So, there is this really fancy crêpe restaurant in the nearby mall called "Le Crêpe" and we've been wanting to go there since the first day we arrived. I was really craving pancakes, which would be impossible for us to make here since we don't have all the necessary kitchen tools, so it seemed like the perfect time for us to try it out!
The food looked beautiful and tasted amazing, and it wasn't terribly expensive. For instance, my stack of pancakes only cost 3 euro and 50 cents, and they came with a handful of fresh blueberries and were sprinkled with powdered sugar. This equates to about $4, which is less than a regular stack of pancakes at iHop with would cost over $5 - and that doesn't even come with berries! Granted, the pancakes weren't the size of my head like they often are in the States, but I kind of preferred it that way. It was actually a properly sized meal for one person!



Anyway, after our lovely brunch we decided to go for a long stroll through the city park near our flat, known as Vingio Parkas. We started out hiking the river path, which took us on a dirt path through somewhat dense forestry.

Eventually we returned to this large yellow bridge that took us across the river and into the park proper. This area reminded us of a zoo or amusement park, with wide paved paths and signs leading you to various pavilions, gardens, playgrounds, and other features. We started off in the direction of the botanical garden, enjoying the signs and sounds of nature mixed with the many people sharing in the appreciation of the outdoors. Seriously, we saw so many people out and about on bikes, roller-blades, skateboards, scooters, or just walking like us. For a city with a relatively small population of just over half-a-million, it was impressive to see such a crowd taking advantage of the park!

Even though our plan was to make it to the botanical garden, we got side-tracked when we came to an area that seemed to be be buzzing with lots of activity. There we found food and drink carts serving everything from gourmet hot dogs, to corn-on-the-cob-on-a-stick, and iced lattes to slushies. We also saw rental dealers offering electric scooters, quadricycles, and various other vehicles for both kids and adults, which a lot of people were riding around an open area that appeared to be an informal track around a large stadium-looking building.
Among all this hub-bub there was an open air bar that served food that could be considered too fancy to be at a city park. By this point, we had been walking for well over an hour and were feeling quite hot and tired. We agreed that we needed a little break.

We shared a slushie from one of the booths lining the "track" and had a seat in the bar area. The waitress brought us a menu, which made us feel a little obligated to get something if we were going to sit at their tables, but we didn't really want to spend a lot of money. Tim looked at the menu and found that they had a dish we have been recommended by many people to try called šaltibarščiai - or cold beetroot soup. It is supposed to be the perfect refreshing meal for a hot day like it was today, and it wasn't too expensive, so we decided to give it a go and ordered a bowl to share! It came out quickly and we spent a little time observing everything before we dug in.

The first thing I noticed was all the dill floating on top of the soup, which was a bit of a downer for me as I'm not a huge lover of dill, in general. But, most of it was easily skimmed off, and what was left was a tolerable amount for my pallet. The flavor was quite tart and sweet, much like a pickled beet, which would make sense considering beets play a major roll in this dish. One of our favorite parts of the meal was the hard-boiled egg inside the soup, which paired nicely with both the texture and the flavor of the liquid. There didn't seem to be any cucumber or pickles, which we have heard is a common ingredient in most šaltibarščiai, but that suited me just fine since I'm not a fan of either of those as well. It came with a side of fried potato wedges, which were lovely to dip in the soup and eat!

I found a really great post by a Lithuanian blogger, June, talking about šaltibarščiai, which includes a recipe that seems pretty spot on to what we tasted today: https://myfoododyssey.com/2013/09/21/lithuanian-saltibarsciai-cold-beet-soup-recipe/

Our evening consisted of making a large batch of garlic mashed potatoes for us to use as a base for future meals, followed by a meeting with two of our fellow camp teachers, Milda and Mariya, to talk about our plans for the coming week. After they left, Tim and I spent some time in the office printing out some work sheets and coloring pages that we thought would work for this weeks theme: Under the Water. We now feel fully prepped and ready to take on the challenge of teaching kiddos how to speak English, in fun and interesting ways!

Time for us to grab a shower and hit the hay for our big day tomorrow!
Lots of love from Lithuania! <3

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

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