Another move to another flat means another delayed blog
post. Sorry about that!
I realize I didn’t mention before that our move to the
previous flat was temporary, but yeah, we were only going to be there until Friday.
So, last night after camp we packed up our things and headed to our new home-away-from-home.
But I’m getting ahead of myself! Let me start by telling you about our last day
of this week’s camp:
Friday June 8, 2018
Since it was the last day, it was a little shorter and more
laid back than the rest of the week. It was also our day to go to the pool! We
started the day with coloring and morning circle, as usual, then killed a
little time playing musical chairs until it was time to go swimming. We took a
bus to Impuls, a gym with an indoor swimming pool not too far from the school.
The pool area had a large pool with rows, like you see
during swimming races, and it was heated. It also had two hot tubs, as well as
a smaller kiddie pool. There were also three saunas, two dry ones and one with
steam. Our time there was quite relaxing, as the kids mostly played with each
other and were very well behaved. I spent most of my time in the hot tubs, but
I also tried out the saunas a bit. Tim joined me in the hot tub for a bit, but he
eventually jumped into the pool to play a little Marco-Polo with the kiddos!
We went right to lunch from the pool, taking the bus part of
the way and walking the rest of the way to the restaurant we had been eating at
all week – which, by the way, is called Opera. Just like every other day this week,
they started us out with a soup and some bread then brought out the main course
after everyone finished their soup. When they brought it out, however, Tim and
I thought it was a dessert because it looked exactly like cheesecake! The kids seemed
absolutely thrilled with the lunch – which was actually called “curd cake” – and
it did, in fact, taste a lot like cheesecake just with a more eggy flavor and
texture. It was very delicious, especially with the berry sauce they brought it
out with!
After lunch we returned to the school and had our meditation
time. The kids had given up fighting the ritual, either because they knew they
had no other choice or because they were legitimately tired from all the
physical activity and were happy to have the down-time. When meditation was
over we gave them the option to finish watching the movie we didn’t get to
complete yesterday, or have some more quiet time in what we called the “blue
room”. About half of them chose the movie and the other half went with quiet
time where they could draw, read, nap, or meditate some more. A few kids went
into another room where some of the teachers were getting ready for our certificate
ceremony to play a dice game, which was also fine.
After the movie, we all came together in what we called the “orange room” to give out their participation certificates and award the top two kids from each team with a special reward for speaking the most English throughout the week. We misspelled one of the kid’s names wrong on his certificate, and he was really sad about it, which just broke my heart because he was such a great helper all week and totally deserved a happy memory on his last day. So, we got him a brand new one and I filled it out and drew special designs on it just to make him feel extra special. It was so gratifying to see the smile on his face!
We said goodbye to all the kids and some of them asked us
for our phone number. We had to explain to them that we can’t use the phone
because of the long distance, but we gave them our e-mail addresses and our
friend code for the Switch for the kids who had one. Then we headed to our flat
to pack our stuff and walk to our new place, which is actually the owner of AKS’s
apartment! It was about a mile away from our previous location, and we were slightly
dreading the walk with our heavy packs. We had some great luck, though, because
almost as soon as we started walking we ran into one of the AKS teachers who
offered to give us a lift to the new place!
This was especially great news, because we also had plans to
hang out with another one of the teachers last night for dinner at her place. Our
plans got pushed back a bit because of our relocation, but everything timed out
pretty well. She picked us up and drove us out to her house, where we had such
a fun evening watching and making fun of the Lithuanian version of Dr. Oz, making
potato pancakes from scratch using an ancient Soviet Union potato grinder,
talking about video game, and just getting to know each other!
Sadly, I started to get really tired and was feeling a bit sick,
but it was about time for us to get home anyway. She rode us home, but before we
went inside she offered to take us to a pharmacy, so I could get some medicine
to help with my cough and other cold symptoms. She was so great, talking to the
pharmacist for me and making sure I got exactly what I needed to feel better! Afterwards,
she took us home and said she would check on me tomorrow to see how I was
feeling.
Saturday June 9, 2018
And so, she did! This morning Tim and I both woke up feeling
the effects of some kind of bug. Our new friend messaged me nearly first thing to
ask how I was feeling and, when I told her that we were both feeling unwell, she
gave us all sorts of advice and tips on remedies. I tried almost all of them,
including eating an entire clove of raw garlic!
Basically, today was a day of rest for us. We spent the day
doing our laundry, napping, and we took showers. Tim did go to the store to
pick up some ginger ale and miso so that we could have miso soup. We each ate
two bowls of that, which tasted amazing and I think it has really helped us
feel better! Additionally, we have been downing tea, water, and vitamin drinks like
mad to drown this sickness out of our bodies! We were supposed to go out with yet
another teacher friend we have made at the camp, but because we aren’t feeling
well we decided to post-pone our get together for later this week.That’s pretty much it for now!
Sending you all our love from Lithuania! <3
Checkout all of our photos in our European Adventure 2018 album:
Hang in there. It's all part of the adventure.
ReplyDeleteGet well. Sending my love to you and Tim.
Love you too!
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