22 August,

Vilnius.

or,

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.

I’m taking the train from Vilnius to Poland. Only just into Poland though, because I am taking the advice of Rough Guide’s writer and taking the international train only as far as the first stop, which is Suwalki. From there I will buy a ticket to Warsaw. Apparently it is cheaper that way, but we’ll see. I can tell you that the ticket direct to Warsaw with one transfer was 78L and the ticket to Sawalki was 33L. I’ll have to report how much the continuing line to Warsaw is. I can also tell you that it means an extra stop. I got confused. All the Lithuanian trains meet at a little town called Sustakai, which basically consists of the train station, which has three rooms, and a house for the woman in the ticket booth, I have to assume, as I didn't see a cot. They then join all their cars together, move the engine to the other end, and then cross the border to Sawalki, which is about 30 minutes away. When first buying the ticket, I thought they were the same city, and I figured as long as I’m transferring trains, I might as well save some money, but after I bought my ticket I realized it was two different cities, and now I am transferring in Sustakai and then crossing the border, and getting off in Suwalki and then buying a domestic ticket to Warsaw, which I hope will get me there at a decent hour, as the (in)direct route was due to get me there at 21:00, which is already on the late side as these Eastern European cities go.

*** An update written from Warsaw. I do NOT recommend this method for first time travelers. The woman in the station at Sustakai couldn't sell me a ticket, couldn't change my currency to Polish Zlatas, and refused even to sell me a ticket to Warsaw. She basically said, just get on the train and don't get off, there is nothing they can do. Easy for her to say when she is sitting in Lithuania and not the one on the Polish train with no Polish money who doesn't speak a lick of Polish, since he's just crossed the border and not had a chance to pick up a dictionary yet. Since I didn't have any choice, I did what all good travelers must learn to do at some point, I covered my mistake with bluster and BS. The first time the conductor came along checking tickets, it was the same guy who'd checked my ticket when I got on in Vilnius, so I chatted him up as he checked the four people in my compartment who'd changed trains in Sawalki, asking about how come they have to move the engine to the other end and go back the way we came and other things to show that I was already on board. It seemed to work since he remembered me and, apparely assuming that no one would be idiot enough to buy a ticket to the nowhere town of Suwalkai, went on. Score! Later on, closer to Warsaw, I was surprised when a woman came by checking tickets again. I had a bit of warning, hearing the ticket punch in the compartment next door, and turned up my ipod, leaned my head against the window and feigned sleep. She woke me up of course, but that let me fake confusion, pulling an entire envelope of train tickets out of my bag (previously prepared for just such an eventuality, of course) spill them on the floor while managing to hand her the ones that I did have, showing all the proper transfers except for the last one, and then feigning complete incoherence, obviously still half asleep, when she showed confusion about my missing ticket. She said some things in Polish which I didn't have to fake not understanding and I kept pulling random tickets out of the envelope and handing them to her. Eventually she got tired of the game, stamped the one I did have and moved on. I don't imagine that I fooled her for a second, but she either didn't want to fight about it, or figured I'd made it this far and the worst she could do was throw me off the train, which at that point was only a few stops from Warsaw. Soooo... yes, I made it to Warsaw without even having to buy a continuing ticket, saving myself 45L, or about $18, but I could have easily found myself thrown off the train in a tiny little Polish town, with no recourse but to find a place to sleep and catch another train the next day. If you decide you do want to try this method, you absolutely must go to the bank in the main city, before you leave, and get some of your currency changed to the country you are going into. Funny how the travel guide forgot to mention that catch. In the end, it's worth the $18 to me to just get the ticket to where I'm going and not have to stress over anything else.

And now back to the subject of Vilnius...

So, I spent the early part of the evening last night at a bar/restaurant called Metro, using the free wifi to book hotels, send emails and do research for a possible kayaking/rafting trip in Slovenia. I had another good meal – let me say now, in case I don’t get to it later, that the Lithuanians do meat like no one else. If you get a chance to taste pork or chicken on skewers in the Baltics, don’t pass it up.  It melts in your mouth and causes small orgasms on your taste buds. I think I’m going to have two – no three – regrets about this country. One is that I didn’t eat at the good restaurants more. I skimped on meals the first couple days, and then realized what I was missing. The second is that I missed two museums that I really should have seen since I was here – one was the Devil Museum in Kaunas, a city I decided to skip for time constraints, which has hundreds of representations of Beelzebub throughout history, and the other was the Gruto Parkas with its Museum of Lenin and Stalin statues from the Soviet era in Druskininkai, which I was going to go to today, but didn’t make the two hour trip for fear of not being able to get back to Vilnius in a timely manner. The last regret is that I didn’t find Absento Fejos sooner. The Metro started turning out the lights at 10:45, and so I took the hint and left before 11. This was my last night in town, so I decided to head up to the bar I saw yesterday with Absinthe in the name. Surely they would be open later, I thought. Yes, they were open, and the place was hopping. I sat down at the front bar, next to a smiling man in a sport jacket, and after a bit, the bartender got to me. I asked for a glass of absinthe, and when he asked me what kind (be still my heart!) I told him to pick whatever he thought was best.

It turns out the Absento Fejos (Absinthe Fairies, in English) is relatively new – about four months, according to the bartender, but a year according the someone else, and a month according to the man in the sport jacket – but it seems to have developed its own style pretty quickly. The preferred method of serving absinthe here is a new one to me. It goes as follows:

1. Pour about two shots of absinthe into a whiskey type glass

2. Fill a spoon with brown (natural) sugar

3. Use a straw to put about 3 – 4 lengths (dipping the straw into the glass, stopping the end and then letting it drain onto the sugar) of absinthe into the spoon.

4. Light it on fire, and burn the bottom of the spoon as well.

5. Proceed to carmelized the sugar by burning the alcohol, occasionally dripping the liquid into the glass then dousing the fire with a napkin over the top, letting the sugar in the spoon burn for a good minute or two.

6. Dip the finally melted sugar into the absinthe, and douse the ensuing flame with water, filling the glass and giving the whole thing the cloudy appearance which is traditional.

Now, I have to say that this method is much more dramatic than the one I know, and perhaps more glamorous, since that the bartender pretty much has to handle the whole thing, but on the downside, I have to say that the taste is less pleasing than the more straight forward – dissolving the sugar into the absinthe with cold water – method I know. The caramelized sugar brings out the bitter taste of the absinthe. The first glass I had was okay, nothing to write home about. The second, the first time I’ve had red absinthe - it was called Dabel, or something similar - wasn’t very good at all. The third, an absinthe called Pernod, was pretty damn good, but I have to assume that at that point the previous hours of drinking had to be having an effect, so despite the fact that it tasted like a 5 star drink, I will give it a 4 just because I don’t trust my own judgment.

For the first two drinks, I spent my time talking to the guy in the sport coat. He was a textiles salesman from Austria, who had been pretty much everywhere in the world, and sold high end fabrics that were manufactured in France and Germany. We talked about how in a few years his company wouldn’t even exist because all the manufacturing would be coming from China, due to costs, and how his business was strictly old fashioned. He takes the orders, from wholesalers, and some boutiques, and when he gets back home he turns them in. He was 56 years old, but it reminded me a lot of my father, who is in his early sixties now, but had to start a whole new career a few years ago, due to the fact that the internet/computer/inventory on demand revolution basically eliminated the demand for not only his company, but his entire line of work, as a food broker. My Dad sells cars now, and isn’t very happy with it, but at least he’s good at it. The guy from Austria is hoping that his company will last another ten years or so, to let him retire.

As he finished his second beer and the bartender, Ognes –whose name I am probably spelling wrong because I didn’t write it down properly, letting him check the spelling – Sorry! - served me my third absinthe, refusing to let me switch over to beer, the guy in the sports coat left, bidding me well and telling me that I was crazy for drinking such stuff, and then I was on my own for a while. I cruised around the rest of the bar, which was nice, and then came back and even though I wasn’t done with my drink, told Ognes that I should get my check. Once again he refused, and instead invited me out for a cigarette. I was surprised to learn that Vilnius has a smoking ban on the inside of most bars. I think there must be many that are grandfathered though, as I saw people smoking inside a lot. Maybe they just don’t care about the law. Anyway, Ognes and I went outside and smoked (even though I very rarely have a desire for a cigarette, they have great value as a reason just to stand around and talk to strangers, which is very handy in foreign countries. Funny that it should be so easy to become friends when you're both upping your cancer risk), and talked a bit about what we were up to. It turns out he was a waiter and recently got bumped into the bartender position, which is funny because he was the best bartender I’ve run into for a while, and it was clear from the way that the others treated him that he was the lead bartender that night, as well.

Anyway, making friends with the bartender is always/never a good idea. When I finished that drink, he made me a glass of hot absinthe, putting a bit more than a normal drink in a slightly larger highball type glass, putting some sugar and lime in, as well as a bit of water, then steaming it with the espresso steamer or whatever those things are (forgive me, my coffee drinking friends). Yummm. I ditched the straw pretty quickly (they have a serious love of straws here) and Ognes seemed concerned for my safety, but it wasn’t that hot. I sipped on that while I talked with some of his other friends who were there that night, celebrating another friend’s 21st birthday. Rasa (pronounced with a rolling R) was a gorgeous blonde who plays violin, from what I gathered she plays professionally, I think, with their symphony. Rasa means dew – the little drops that appear on green grass in the morning, as it was so eloquently put, making sure I understood the word. Andrew was her boyfriend, a thirty year old lawyer (he looked younger than Ognes and Rasa, but I suspect they were all around the same age – late twenties.) who was obviously very ambitious and who shared another cigarette with me. Actually, I was feeling bad about bumming at that point, and bought a new pack, taking two for the rest of the night and giving the rest to Andrew. Don't ask me why I gave them the lawyer instead of the musician or the bartender. Obviously I wasn't thinking clearly.

At a certain point, another bartender from the place next door showed up, another friend of Ognes, named Johnny. He spent three years in the US in Wisconsin, but that’s as much as I learned about him. His arrival heralded another chance for Ognes to show his skills, and so I had yet another flaming drink. I didn’t get the name, but it was a layered drink, with Kailua on the bottom, Bailey’s in the middle and absinthe on top. The top was then lit on fire, and allowed to burn for quite a while… Ognes and Johnny both called it out, with the timing of a sniper looking for the perfect shot.. “Wait… wait… wait… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Now!” at which point we drank down the shot through, yes, straws. There was a point to the straws this time though, as it let you drink the shot from the bottom Kailua to the top (burning absinthe) giving an explosion of beauty in my mouth and leaving the glass burning still (theirs went out – I’m not sure why I failed at that task) and trying to start the napkin on fire as well. No worries though, and even if there had been, there was another bartender, a cute woman, who jokingly showed up with the fire extinguisher as Ognes was fixing one of my drinks. All of which makes sense, as the name Ognes means “Fire”.

I hung around for a while longer, talking with the group and continuing to sip on the still warm steamed absinthe until it seemed like things were winding down, and most everyone went outside. I stepped out and decided it was probably time to call it a night, so after saying goodbyes to everyone (“See you tomorrow?” “No, I am leaving for Poland in the morning… “) I walked back to the hotel, not even too drunkenly, and without getting lost, and crashed. I got to bed around 3am, so all in all, the damage wasn’t too bad. I got up around 9 this morning, took a couple aspirin, had some breakfast, and went for a last walk around the town. I made sure to take a picture of the Absento Fejos, but it would have been better if I could have taken it the night before with the crowd in front. Oh well.

All in all, Vilnius grew on me. The drinking helped, of course, but mostly I think it was just about finding the right place and getting comfortable. My goal for the rest of the trip is to try to start having these nights at the beginning of my stay rather than at the end. We’ll see what I can do about that.

For now, I’m watching Southern Lithuania roll by out the window of the train, accompanied by the musical stylings of Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros and not especially looking forward to Poland – I’m not sure why. I’m also feeling a little robbed about having to travel during the day. The short trips in the mornings haven’t been a big deal, and have even been fun, but this is the longest trip since I left St Petersburg, and this entire day will be spent on the trains, hopefully arriving in Warsaw at around 9pm tonight. I’m debating on whether to spend a day there looking around or to leave first thing in the morning for Krakow. Normally it wouldn’t be much of a decision, I’d stay for a day, but that impacts on if I get to see Auschwitz on Friday or over the weekend. It seems bad to be figuring out how to avoid the crowds at a former concentration camp, but that is the kind of logistics that are becoming common in my head now.

And with that, I think I’ll sit back and listen to my music, and put the computer away.

Later that day...

So here are some of the photos from Vilnius...

First up, the obligatory tourist shot. This is the central square, and as you can see, like the rest of the Baltics it's under repair. Just to the right of this is what looks like a miniature leaning tower of Pisa, about the same height as this building, and completely enshrouded in the green construction netting.



A nice statue in front of the building next door to that. I never remembered to look up the name to see who he was. Oops. Bad tourist. I like the sculpture though.



Another sculpture I like, this one in a creepy way. These three sit atop the entrance way to one of the major theaters in town. This theater had some of the best posters of all time. It looked as though there were around six productions running. There's definitely a very strong theater scene in this part of the world.



This was my favorite cathedral in the entire city. The men who built this took brickwork to a whole new level...



If you look at the photo above, at the bottom right, you'll see a wall that is just concrete, rather than brick. This was a backside of the building that seemed to be, yes, under construction. But leaning against that wall, apparently to be making its way onto the building somewhere was this face. I thought it was striking, so I moved in through the keep out - construction signs and got close enough to get a shot.



I think this statue, which is right across the street from the cathedral above, is Lithuania's most famous writer, a poet named Mickiewicz, or at least that is the name I thought I saw on the base, but now, afterwards, I've found out that the museum of his life is somewhere else entirely, so now I'm not so sure. As you can tell, I'm getting very lazy about documenting my photos. In any case, again, I like the sculptture.



Now we get to the quirks of Vilnius. There is a small river (creek for those of us not from Texas, but the Lithuanians and Texans have that much in common) called the Vilnia that runs in a winding path through the city, just a hundred yards or so from the above cathedral and sculpture. A few years ago, a bunch of the Bohemians (drunks and hippies, of which there are many in this city - it reminds me a lot of San Fransisco actually, hippies everywhere, and no matter where you want to go, you have to walk Uphill.) declared themselves an independent state within Lithuania, and so, when you cross the river, you enter the breakaway republic of Uzupis. They are pretty casual as republics go, as can be seen by the fact that their constitution is posted in an alley. Actually, this is a street, but they really only have two sizes of streets, massive forty two lane thoroughfares that go through the center of town, and alleys. Uzupis has no thoroughfares. In any case, the symbol of Uzupis is, as you can see, a hand with a hole in it. I wasn't able to find anyone who actually knew what that meant. I get the impression that anyone actually involved in the founding of Uzupis was probably lying drunk in a gutter somewhere.



Their constitution is worth a look though. Engraved in three languages (though not expertly translated) and posted on the wall. This is exactly the type of country I would found, if I were founding a country.



I think that pretty much sums it up.

Winding your way back into Vilnius after crossing the river again, you walk uphill (of course) and find the first of a few castles. There is a nice overlook from there, and this is it.



Winding uphill further, you come to the tallest hill in town, and a tower on top. It's a short, but steep hike to this courtyard, and for 4L you can take the very tight circular steps to the top, and see the small exhibits on the first and second levels. I went to the top, but as panoramas of the city go, I preferred the one above, for free, from lower down than the one from the tower, so I'll spare you all overload on panoramas of Vilnius.



Another example of how counter-cultural this city is. This is a picture of, as far as anyone knows, the only public memorial to Frank Zappa, anywhere in the world. It's in kind of a small, sad little park. Not even a park really... its all concrete, up a steep hill from one of the main roads, and surrounded on two sides by the central police station. I'm not really sure what connection the Lithuanians feel with Frank Zappa, but after spending a few days there, it isn't surprising that there is one.



Finally, early in the morning before I left, I hiked back to the Absento Fejos bar to document the place, if not the activities. So here is a lovely self portrait in the mirrored glass of the best Absinthe bar in Vilnius.




More soon, no doubt,

Stephen