Sunday, January 15, 2012

FINALLY! D-Day (as in "departure") Jan. 10, 2011

Days 1 & 2

We have been in Lithuania for a few days already, but I am just now starting to catch up on the blog. We have posted many times on Facebook, so I am going to go back to the beginning and catch up the blog day-by-day.
We left for Lithuania on January 10th with the first stop being in Newark. Everything went very smoothly through the airport and we were soon on our way to Brussels. The long flight wasn't that bad even though I didn't sleep at all. I did catch up on some movies though and watched "Something Borrowed", "Horrible Bosses", and "Hangover 2". In Brussels airport (now day 2), we spotted some interesting things. Apparently, there is a famous statue here of a little boy peeing, and this statue is on everything!
Nothing makes you think of a nice refreshing Coke like a statue of a naked boy peeing! Ewww...
Since we had to exchange our cash for Euros in Brussels, which makes our money useless, we opted for just two bottled waters at the low price of approximately $10 in American cash. The closest I came to that Belgium waffle was here:
I decided to pass on the vending machine waffle since they had fed us on the flight over. Finally, exhausted but happy, we were finally about to board the plane for the last short flight from Brussels to Vilnius.
We arrived in Vilnius after a plane change and slight delay due to an issue with the air conditioning system on the original plane. We were unloaded onto an snow covered pavement and made our way through to the baggage claim. On our way out, we were greeted by our representative from the Family Law Center. After exchanging our cash for "litas", we were on our way to our apartment. Our FLC rep also gave us a short walking tour of the Old Town amenities available just outside of our apartment. She then left of to enjoy our first night in Vilnius and to get some rest. We decided to make a quick trip to the grocery store for water and dinner and then crash hard and rest up so we could meet Matthew the next day.
Here I am after our first shopping trip at "Rimi" grocery store. There was a mixture of snow and sleet coming down, but light enough to walk without an umbrella. In fact, most people were walking in it without umbrellas! Now is was back to the apartment for some dinner and a pillow!