Getting lost in history

So the main reason we really went to the mystical land of Lithuania was to look at our family  history there which has been a really intriguing/strange/enlightening?

We started in kaunas (kovne) where shanelle's family and part of Lee's family used to live in the early 20th century. We started the day walking through the old town which was completely dead at 10am. But it was really pretty.

We then kept walking and found the Kaunas Castle ruins which suprisingly really beautiful and has inspired us to go to more castles. It also provided us a perfect bridge taking opportunity.

We then decided it was time to go to the ghetto memorial.We prepared by asking the hostel receptionist where it was/how to get there. She told us where to take the bus and to get off at the last stop. we found the bus pretty easily and were quite proud.

45 minutes and a lot of Lithuanian countryside later we were pretty sure she misunderstood...

above: the last person walking away from the bus into the distance, leaving us alone with a strictly non-english speaking bus driver.
After getting a good view of lithuanian landscape we sat quietly on the bus and hoped that the bus would eventually go back to where we came from luckily another 45 minutes later we got back to where we started.
We began our second attempt at finding the ghetto memorial and we walked there in a couple of minutes. The memorial was pretty underwhelming it was in the middle of a fork in the road just in front of an apartment block

It was getting a bit late but we really wanted to go to the old jewish cemetary so we started walking to the other side of Kaunas. When we got there we could see the magen davids on the gates which were covered in bushes. Going inside was really eerie. It was so quiet and forgotten but you could just imagine how much history there was in the place we were standing. All you could see ahead was overgrown weeds covering eroding tombstones

Then we went to the hostel and had an early night after very little sleep the night before.
We then went to Siauliai which is where my (lee) family was from. We started on a 2 hour bus ride from kaunas to siaulia where both myself and nells need for a window seat meant that we coulnt sit together. Which lead to me meeting a really talkative old lithuanian woman. It was only about 10 minutes into the covesation if me noding polietly that she asked me a question and i had to tell her i diddnt actually speak lithuanian. that was slightly awkward..
We got there with just 2 street addresses one of the memorial for 2 ghettos that used to stand in siauliai and the other was of what used to be a big synagogue at Vilniaus 68. We soon relised there was no need for a map when you can get a bus stop of friendly lithuanians to direct you.
This ghetto memorial was similar to the one in Kaunas but looked even slightly more out of place. It was a small memorial stone at a junction of two streets

Then we went off to the synagogue a couple minutes walk away only to find a completly abandoned brick building.

We then walked around the town and ate lunch in the park across the street

and headed back to Kaunas.

Photobucket

These are all the photos we have taken on our trip uploaded on photobucket

This is mine-

Lee's photos

and this is nells-

Nells photos
enjoy

Oh vilnius

We got to Vilnius after a long swervy and sickening bus trip. But I think we found our hostel in record time and we only got slightly lost..
We made our obligatory trip to the supermarket to check on the price of peanut butter. We walked around the old town for a bit which was beautiful - similar to Tallinn but bigger, less touristy and less like disneyland.

We met Mani an English/Nigerian guy working in Sweden. Does this count as a Swede sighting?
After an embarrassing dinner of what was essentially baked beans and macaroni, we went out with Mani and Scott - one of the many Aussies staying at the hostel - to the university bar, where we danced with some crazy Lithuanians. I (nell) apparently couldnt keep up with them and sustained an ankle injury.

Then we went to another bar where we kept dancing even though the screen next to the dancefloor was showing a way way better party, which was just a bit depressing.

The next day Lee woke me up with lots of gentle kicks at about 10.30. After having a quick doctors consultation about my ankle with Dr Brener, we headed off to the Genocide Victims Museum with Mani. It was one of the best museums we'd been to, outside the walls were covered in childrens drawings, which were actually incredible.

at the Museum we ran into Scott and then we all went to find what the guide book described as a very interesting bridge.

A little disappointing for a 'must see' bridge.

We then started to wal to the Hill of Three Crosses. apparently this had an amzing view of Vilnius. We wouldnt know though because as we were walking a storm started up.

Then as we started to walk back, huge tree were falling off trees and shattering around us. we were also surrounded by trees. luckily we survived and now we have a cool story.

To celebrate our survival we made an intense dinner of pizza.

That night pretty much the whole hostel chilled on the balcony, drank tequila shots and learnt new drinking games.

Then a whole bunch of us went out to a bar where we met a Lithuanian jew and then we went to Salento - a foam party. Every cople of minutes insane amounts of foam would shoot down from the ceiling. I dont think foam parties could be so cool in Australia because im sure they would have some health and safety restrictions...

For our last day in Vilnius we went to the Jewish Museum. It was a small but impressive museum run by a cute woman who gave us free postcards. There were whole sections on jews from Kaunas (Kovne) and Siauliai (where some of our families come from) and I also saw a photo of a tombstone that said BRAUDO..

We then went, in the pouring rain, to a restaurant which looked impressively expensive and had borscht and stew.

That night, as it was a friday night and we are good jewish girls, we dressed ourselves up and attempted to go to shul. But we failed as they locked us out. So we just lit candles by the window.

Lee then went to sleep and i went out for a last night in Vilnius

There are no bridges in estonia.

We arrived at 6:30 at the sleepy city of Estonia where nobody wakes up before 11 and a taco from taco express takes 40 minutes to make. Its like a weird mix of Kings Cross, a medieval village and disneyland.

After a couple hours of walking around aimlessly in empty streets people actually started waking up and we went on a free walking tour through the old town and chillaxed with sophie's parents

We also found a supermarket - possibly the first decent one since leaving Australia and we went there probably over 10 times which is always fun..
We went out to a couple bars and sampled some cocktails and we met up with some people from the hostel and did some crap dancing?

We then discovered the Estonian beauty of sleeping in till 12 o'clock because you can still get a solid 8 hours sleep even if you only get to sleep at 4.

We woke up on day 2 well rested and we walked to the Estonian quartars and the coast and did some vintage shopping on the way. annnd we saw a pigeon girl who had a creepy connection with pigeonsss.

The search then began for a bridge and after long and stressful search we have come to the conclusion that there are no bridges in Estonia. why even bother coming to Estonia.. if you look up Bridges in Estonia on google all it comes up with is Slovenian bridges. what a fail of a country.

The night started with the cultured and intellectual game of thumper

And then we walked the long journey across the street to the bar with a bunch of people from our hostel and the bartender even gave us free drink for our oh soo skilled dancing

Sadly we didnt actually make it to the hostel that night and went from the bar to catch the 6:30 bus to go to Vilnius.

The Burg

We got on the Train to St Petersburg and what we were told about the people who took the train being very cultured and polite was contradradicted but the old fat snoring men. While on the train from Moscow to St Petersburg we met Eugene, a snowboard company owner from St Petersburg. He was really excited to meet foreigners and after escorting us to our Hostel, he gave us his number and told him to call him the next day and he would take us around. Score: free tour!

Or day started pretty late as we only got to St P in the afternoon, but we managed to find time to be supertourists

see some communist stuff

and most importantly, a bridge photo.



Some people call St P the Venice of the east (I may have made that up...) so we had lots of bridges to choose from.

The next day we met up with Eugene and his girlfriend Juliet. They were so nice and cute! They took us to the Hermitage (we didnt go inside because we are too cheap and uncultured), St Isaac's Cathedral, Vasilevsky Island, the Bronze Horseman, Winter Palace and Peter and Paul's fortress.

we didnt realise how awkward it would be to pose where Bloody Sunday happened...

Cat sighting of the day:

We went shopping for dinner and a nice Russian woman took us to this awesome fruit and veggie market that was really cheap. Then we made an epic dinner of leftover pasta and stirfry. An of course left over soy meat.

After our epic dinner we went out for our last night in Russia and our last night with Marius. Our new friend jef from Belgium came who we found ot was the 1999 Belgium ping pong champion!! a subtle photo shoot ensued.

The next day, all alone and with no buffer between us, me and Lee went to the Choral synagogue, which is the 2nd biggest synagogue in Europe. Again, we only found it with the help of a helpful Russian man. We bought kosher wafers which was quite exciting:)

Continuing with our jew-theme, we had hummous and pickle sandwiches in the park, until we were followed by a drunk Russian and moved to a canal.

we spent a couple hours at the political history museum which was cool but we died a bit by the end. So we decided to go home and chill before we had to leave St P, but before we did, we stopped by the statue of catherine the Great, Lee's alomst great great grandmother.

Leaving Russia was sad, we failed at finding our bus stop but finally were helped by a New Zealand couple. The border crossing included no crazy Russian officials so not too bad but we did try and watch the russian "just go with it" which is always fun.

In the Land of Matroskas and Communism

We finally got to Moscow after 5 days straight on the train. We met up with Marina, our honcho, then got our smelly selves into a shower. We went walking through Moscow, down Petrovsky Boulevard, into an epically decorated supermarket where Lee bought chocolate coated cottage cheese.

Then, just as we were casually walking along, thinking the day couldn’t get any better, when we passed a giant sign for HP7 part 2!! Unfortunately it was in Russian but I felt it was a great demonstration of the successes of democracy and freedom.

We also realised that Moscow has a lot of statues of which we don’t remember any of the names of. But man on chair was defintly a favourite and we rubbed one of their noses for luck?

We did the whole red square thing as well, which was really cool, and the whole place really just looked like a giant postcard.

And then we went back later when it was dark which was stunning.

That night we went to our new favourite restaurant with an all you can eat buffet. As expected, we went back the next night too.

andd we got a photo....

ON A BRIDGE IN MOSCOW :)
It was in GUM which was a fancier version of the QVB
We also pretty much mastered the underground subway line which was really confusing and all completely in Russian but the subway station were decorated amazingly with stained glass windows, marble floors and massive chandeliers.

We started the day of sight seeing with possibly the most important place in Moscow. MCDONALDS..but not just any McDonalds it was historic because it was the first in moscow. so it was practacly a museum

We went to see Lenin which doesn’t sound weird until you hear that it is a open casket with a man who has been dead for over 85 years. We went down these stairs in a dark and cold room and it was incredibly creepy and eerie. Sadly you couldn’t take pictures of his dead body.

We then went on our search for matroska (apparently not Babushka) dolls to Izmailovo Flea markets. Sooo many matroska dolls...

The journey would not be complete without some cute cats found as well.

We also found the History of Vodka Museum, entry comes with a free shot.

We met up with Marius and Tony for our last night all together. We went to old Arbat street and had middle eastern food. Had to say goodbye to Phat Tony :( very sad but we'll meet up in England when we squash into a phone booth and drink beer (for a popsicle stick?)

Then, at 12 at night we went to the train station and waited till 3am for our train to St Petersburg.