It started a couple of days ago.
Even though we’re non-religious, Rasa loves the Christmas season. She loves decorating the house and putting up the tree and doing all the stuff associated with the holiday. At least the non-secular version. To be fair, when I was a kid, I really loved going to friends’ houses to help them decorate their trees. It’s a great family thing.
It’s been a year, huh?
I mean, heck, it started off swell!
We saw in the New Year watching fireworks from the balcony and anticipating what 2020 was going to bring. We made our usual lists of things we wanted to accomplish in the coming year, read our jar full of accomplishments, kissed at midnight, and met the new dawn full of hope and brightness.
Well that didn’t last long. Continue reading “What a long strange year it’s been…”
For the second year in a row, we headed to Rasa’s hometown of Mažeikiai to celebrate Christmas. This year, though, was going to be a bit different. Rasa has a job now, so her time off schedule is quite different. Instead of being able to spend a leisurely week or so as we did last time, we only had a few days, counting the weekend. So instead of relying on relatives, friends or public transport, we decided to rent a car for the few days. It gave us more flexibility and freedom. Continue reading “Christmas, Mažeikiai style”
This year, for Christmas, Laika and I were forbidden from our usual tradition of leftovers (nothing is open Christmas Day) and lounging around all day reading. Nope, this year Rasa invited us (both of us, mind you) to celebrate the day with her family in the northern Lithuanian village of Mažeikiai, which, with a population of around 45K, is the 8th largest city in the country. So off we went, the Saturday before Christmas, driven by Rasa’s sister, Lina, and her husband, Paulius. It’s about 220km away, but since most of what we’re traveling on is two lane roads through hundreds of tiny villages, it takes about 3 hours to get there from Kaunas. Continue reading “A Small (Lithuanian) Town Christmas”
DAVID • Think: Eggnog and Gelt.
Just in time for the start of the holiday season, here’s a few reminiscences about my holidays past.
Hope you all have a great time with your celebrations!
Kaunas, where I live, has a reputation as being artsy and clever. We’re home to 6 different universities and are considered the “most Lithuanian of Lithuanian cities.” Now, nationalist pride aside, one of the things this means is that while Vilnius, the country’s capital, gets the pressure of being the proper and sophisticated “big brother” we get a little more freedom to be wild and crazy. We get to indulge ideas.
One of those ideas has found form in our annual Christmas Tree design for the big, official city tree in Rotuse Aikste (City Hall Square). A few years ago, our tree was made of the recycled bottoms of green, two litre coke bottles. The year after that was a gold, angel festooned spectacle followed last year by a tree “knitted” from recycled plastic bags. Continue reading “Holidays in the Cloud”
Well…
It’s been a while since I updated, I know, I’m bad. That said, not much new has been going on. I have been going to Budapest on a fairly regular basis, both for work and to see friends I’ve made there, and I took an early Christmas trip to Heidelberg to see Claudia and David and even met up with Thom and Jerri, my cousins whom I never saw in the states, but here in Europe, will probably be seeing much more of. Continue reading “White Christmas”
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 