Orientated...and a Challenge

Whew!

Last Wednesday evening the largest freshman class LCC has seen started moving into the dorms (mainly ours, where the majority of freshmen who live on campus live). Then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday they had FULL days of orientation. They learned about being a part of community, played more team building games than anyone ever knew existed, toured the university, got textbooks, met each other, listened to key people on campus speak, watched skits, ate together, put a symbolic puzzle together (together), and mostly had fun throughout. Today, it is a gorgeous day, and their only activity is to walk around Klaipeda with their group, and take pictures of themselves at certain places (photo scavenger hunt). A fun day before classes start...tomorrow.

Can I just say that by the time last night rolled around, I was exhausted. I went out for a celebratory dinner with Mel, the VP of student life (I had a pizza with ham, bananas, and peanuts as the toppings...along with red sauce and cheese, of course.....and it was GOOD!). As soon as I got home, I sat on the couch and fell asleep. I told Steve it would just be a catnap so I could function like a normal person for the rest of the evening. Next thing I know, it's midnight, and Steve's waking me up so I can go sleep like a normal person in her bed. Must have needed it. :)

Today, I am relaxing and playing the role of housewife. I plan on doing all things laundry, maybe some dishes, cooking, cleaning, etc. I plan on taking a walk with my husband, and then later going to church.

Tomorrow is September, can you believe it?! We haven't been here even a month yet, and it seems like we've experienced a lifetime of stories and memories. One thing that we've done a lot of is walking -- almost everywhere (yes, I've done my fair share of riding the bus, but I've walked even more). Here's where the challenge comes into play (from the title of this post):

Laura's Lithuanian Challenge:

Walk. Everywhere. Walk to work, to school, to buy groceries, to church, etc. Plan ahead, if it's warm out, bring a different shirt to change into. If there's one cloud in the sky, bring an umbrella. Wear comfortable shoes.

Benefits: Your pants won't fit so snugly. You'll feel healthier. Save on buying gas for your car (and other car maintenance purchases). You won't have to schedule time into your busy day for exercise. If you're walking with someone, it's a great opportunity to have a conversation. You probably won't get pulled over for speeding. No parking tickets.

Hope everyone enjoys their Sunday! (Currently, it is 1:42pm here...and 5:42am in MN...so there's a whole lot of Sunday left for everyone).

The Keys to Success

So.

Whether it feels like it to you all or not it feels like we have been through so much in the past week (or two). This is Orientation Week for LCC and most of the first year students arrived on Wednesday night. It's felt like a whirlwind of training, retreating, prepping, meeting, emailing, questioning, and not sleeping as much as we would like and/or need. Needless to say we have learned a lot, met a lot of people, shopped for training/orientation things(needing to get an official receipt called a saskita factura), and basically jumped right into life at LCC.

A couple of notable projects of the last few days (or hours) have been creating a giant poster then proceeding to cut it into a puzzle for about 200 freshman to piece together (Laura) and organizing all of the RAs and fellow RDs to help locate the appropriate door/room for a whole pile of dorm keys that over the years have lost their identity. A necessary job so that the students who checked in can come and go from their rooms and so that LCC doesn't have to shell out major litas to replace the "lost" keys.

All in all we are tired but enjoying the present and very much looking forward to the year ahead. We snuck away for dinner tonight and to run some non-school related errands. We hope to be in bed before midnight tonight.

More pictures and stories to come once we settle into the routine of the semester. Classes start Monday!

The Breakfast of Champions

You may not be able to find brown sugar in Lithuania, but you forget about all that when you can buy Olympic-sized Nutella.

In Other News

I went on quite the adventure today. All of our student leaders are here, so Steve and I have been spending our days with them. Mine met this morning and into the afternoon, and Steve's meetings were all day long. Since I needed to run a million work-related errands, and Steve was busy with his RD duties, I grabbed my umbrella and set out on an all afternoon/evening adventure.

Here's what I learned/accomplished:

*I rode many buses all over Klaipeda.

*I bought myself a whole stack of bus tickets (cheaper to buy them ahead of time).

*I learned the hard way that bus 5 does NOT go to the Akropolis (Mall)...it does, however give you a 45 minute long field trip around some very soviet-looking apartment complexes.

*I must look local enough that people have no trouble saying a whole lot of words to me in Lithuanian.

*If you want to buy a bag or a pair of shoes, the Akropolos is your best bet.

*A store called Rimi has almost anything you want and more (and more = things you don't want, like a 2007-2008 planner).

*Got most of the items on my list, and most of the proper receipts, too.

*Got to sneak in a quick supper with Steve in between errands and meetings.

Sorry this is such a quick post. We're very busy, but learning a lot, and enjoying ourselves.

Miss you all!

It is almost time...

This week has been full. We not only had a few more orientation things to cover with all of the new faculty and staff, we also today met with all of the LCC faculty and staff to see eveyone's face and to get a picture of what the year holds and some better insight into the workings of the university. We also had "Serve Day" today. This was a time in which the all the faculty and staff gathered to serve LCC. People were walking around campus picking up litter, some were washing windows, some setting up classrooms, and others were in our dorm, Karklu, trying to organize a whole mess of keys that lost there label. (Thank you to all of you who helped me organize all of that.)

Serve day was cut a little short because there were more pressing matters to tend to...the Lithuania/Spain Olympic Semi-Finals in basketball. For those of you who don't know, I have heard it said, "For Lithuania, basketball, is like a religion." Everybody loves basketball and therefore we gathered as a community to watch the game between work and a bbq.

The bbq was fun. I was the "grill-master." I am not sure I mastered anything but that is were I put my name on the list of jobs.

Amongst all of these other things, we both have been working hard (especially Laura) to get ready for the arrival of students. Laura's Student Orientation Staff (SOS) leaders come tomorrow and begin training. My RA's begin training on Sunday. We are both looking forward to the year starting and the students arriving, but there have a few long nights and early mornings already. A lot to do and think of before it all begins.

Pray for us that we will have energy as we kick off this academic year and welcome our student leaders back, as well as all of the incoming first-year students. Pray for us as we continue to learn and as we begin to build relationships with our students and fellow staff.

Now it is time to get to bed.

Updates along the side

I updated our praises and prayer requests (along the right side of the blog) and added a link to the website of one of our most frequent reads (these days). I also updated the "about us."

We had another busy day today. I'm sure this will be the news report for the next couple of weeks. Rest assured, there will be many stories to share, I'm sure.

Hope everyone is doing well!

One last thing...

I can't believe I forgot to mention this, the best part of our weekend: we got to call home via Skype, an amazing program that lets you call cell phones or land lines very inexpensively. You call from your computer, and if you call someone who is also using Skype, the call is free. One last plug: Voices come through clearer here than they did in Pennsylvania on our cell phones.

Monday's Long-Winded Post

This weekend was spent recovering from Friday's bike ride. Although, we weren't in as bad of shape as we thought. A little sore, and a little stiff...but now, by Monday we're hardly thinking about it.

On Saturday, we went to a cute little bakery that is nearby. It is such a cute place. The type of place that inspires me to want to open my own someday. The only thing is that we can't read or speak Lithuanian, so we have to guess what we're getting based on how it looks and then point to it. So, being it was lunch time, and we were very hungry, we were looking at the pastries that would be more filling. There were some that looked like they had cheese and mushrooms in them, so Steve got one of those, and that's what it was. I got one that was big and fluffy, and didn't seem to have anything questionable seeping from it (no surprise filling...or was there?). Well, the big fluffy part of the pastry was definitely delicious...but the filling was...are you ready? A hotdog. Luckily, it was lunch time, and I was very hungry. And, luckily, I will eat hotdogs. But if you've been paying attention, you know that I had already eaten a hotdog just the day before. So I wrote it off as a fancy, ketchup-less corn dog. Pastry dog. One of the neat parts about this bakery is that it has a sense of sacredness. It wasn't open on Friday because of a holiday, and it's never open on Sunday. Another neat thing is that you can sit at a little table and look out the screenless window out to a cobblestone street. Also, Steve got a cup of Espresso there, and it was amazing. The coffeeshops in the U.S. need to come and take notes.

After the bakery, we walked down the street some more and went into a bookstore. Now, I am a sucker for bookstores, and have a hard time walking out of them empty handed. I thought this would be the exception, because all the books were in Lithuanian. After some looking around, I discovered a Lithuanian copy of the Catcher in the Rye! Classic! I held it in my hands for a long time before setting it back on the shelf. I decided that I would learn some Lithuanian first, and then reward myself by getting a novel to practice reading later.

On this whole Saturday adventure, we were really on the way to the grocery store. Having no car makes for a lot of mini trips to the grocery store. You have to be able to carry everything home. Something I will take back with me to the U.S. (no, not walking EVERYWHERE....well, maybe) is to use and reuse our own grocery bags. So easy to do, and beneficial for everyone. We shopped around and decided that we were going to make pizza (something we love to make from scratch). Right away when we got here we bought a jar of red sauce for pasta, and it tasted just. like. ketchup. With this in mind, I thought, why don't we try to make our own sauce? (we already make our own dough) So we got some canned tomatos and garlic and tomato paste...and well, I don't want to ruin the whole recipe for you, but let me tell you, it takes a little bit of time, but it's so easy to make, and it turned out tasting like pizza sauce.

Sunday we slept in, because we went to church that has its service in the evening. It's the only all English speaking congregation in the area, and is comprised of mostly LCC people. I liked it. It was familiar and comfortable. Also, it was nice to fellowship with coworkers and colleagues in a nonwork environment.

After, we went to this really...unique...restaurant with a group of people from church (it is just as affordable to eat out as it is to eat in your own dining room. This way, we get to try some authentic dishes that we wouldn't even know existed). The look of the place was as if you carved a big tunnel into the ground, and then created walls and ceilings with bricks. The place had a lot of character, odd shaped tables, good food, friendly waitress. It's the type of place where, if/when you come visit us in Lithuania, we might have to take you. I got an almond latte there, and it was made to perfection. I'm telling you, U.S. coffeeshops, you need to take note.

Afterward, we walked back in the pouring rain. A friend of ours was nice enough to lend us an umbrella.

Today, Monday, was a really busy day for both of us. We're working hard so that we can be ready when the students get here. Tomorrow is a new staff/faculty orientation day, so that should be a good time and informative.

We also got an email today that told us we're a little over halfway in our support raising for the year. Praise God! Thank you so much to everyone for all the different ways you support us. We appreciate the prayers, financial help, and the fact that after all this rambling, you're still reading this post. Thank you thank you thank you! It means so much that you're interested and supportive of our life and times in Lithuania.

Best Assumption Day Ever

Today is a National Holiday in Lithuania (as well as some other parts of the world), Assumption Day. I don't know much about it, but Catholics assume this was the day that Mary went to Heaven (body and soul). Actually, "assumption" refers to Mary's journey to Heaven.

So in honor of that, we took a journey to Palanga today. Palanga is a little resort city about 25 kilometers away from Klaipeda (50 kilometers there and back). The journey was a strenuous one, as a small group of us decided to ride bicycles the whole way there and back. About half the group were regular bikers. Steve and I are not regular bikers (or should I say, bicyclists). We are sore. Very sore. Can feel (but not move) muscles I never knew I had (probably didn't have them before today, that's why). But very glad we went. Steve swam in the Baltic Sea, while I sat shivering on the shore (the weather was not too bad, but it did rain a little when we got there....and some on the way back). The sand at the beach there was amazingly soft. No rocks at all. I might have to go back and collect some in a jar to take back home (next time, I'll take different transportation).

The main street of Palanga is like a fair. Different vendors line the streets...as well as people drawing caricatures and other such things like that. Lots of people. We both got a hot dog to eat, and also some gelato. The hot dogs themselves were "normal" hot dogs, but they were served with tomatoes and cucumbers and ketchup and brown mustard. Pretty good. More so just different and interesting. Gelato was good. Steve got coconut flavor and I got amaretto.

All in all, a fun day. The best Assumption Day ever.

A map; can you find Klaipeda and Palanga?

Here are a couple of pictures. I didn't take very many because apparently it's difficult to ride a bike and take pictures at the same time (we mostly rode on bike paths through nice wooded areas).

A million people walking on the pier.

Grey sky over grey water. Nice to sit and watch it though. Would like to see it during a sunset (when the sun is out).

The softest sand ever. You can also see the raindrops starting the second I took the camera out.

Laundry. It's boring, but it's a part of our lives.

Just down the hall, there is a staff laundry room for us to use. Pretty straight forward, right?


Two washing machines.




Here are our choices for instruction.


Here are some buttons and dials to pick from. The first two dials are water temp and number of cycles. After making a phone call, we learned to put the 3rd dial on 4.


Watching the clothes go round and round is mesmerizing.


Detergent.


Ironing board and Iron.



We didn't bring our own iron because we figured it'd be too heavy...plus the outlets look like this.


Not too common to have dryers here in Lithuania. There is a dryer we can use upstairs, but for most of our clothes, we'll have to hang them to dry (in the laundry room).


We are watching the laundry. I am sporting my new (used) pajama pants that I got at used clothing store for a whopping 3 Litas! ($1.30 U.S. Dollars)


A shot from the doorway. Notice the clotheslines in the back of the room.

A Sunny Seaside Sunday and New Beginings Monday

Yesterday we ventured out with the assistance of Chris, LCC's Chaplin, to go to church. We went to a church called City Church which is presented in Lithuanian with translators for English and Russian listeners. A pretty swift set up where we put the head-phones on and a translator speaks into a mic whilst the preacher is giving the Word. The translator did an amazing job, but there were still time when she would get behind and then try to catch up which left gaps in the message.

The best part of church, however, was not the message but the setting. The church has purchased an old hotel/resort that is need of some love. The service was held outside between the hotel and the sea on an old basketball court. It was amazing to feel the cool breeze off of the sea and look at the poor hotel behind the pastor. I don't know exactly what images or thoughts really came to mind, but I felt like I was on a movie set and/or really in a former Soviet setting. It was like a picture of what once was and what was yet to come. Something like that.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing (total comatose nap for both of us after lunch). We ventured out on our own to Iki (the grocery store) and back without assistance. Then we had a practice walk to campus with our new friends Jared and Carrie to time out how much time we would need in the morning to get to school on time. On the way back we stopped at a kebab shop and got a little treat. That's right I shared a kebab with the most beautiful girl in the whole wide room.

Today we had our introduction to LCC and the Student Life division. We started at 9:00 with a tour for the new staff (there are five of us). Then we met up with the rest of the Student Life staff to do introductions and hear from LCC's (new) interim President and his thoughts and meditations on the year before us. It was great start to the year and a good time to get to meet everyone. After lunch we had a chance to begin to get settled into our offices and get acquainted with the LCC systems and our responsibilities.

Laura's office is in the new dorm, Neumann Hall, on the first floor and is very shiny and new, with a nice view of LCC's little lake with swans swimming on it. And my office is just upstairs from our apartment in Karklu. It has sky blue walls and a window that overlooks Karklu street. We will try to post pictures later for all those interested.

On a different note we did track down the cell phones that were promised to us and now we have a way to communicate with people here when we are not in our offices, as well as the security factor of having a way to communicate in as a foreigner in a new city.

Well, back to more training and meetings tomorrow. There is a lot to do before the students start arriving.

A little tour

We live in a little apartment in one of the dorms called "Karklu." I think it's called Karklu because that's the name of the street it's on. I think. Don't quote me on that. The best way to describe our apartment would be that it is square-shaped, small (yet almost too much space for our few belongings), cozy.

I tried to draw a diagram in paint, to give you a little idea of the layout, and then some actual pictures to follow. Keep in mind, the drawing is not to scale, I did it in paint in like 5 minutes. No measurements were made. :)

Entryway. When you walk in and close the door, to your right will be two doors. The first is to the bathroom, and the second is a little closet.

The light switch for the bathroom is on the outside of the door.

Bathroom sink.

Toilet.

Shower.

A peak into the small closet.

Looking into the dining room/kitchen.

Looking into the living room from the kitchen. Steve is napping on the couch, even now as I post this. Jetlag has not been kind to us, but we're fighting it! Hopefully we'll be a little bit more into a sleeping routine when Monday comes (new staff orientation starts).

Our cute little fridge.

The bedroom is created by a small dividing wall and a closet. The door is a curtain.

The bedroom.

The view from the bedroom.

This is our home. Please don't let this be a substitute for coming to visit us ;)

Greetings from the distant future!

We're here!

After a lot of travelling, we made it - and all of our stuff made it too! Thanks for the prayers, everything went smoothly. We are now getting settled into our apartment (as soon as everything is unpacked, I will post pictures).

When we got here, one of the other RDs Maija showed us around Klaipeda. We ate dinner and then walked around the city center, and then got a few groceries on the way home. We also got to meet Keith, who works at LCC, for dinner. And then Sarah, another RD, when we got back from grocery shopping.

We're pretty tired, but doing well. Tomorrow we'll go over to the school, and maybe to the beach. Orientation and training for us doesn't start until Monday, so we have a couple of days to unpack and get acquainted with the area (and to get used to the fact that it's 10pm here and it's 2pm in Minnesota).

Speaking of Minnesota, here's a couple of pictures that I took on the vanride from Vilnius to Klaipeda (a cross country trip that I slept through most of). Doesn't it look like they could've been taken in Minnesota?

More to come!

The next time we post on here, it will be from Lithuania!

Top 3 things to please pray for:
Safe travels
Finishing up our packing
Rest