A lovely Saturday -- Part 1

Yesterday (Saturday), we got the privelege of being able to go along on a trip to Riga, Latvia (and places along the way). The intercultural office organized the field trip for students, and we were asked if we would like to be some of the staff that came along. How can you turn down a trip to a new city and a new country (and places along the way)? I suppose I should clarify that "new" means that we've never been there. Both the city and the country are old as far as age goes. It was a great, long day. And if you're wondering, no, the sun is not up a 6am (10pm the night before in MN). It rose at about 7:30am, while we were well on the road.

Hill of Crosses

On the way there, we stopped at the "Hill of Crosses." It is one of those places you have to see at least once in your lifetime. It's kind of like Mount Rushmore in that it's neat to see, but you don't necessarily need to see it once a year or anything like that.

Some of the bigger crosses.

Crosses Everywhere.

At last count, there were approximately 50,000 crosses. We think that it would be impossible to count the number there now.

Steve next to a large statue of Mary...and a big stack of crosses.

They don't call it "Hill of Crosses" for nothing.

Me, with some of the hill behind me.

Looking up at some crosses.

Little crosses, hanging on bigger crosses.

For Emma. :)

Coming soon: Part 2

And soon after that: Part 3

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

It was another good week for mail.

Mom, we finally got the package that you sent a month ago! Thank you, we love it! It was exciting to get a slip of paper in our mailbox that informed us that we had a package waiting at the paštas (post office).

Steve also got some mail this week -- a box of books that he was given as a gift (from the author!), and his official diploma that says he is a Master of Arts in Higher Education.

Tomorrow we are getting up bright and early to be some of the staff on a student trip to Riga, Latvia. The bus is picking us up at 6am (is the sun even out that early?!), and we'll return at around 11pm. Should be a fun day.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Karklu goes bowling!

On Tuesday I decided that what my RA team really needed was some time away from the dorm (granted we only went about 4 blocks away) and some time to bond as a team. So, I told them to dress as mismatched as they could and come to our apartment at our normal meeting time. They thought we were going to have our normal weekly staff meeting, but they were in for so much more.

Once they all arrived, mostly dressed a little funny, we headed out. It was fun to see them react to going out into public in clothes that may make them stand out in humorous way, as most everyone here dresses very smart most of the time. It was also fun to see how their reaction grew stronger as we turned to make our way to the main street (Manto gatve). My RAs were a little confused when we started up the escalator, but soon figured out that we were going to be spending our meeting BOWLING!

Only one of my RAs had ever been bowling before in her life! This was great news to me and gave me a chance to not only have fun with my RAs but to get to teach them something new as well. We all had a great time and it was a break that we as a team needed. And not that we were really keeping score but team S.I.I.T. (Steve, Ivanna, Ilya, & Tania) beat team E.A.L.N (Ellie, Alex, Lidiya, & Nadiya). Fun was had by all and I think everyone rolled atleast 37 or higher, so everyone knocked down a few pins.

Here are some pictures from the event and some pictures of me and my RAs in our apartment afterwards. Enjoy.

Everyone wanted to stand and watch. Good times.

Ilya in action.

Come on, can't we take a nice picture?

My 2008-2009 RA Team

L to R: Ellie (Belarus), Tania (Ukraine), Ivanna (Ukraine), Lidiya (Ukraine), Me (USA), Nadiya (Ukraine), Alex (Moldova), Ilya (Belarus)

Pray for me as I lead this team and for the RAs as they continue to learn what it means to be and RA and as they serve their fellow students in this leadership role. Pray also for team unity and growth (corporate as well as individual).

I am glad to finally introduce you to the students I work with whom I work most closely. Hopefully this gives you a better pictures of what we are doing on a daily basis and who the students we are serving.

Good things come in (very) small packages

Sometimes finding ingredients is an adventure. We were able to find almond and vanilla extract (yay!), but not exactly in economy sizes.

Salt, mug, almond, vanilla, tomato (attempting to show size)


A close up. We should be able to get about 3 Swedish Almond Pies from the Almond extract :)

Some Pictures, as promised

First, here is a link to some more pictures from the Ugly Duckling Cup (from a couple of posts ago).

This past weekend was wonderful. We got up on Saturday morning, made some sandwiches and ventured out. We caught a ferry for a 1 minute ride, and then had an hour to kill before the bus to Nida left. As you can see on the map on the last post, Nida is about an hour south of Klaipeda, on the Curonian Spit. It is the last city (on the spit) in Lithuania before you are in Kalinigrad (Russia).
I wasn't aware of this until this evening, but if you click on the map on the top right corner, you can change the view to satellite view, to see the terrain. On the top left of the map, you can zoom in or out, and move the map so you can see what you want. Pretty neat. The road to Nida is a bumpy and windy one, and there is mostly forest the whole way to look at.

Nida is a cool fairy tale-like little city. It has cute little houses and cottages with better kept yards than Klaipeda, water, hills, trees, sand dunes, etc. While we were there, there was a huge international bicycling and orienteering race going on, so every so often we'd be on a trail and a bike would go whirring past us. It was pretty entertaining. The batteries in the camera died about halfway through the day, but we were still able to get some pictures.

Steve on the sand dune.

The view of Nida.

The view behind me. Sand, sand, and more sand.

Artsy.

Steve making it look like I'm in the desert.

I wish I could have taken more pictures of the buildings. Here's one of them. I liked the red flowers in front of the bright blue, Steve liked the big round stack of fire wood.

These, and more pictures from Nida can be seen here.

------
Sunday was relaxing as well. We were able to sleep in, play some games with friends, and go to church (we go to church in the evening). The best part was after church when we got to talk to a whole lot of family via Skype for about 2 hours. It is wonderful to have access to this technology. We can talk and see the person we're talking to with more clarity than a cell phone at times...and half a world away! Of course with all things there were technical difficulties to start out, but we got them fixed were able to have a lot of good conversations. :)

Today, Monday, was a busy day with a few different meetings for both of us, as well as Lithuanian class. I think the class is valuable and fun, but will be so relieved when we're done with it. What will we do with the extra 6 hours per week, I wonder?

That is all for now, hope everyone has a great week.