Travel Week pt. 3: Lithuania

Last installment of Travel Week.  It's about time I got this one in.  It's been practically a month since this trip.  I procrastinate far too much.

The last part of Travel Week was in the beautiful Vilnius, capital of Lithuania.

The final stop on our Baltic tour

The ride from Riga was pretty uneventful, again on a bus.  I was so exhausted that I ended up sleeping most of the way, headphones plugged in.  When we got there, we trusted Google Maps to tell us how to get to our hostel from the bus station.

It totally failed us.  Thanks a lot, phone

My phone told us the hostel was over an hour away by foot.  Turns out it was about a 15 minute walk from the bus station.  Womp womp.

Anyway, Vilnius was nice.  We took another one of those free tours from the city center around Vilnius,  This one was looooooooong, but we saw a ton.  It started in the main square, took us through several back alleys around the hostel area, back to the square, and around the entire city.  We ended up on a hill with a pretty good panorama of the city, down to a park, and to Lithuania's very own independent hipster republic.

I kid you not.  The people say this district declared independence because it was too hipster for the rest of the city.

So artist. Much hipster. Wow.

The Independent Republic of Užupis used to be a very rundown part of Vilnius, way back when. Then artists started moving in. Our guide told us they went door to door introducing themselves as new neighbors and artists-in-residence. Soon the district cleaned itself up, crime dropped dramatically, and it became a really nice place to live. The constitution of Užupis states that everyone has a right to live by the river, that everyone has a right to live their own life, and that a dog has the right to be a dog. Also that everyone has the right not to be loved, but not necessarily. Here is an example of such logic.

Sooooo miraculous mushrooms. Yes, no, or whatever floats your boat

It was definitely a very artsy community. I liked it, though it was really really small. Also we ducked into the little convenient store and got cactus juice to try. I need to find this back home - it was delicious and tasted a bit like a less tart green apple AirHead.

We then got annoyed because as it turns out, Užupis' independence day is on April 1st. That is the only day you can have your passport stamped for the republic and get/use the money of the Independent Republic of Užupis. The rest of the year, Užupis functions as just another district of Vilnius. We arrived in Vilnius on April 3rd.

Damnit

The tour continued by heading down the hill behind Užupis and to the narrowest alley in the city. It's not technically on the map, and it isn't named, but our guide took us there anyway. It was so tiny that there was maybe enough room to move my arms about 3 inches away from my body. And I am a small person.

Other things on the tour.....there was this church.

St. Nicolas' church

And there was this statue.

The knight and his trusty steed. So majestic

And this bit of graffiti that was put up during and survived the Soviet regime during Lithuania's occupation.

Also our lovely guide

On the opposite wall of the alley, there is a newer piece of graffiti in the form of flowers. The locals say that's what the woman is looking at, or for. She's looking for spring.

For out own time, we explored the city and went up to the old bastion on a hill by the riverside.

Also known as the BIGGEST WIND TUNNEL IN THE CITY

On each floor, there was a mini museum for different artifacts and suits of armor and different events in Lithuania's history. You could also go look out all those windows on each floor to see what they overlooked and how it could've been so effective at protecting the city. And of course, the view from the top was quite spectacular.

Look at the city, all nicely laid out below

What else.....the last night we decided that we should stop denying it and realize once more that we are broke college students. So we pitched in and bought veggies and pasta and chicken and I made stir fry for dinner at the hostel. The hostel owner even generously gave us a bottle of Lithuanian wine to drink, saying we needed to try it before we left her country. It's made of berries instead of grapes, and for a red wine it wasn't too shabby (wine is still not my drink of choice though).

The following day was off to the airport and back to St. Petersburg. We went from the sunlight of Travel Week in the Baltics through a cloud layer that seriously took 20 minutes to fly through to come back to my city here. And thus, our adventures came to an end.

That was Travel Week.