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Jonnys Eastern Delights!
Thankfully, I could go straight to bed once I arrived at the hostel; goodness know what I would have done otherwise! After a good snooze, I woke up and started stumbling to the shower when a voice came from behind me "Hello Jonny!". It was Edoardo, in the bed next to me! It was really coo meeting up with him again, especially with the hostel being very quiet, and we would soend the next 3 days together.
With Sunday being the start of the season for United, I had hopes of getting to see the game and so I dragged Edoardo out with me to find a pub, but I soon realised that I would stand no chance with every pub in town being packed with locals watching the Lithuanian basketball team - the national passion. In the end we spent the afternoon having some beers with some heavy metal locals drowning their sorrows after they lost in the basketball. In the evening after getting some food we avoided a persistent gyu trying his best to get us into his strip club and went to Broadway instead. In short; cheap beer, very attractive local women and just a good night.
Monday was our out and about day - despite me for one feeling pretty tired all day with my body clock well and truely messed up. We hiked up to the top of Three Crosses Hill and did a couple of other things until a siesta was the only thing I was any good for. After eating in the independent republic of Uzupis (an unofficial breakaway of artists, squatters and drunks!) we headed to Braodway again where, finally, the Jonny charm did its stuff will a local girl called Justine. Although I was slightly scared when she told me she was a "dancer" and she was one of these people who wildly through their hair about while they dance, I began to wonder if she would eat me alive! To cut a long story short, we ended up falling out in the middle of the street at 5am after she had turned out to be a bit of a psycho really - I do know how to pick 'em!
Needless to say, I was well rough on Tuesday as we went to the Museum of Genocide Victims housed in a former KGB prison. It was grim to say the least, with the downstairs cells particulary brutal. I didn't realised just how much the Latvians suffered under Soviet occupation and how many people were deported to Siberia - it was the latest installment of my cultural education of the history of this area I have been travelling. On the way home we stumbled across the "miracle tile" - th epoint where in 1987 a human chain of 2 million people from Tallinn to Vilnius ended. Lets hope the wish you make around it comes true for me - no prizes for guessing what it was!
After saying bye to Edoardo - a true gentleman - I caught the bus to Siauliai, where the only hostel was closed and so I checked myself into a really nice hotel that was brilliant value for money - particulary when, flicking through the channels, I came across MUTV!! Unbelievable! To make things better, they were just about to show the whole game from Sunday - I was completely in my element!
An ambitious plan to get to the Hill of Crosses and back in time for a bus to Riga just about came off - its so good when things actually go according to plan! Kryziu Kalnas itself was an eerie place - it is literally just tens of thousands of crosses, small ones attached to larger ones, blanketing a two hump hillock. In the early morning mist, whenever the wind blew the crosses would tinkle together, creating a unique atmosphere. A nice end to a good few days in Lithuania.
Jonny
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