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Baltics trip
Day 1 - 15th-16th May - Flight, Amsterdam Transit; Vilnius, Lithuania (Part 1)
We flew in to Vilnius, Lithuania via Amsterdam. The first flight was the racially homogenous flight I'd ever taken.
One thing about KLM that distinguishes them from other airlines is the food you get. They really pay a lot of attention to it (yes, even in Cattle Class), from the packaging to the contents:
Breakfast tray
Extolling the symbolism of soup: "For all of us, soup means protection, food for the soul. It's one of the most primitive and simple ways of saying I love you." You just need to mess up the grammar a bit and add "Please enjoy this soup" to make it Engrish. It's probably due to shared translation and intercultural issues.
Meanwhile, the packaging of the pumpkin seeds and croutons read: "This food was prepared especially for high altitude consumption". Don't ask me why.
Breakfast tray
Breakfast spread
A primer on Dutch breakfast: "The main ingredient in a traditional Dutch breakfast is bread. The Dutch usually eat slices of white or wholemeal bread spread with butter and topped with cheese, jam, chocolate sprinkles, peanut butter or ham (or another type of thinly sliced cold meat). Alternative or additional breakfast fare consists of rusks, rye bread, ginger cake, currant loaf, a boiled egg or a bowl of porridge. As well as coffee or tea the Dutch like to drink dairy products such as milk or buttermilk with their breakfast"
This was amusing, since there was no bread in the breakfast set (I had the pancake but the other option was an omelette), and I know the Dutch feel sick when they smell hot food in the morning. Of course, if they served Dutch breakfast no one else would fly KLM.
Unfortunately, not as much attention was paid to the in-flight entertainment as to food. The system lag was the worst I'd ever seen. TVs and CDs under the Kids' section were not available under the Adults section (this might not sound problematic, but they put the Simpsons under the Kids section, so).
Worse, the standard of in-flight service was totally unacceptable. On two occasions, I pressed the attendant call button, and when the light above me lit up, no one attended to me even after many minutes, so I gave up. How un-gezellig. I like that at the back of the plane (and presumably near the other galleys) there were carts set up with water, Orange Juice, Coke and chocolates for passengers to help themselves, but this probably resulted in moral hazard (the stewardesses were tiao kar-ing [putting their legs up] and reading magazines or newspapers when I peeked in the galley to ask for stuff). In fact, one woman asked one of the stewardesses for something, and the stewardess pointed to the self-service trolley and response. I prefer self-service actually, but service is paid for, so KLM gets bottom marks for service.
As a minor point, there weren't sanitary pads in the toilet, but since this doesn't affect me I won't harp on it.
Commands to cabin crew were made in English, not Dutch. Hah.
Schiphol's X-ray machine is like an MRI chamber - a long plastic tube (YC has a pic somewhere but I haven't gotten his pictures yet).
Swingy chair at Schiphol
I love technology. Don't you?
I couldn't find frites in the airport. Boo hoo. I couldn't find the "Not everything in Holland is flat" shirt either, let alone one with the two strategically-placed hemispheres.
I saw a male cleaner going into a female toilet. Hurrah for gender equality. I love this country (then again maybe he was gay).
The flight from Amsterdam to Vilnius was farmed out to FlyLAL, which operated like a low cost airline despite seemingly being the national carrier of Lithuania.
The cockpit window of a 737 can open and the pilot can stick his head outside. How cute. As long as it's not done during a flight, of course (someone can always remove the black rubber window linings).
Vilnius Oro Uostas Airport. Note the Communist-esque carvings above.
Run down Communist buildings. Unfortunately we didn't see much of the most sombre ones except for the transit to/from the airport.
Birds on the walls
Gates of Dawn
Ditto
Rundown houses
YC and nw.t in a tunnel
Subverting capitalism: "M-otherfucker"
YC and nw.t walking on the street. Notice the suffering of the one carrying the trolleybag
St Teresa's Basilica. Pastatyta
Perfect rainbow from Hotel
Street with St Teresa's Basilica
Lithuania felt like Malaysia, with their signs reading Baras (Bar), Apartamentai (Apartment), Rezervusta (Reserved), Policija (Police) and Taksi (Taxi).
Church of the Holy Trinity gateway
There's something about the smell of grilled onions on the cool temperate air that is irresistable.
Town hall
The two things they're most proud of: inscription on the World Heritage List and George W Bush's: "Anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy has also made an enemy of the United States of America"
Town square
Church of St Nicholas. There were Byzantine-style icons inside, and a nonatych (9-panelled polytych) below an arch, and red cyrillic letters which glowed like neon in the light.
Huge amber necklace
Street
Dragonball in Lithuanian
Jewelry
Russian Dolls - including Harry Potter, Osama bin Laden, a Beatle and more in addition to the normal cast
I saw a guy in a ponytail (which was very tangled) with a fieldpack, fatigues and boots.
Viesbutis "Narutis" - A hotel which claimed to be established in 1581.
Street
We then went to the first of many underground restaurants (they have a lot of underground food and alcohol establishments in the Baltics).
The Underground Restaurant
The wonderful menu. As you can see the meat with the biggest share is pork.
The black sourbread was the most sour bread I'd ever had. It had a complex flavour, a bit like raisins (maybe there was wine must inside).
I had Kvass (the yellow thing on the right), a sour drink made of bread that all 3 Baltic states had. It was quite nice, tasting like slightly sweet beer without the alcohol. It's probably what beer used to taste like in the past before they added hops, since they had to drink it everyday (due to bad water quality).
Me having mushroom soup and sourbread.
Snack plate: "Smoked bard (sic) (non-rendered pork underskin fat with little or no meat), smoked bacon, herring, pickles, blue onion, black olives"
The smoked lard had an extremely strong bacon flavour. We couldn't finish it (especially not the skin).
Pork chop. It was very nice, but it was still a pork chop (tenderloin).
Potato pancakes and herring
Restaurant cellar
We then went to the vicinity of the Cathedral-Basilica.
A horse about to push a man over a precipice. This is a monument to Gediminas, Grand Duke of Lithuania.
The statue from other angles
The cathedral and a tower
The throng
Ang mohs playing chapteh