Saturday, July 05, 2008

"A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure." - Segal's Law

***

Baltics trip
Day 3 - 18th May - Vilnius, Lithuania
(Part 1)


Local fauna


St Casimir, with Russian mass

Normally I wouldn't take pictures during services, but the country was so religious (especially in contrast to Western Europe), many churches had services when we there.


Carving


Cemented-up balcony of Church of St John. I have no idea. The church itself was closed.


Figure covering his crotch

Having found out how to get to Gediminas's Tower, we took the funicular up.


People always like to throw money into inaccessible locations


Ruins at the top


View


The tower


On the wall beside the tower


Parapet



View from top of the tower







Hill of Three Crosses


Museum at the bottom: "North Korean Hidden Treasures Revealed. The most famous works by the best contemporary painters". I didn't even know there were any contemporary painters. Painting is hard when you're eating tree bark.

We then mounted the Hill of Three Crosses


Three Crosses


View


Me


Crosses from below


Papa was here




Memorial to Papa


Church of St Peter and Paul


Frontage


Door


Inside


Praying


Skeleton


Smart beggars. They appeared out of nowhere just as the service was coming to an end.

They were having 2 services in a row, so we ran in before the next one started.




Ceiling


Pulpit

As lunch, we had one of many supermarket meals (ie one or more of bread, ham, sausage, cheese, smoked/cured fish, chips).


Bread at the supermarket

While YC and I were buying lunch, HWMNBN had another of his adventures beyond compare. 3 people asked him for cigarettes, one cute girl walked back and forth by him and giggled, lots of people stared at him with a "sullen slavic look" (the irony here is that Lithuanians are not Slavs - they are Balts) and a one-legged guy hobbled around.


Shop in a shack

While we were proceeding to find a spot to have lunch, a hobo made weird gestures at HWMNBN. HWMNBN thought he wanted a cigarette, so passed him his beer bottle and got out a cigarette. When he tried to take his beer back, the hobo refused to let go and walked off.


Pigeons we fed and tricked into pseudo-cannibalism (we fed them bits of chicken)


Public toilet administration office. The juxtaposition of this and the very smelly toilet was intereting.

We then took the bus to Trakai castle:


I don't understand why guys like to do this