I decided that it’s high time to interrupt my writing about this and that and… 
acquaint you guys with my homeland Lithuania :) Some of you have probably never heard about it before, but from now on you won’t have any excuses to say: “What? Lithuania? Is it in Albania (that was what one guy in LEAP 3 asked me)? Oh, no, no – it’s probably an African country!” or – “It belongs to Russia, right?” Actually the last question is one of the worst things you could ask Lithuanians… Why? Well, guys, if you ask this question, means you definitely need to improve your history knowledge!
Could you believe if I say that the name Lietuva (that’s what we call our country) was mentioned for the first time in 1009…? This shows what a long history my country has. Lithuania, which is located in Eastern Europe, is a parliamentary democracy although the President of the country also has some powers. In 2004 Lithuania, which has a population of 3.5 mln. people, became a member of the European Union and NATO. One more interesting thing about my country is that it has a 90 km coast line on the Baltic Sea. Yeah!!!
Those people who are interested in sports might have heard about Lithuanian basketball players who played or are still playing in NBA: A.Sabonis, S. Macijauskas, Z. Ilgauskas, D.Songaila, and M.Andriuskevicius. Ice hockey players D.Kasparaitis (currently playing for the New York Rangers) and D.Zubrius (used to play for the Montreal Canadiens). One more celebrity in the Lithuanian sport’s world is discus thrower V.Alekna who has won many Olympic medals and world championships. Ok, enough for now; better leave something to tell for next time.
Those people who are interested in sports might have heard about Lithuanian basketball players who played or are still playing in NBA: A.Sabonis, S. Macijauskas, Z. Ilgauskas, D.Songaila, and M.Andriuskevicius. Ice hockey players D.Kasparaitis (currently playing for the New York Rangers) and D.Zubrius (used to play for the Montreal Canadiens). One more celebrity in the Lithuanian sport’s world is discus thrower V.Alekna who has won many Olympic medals and world championships. Ok, enough for now; better leave something to tell for next time.
PS. in the pics you can see Trakai Castle, Kaunas Rotušė (town hall), centre street in Vilnius (the capital city), Gedimino Castle (it was built in 1230, actually there is a very interesting legend about it!! I think I'll tell you about it in one of my blogs :) and a tiny part of the seaside in Nida.
4 comments:
Hi Loreta,
Unfortunately it happened so that I had visited Latvia and Estonia, but not Lithuania. So beautiful views.
Besides A.Sabonis, I know Valdemarus Chomichus, Rimantas Curtinatis, Valdis Valters and Marchulyonis.
This night I became a grandmother for the third time. We've got a girl. Her name is Anna.
Yulia.
Congratulations!!!!!! I'm happy to hear that! You'll have to write a post in your blog about the little angel Anna who has become a part of your family :)
Lithuania is a small country, but has its charm. I hope you will have an opportunity to visit it in the future :)
By the way, I'm really impressed with your knowledge! V.Chomičius was a Žalgiris (the team where Sabonis was playing) coach. R.Kurtinaitis and Š.Marčiulionis were two stars of the old basketball generation who played together with A.Sabonis for Žalgiris. Hmm, but Valdis Valters doesn't sound familiar to me. I think be might be Latvian.
Hopefully, I didn't ask you such question. As Lithuinia is a small country, people sometimes ask something which awful to hear for you. My country Bangladesh is a small country too. So, once I heard, "So, you are Indian..." even though the person knows very well that I am from Bangladesh. It's also true for the people who came from Hongkong, or Taiwan. They are called Chinese.
But, I don't know why people are unwilling to want to call them by their original country name. They want to give common name.
Loreta,
Thank you for the geography and history classes...
I loved knowing more about your country and I have to admit that I did not know nothing about Lithuania before I met you.
The castle pictures are great!!!
You inspired me to write something about my country, too.
Carlos
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