Hello dear friends,

Tick tock, tick tock… time is running so quickly! 1 more week and we’ll be finished with LEAP (I wish this for everybody, so nobody would have to pay big money to repeat this course). I’ve been studying here since last September together with some of you (Amy, Alif, and Mohammad); meanwhile, majority of the others I met first in January. However, now it seems that we are all old friends :) At least to me. I will really miss you guys (including our nice instructors) after this program. Hopefully, we will keep writing each other emails and even meet time to time. I’ll be always happy to receive your messages :) Don’t forget that!

What are you going to do the coming summer? I think most of you will go to visit your countries. I hope I’ll do the same thing in the second half of the summer. And let’s promise each other that we’re not gonna stop studying English ;) At least reading English books…

I would also like to improve some of my other languages, especially French, the language that I started studying at my university in Lithuania the year when I was finishing my degree program. I had the most amazing French teacher in the world!!! Because of such terrific teachers students start loving their target languages. I feel sorry that I couldn’t give my all for learning French because I also had to write my thesis. Those months were one of the hardest ones I had in my life. Therefore, my attention was not focused on language learning. Moreover, I haven’t practiced my French since my final exam (I got 10 :)). And after such a long time, languages that you don’t use get mixed up especially if you studied similar languages as I did – Italian and French. Then, you can’t remember such things like – oh, which of these: a l’universite and all’universita is en Francaise and which in italiano :)

The moral is – let us all often practice languages that we’ve studied. Cheers!

PS. Happy Easter!!!

Angels

Hello, my Friends :)
It’s my 12th blog… Hmmm what to write about..? Oh, I know :)

Many people have a hobby collecting things. Some collect stamps, others - currency from different countries (bad news for these collectors – currency in many countries will soon be the same because the Euro’s replacing many national currencies in the EU countries), info about some celebrity, beer cans or… even memories (why not?). I didn’t think I was collecting anything until the day when I noticed that I like little statues and souvenirs of Angels!

I don’t know when this trend has started, but the more time passes, the more angels I surround myself with. I buy them myself or someone gives me as a present… One angel I even made myself from felt and beads :)

Why are they special to me? Because they are such beautiful creations!!! I just love their humble beauty, friendly eyes, secret smiles and praying hands. They symbolize to me some kind of guardianship and fellowship, if you know what I mean. I guess my special attitude towards angels must have been partially influenced by my religion. Indeed, Angels are very important in Catholicism. How about other religions? What are your feelings about Angels? Have you heard anything about them?

Oh those pets!

I noticed that some of students wrote about their pets, which is always fun to read about. I don’t have a pet now, but I hope that the situation will change sometime. I’m dreaming about having a WHITE female (because they are usually friendlier) cat or a golden retriever puppy. We’ll see, we’ll see :)

I had only one pet in my life – a male cat Kitis. I’m sure his name sounds quite strange to you, guys :) I already shared my experiences about having this crazy guy in one of Scott’s blog’s comment section. Because my cat did so many unforgettable mischievous things, such as peed on clothes, shoes, “touched” with his nails everything he met on his way and used to meow so loud at 6 a.m. trying to wake us up, my mom said “that’s it, he’s going to where he came from!”. After these words, my experience of having a cat ended :( ! In retrospect, despite the fact that my cat was naughty, he used to be good at listening to my monologues. During such moments, he usually used to lie down with his eyes half open and pretend he’s sleeping doing that cat sound “purrr purrr…”.

;))

A little break from Lithuanian stories :) Here is a cute (at least for me:) picture:

I’m keeping the tradition of telling something interesting about my country. This time I’m not gonna write about some place, but I’ll tell you about my favorite mineral instead.

Gintaras or amber is sometimes called the gold of the Baltic’s (3 small countries with coasts on the Baltic Sea – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). I have read that this stone is found even in Canada, the USA, Brazil and Mexico. However, 90% of amber is extracted in the Baltic region, mainly on the Kaliningrad seashore.

Amber is the fossilized resin of ancient trees. Sometimes you can see various insects or pieces of moss fossilized in amber! It is like a piece of art by the Mother Nature :) By the way, did you know how ancient amber is? It can be from 30 to 90 million years old!!

Amber is found in a wide range of colors: from bright and transparent yellow to orange or even to opaque black. My favorite color is yellow :) I just love the feeling of amber near my skin; therefore I have various jewelries made from it. It is said that amber can heal certain illnesses if you wear it every day. For example, a necklace of unpolished (!!) amber could help heal the thyroid illnesses.

Almost in every Lithuanian souvenir shop, you will see a lot of beautiful things including pictures and jewelry made of amber. And the prices are relatively cheap (if you would compare to Canadian prices :).

Kryžių Kalnas

Today I‘m gonna tell you about one more interesting place in Lithuania – Kryžių kalnas or the Hill of Crosses. I visited it for the first time 2 years ago and it left lasting impressions on me.
The Hill of Crosses is located 12 kilometers north of a small city Siauliai. There are over 56, 000 crosses of various sizes and made of different materials. It is said that the tradition of placing crosses there started in the 14th century when a large part of Lithuania was Christianized. On the other hand, this place is mentioned for the first time in written chronicles only in the middle of 19th century, after the brutal crushing of the uprisings in 1831 and 1863. Those were the times when Lithuania was oppressed by tsarist Russia. As a result, many Lithuanian people were killed and cities destroyed.

The Russians kept removing Christian crosses from the hill (because they were against the religiosity of the Lithuanian people), but the Lithuanians kept putting new ones up.

Actually, the invaders tried to abolish our written and spoken language – Lithuanian. For many decades, all Lithuanian books, newspapers and church warship were forbidden. However, there were many people who didn’t care about the prohibitions and devoted their lives to bring books secretly for others. They were called knygnešiai (“book-bringers”). There were also priests who kept holding Lithuanian mass in those difficult times. The risk they took greatly contributed to retaining Lithuanian spirit in the russified country.

But let’s go back to the Hill of Crosses. If you look closer at the crosses, you may notice that there are names, dates, and written messages on most of them. Why? For a variety of reasons. Some crosses are for the memory of those who died while defending Lithuania from the invaders; others express their gratitude for recovery from illness or ask for healing. Many crosses symbolize the wish for peace in my country and in the rest of the world.

The Legend

As you saw in my last blog, Lithuania has ancient castles. And actually not so few! Why? As I wrote before, Lithuania has a very long past reaching back to the 12 century. In those days, there lived many generations of dukes, one of whom even became the one and only (so far) king of our land. His name was Mindaugas. Anyways, talking about castles, they were used as the residences of the dukes and as defensive fortifications. One of the most famous castles is Gediminas Castle, which stands on a hill in Vilnius, the centre of the capital of Lithuania. So time for its legend :)

According to the legend found in the Chronicle of Lithuania, Gediminas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, once had a prophetical dream. He dreamt that an iron wolf standing on one particular place in Vilnius was howling like hundreds of wolves. As the Lithuanians were pagan in those days, the Grand Duke asked the chief pagan priest Lizdeika about the meaning of his dream. The priest answered that this dream reflects the Gods’ will that Gediminas should build a castle in the same place where the wolf was howling. The extremely loud howling in the dream, said Lizdeika, probably meant that this castle would make the city of Vilnius prosperous and famous in all the Europe. In fact, the castle was built in 1230 and the capital was moved from Trakai to the new town Vilnius, which has remained the capital of Lithuania.

Talking about Trakai, this small town is situated about 30 kilometers (we don’t use miles or pounds, or feet or Fahrenheit in Lithuania!!!) away. There are a lot of picturesque lakes in that area. Actually, the Castle of Trakai itself is surrounded by the lake and you need to walk over the bridge if you want to visit.
PS. See – dream interpretation was so popular and powerful (people were building castles after dreaming a wolf :) even in ancient times!