Exam Week

Classes finished up on Friday and exam week has begun.  I have exams on Wednesday and Thursday, with final project presentations for the architecture class on Friday.  Today I spent the morning grading papers, trying to get the decks clear for that stack of exams.  One week from today will be our last full day in Lithuania.  We will fly out on Tuesday afternoon.  By some miracle our flight does not leave at a horridly early hour in the morning but instead at two in the afternoon.  Now for some pictures, annotated as usual.

The is a view from the apartment of someone on staff here at LCC. As you can see, her apartment is up a few floors. Most of the buildings you can see in this shot are Soviet-era housing blocks.

Same apartment, capturing the view of the setting sun. The strip of land you see is the Curonian Spit, which stretches all the way to Russian territory in Kaliningrad.

Students getting food at an end-of-year theology department dinner.

An older building near Old Town.

I took this picture in a nearby park when the evening light was that magical color that only lasts about four minutes.

Here’s my 8:30 moral philosophy crew.

And here’s half of the 9:45 group.

…and the other half.

An animal rescue birthday party. Girls only!

We took a ferry over to the Curonian Spit on Sunday to see the dolphin show. This is a view of some ships we passed on the way over.

On the lower level at the dolphin facility where you can watch them swim about before the show.

Naturally it is completely impossible to capture anything interesting in a photo. By the time you realize the dolphins are about to do something, they’re done. At least I managed to get one jumping.  Probably the coolest part was the dolphin who dunked a basketball.

After the show you could have a picture with a dolphin touching your hand for about ten bucks. I settled for getting a picture of a dolphin touching someone else’s hand–which was free.

I put this in for my mom. There was a small reconstructed farmstead not far from the dolphin place. For some reason, this poor fellow was tied up near one of the buildings. Maybe he’s there to keep people from getting into things they shouldn’t?

Last one–another view from the ferry, this time on the way back. Ah, the way back…as we were waiting for the ferry to come to a dock near the dolphin facility someone confidently told us the ferry was not going to stop there but only at another dock further down the Spit. And so we had to hoof it at a hearty rate for about fifteen minutes, only to miss the ferry just as it was pulling away…in the direction of the dock back at the dolphin facility. Reverse course, this time at a jog. We were racing the ferry. We made it just in the nick of time. On our way it began to rain and blow with gusto.

An Update

It’s time for some more pictures and comments.  I have a bit of a back log, so these will stretch back a few weeks.  We have only a week and a half left of classes and then final exams.  We have been having some nice, spring-like days, which has been wonderful.  Enjoy the pictures and look for more in a about a week.

–John

It was Noah’s turn to go to the sea with Daddy. He’s pointing to a ship that is just leaving the channel.

A picturesque boat parked along the river down town. I hope no one goes out into the open sea in it.

There are a number of bronze sculptures in the Old Town and Rachel took the kids one day to have a sort of scavenger hunt for them. This is a chimney sweep, permanently perched precariously on a roof top.

I spotted this crew rowing on the river that runs through town. There is a shell house of sorts in the background.

The kids by the river. Just to the right out of view there is a play structure in the form of a boat (along with several other play structures) that the children are especially fond of. This is about a 30 minute walk from our apartment, so we don’t visit it too often.

Not far from LCC’s campus is one of the campuses of Klaipeda University. It is housed in an old German military barracks, comprised of several buildings.

Easter morning meal at Sanda’s apartment. Sanda is from Romania, and this is standard fare for the occasion in that country.  There is a loaf of bread hiding in the towel in the foreground.

Same apartment, same occasion. From left: Sanda, Rachel, Allison. You probably know who Rachel is; the other two are teachers at LCC.

The pond outside our apartment teams with birds of various kinds. I think the habit of the kids bringing out bread to throw to them has something to do with its popularity. There are gulls, ducks, coots (a most wonderful bird), and swans. I captured this image of the birds who had gathered to get a bit of that bread.

I thought this was fun.  Probably not quite like grandma’s. 

I went walking with the kids the other day and we came upon an area literally crawling with snails. I’ve never seen so many in my life. Both of the kids wanted to pick them up, of course. In Chayah’s hand, the snails would come out of their shells, stretch themselves out, and have a look around. In Noah’s hand, they invariably stayed tightly tucked away in their shells, letting out a dose of urine in their terror. I explained to Noah that even animals are well aware of the dangers of little boys.

Vilnius 2

Here are some more pictures from the Vilnius trip–posted a bit later than initially planned.  The last couple of weeks I have had some extra responsibilities (two different talks to outside groups) that seem to have squeezed my schedule a bit.  Despite its busyness, it has been a good couple of weeks.  The weather is warming.  The Monday after Easter was a genuinely sunny and pleasant day.  Classes are going well, and I’ve had several meaningful conversations with students (and faculty) outside of class.  Enjoy the pictures.  More soon.

This is an entrance into an old monastery. You’ll see some picture of the chapel just below this one. The thing I really like about this portal is that it sits on the main street in between two commercial buildings and leads to a courtyard completely surrounded by buildings. It feels like a gateway to a secret, inner realm.

 

 

This is the inside of the chapel, which is in the midst of a (slow) process of restoration.

A sad sight, common in Vilnius. She is sitting by the Gate of the Dawn, the southern entrance to the old town.

Inside a Catholic church.

Another shop window.

Definitely the most interesting church in town–St. Anne’s. Interior to follow.

This is a closer shot of the ceiling. Very cool.

A place just on the edge of old town. There are many buildings like this, awaiting a bit of updating.

The kids passing the time on the train on the way home. Both coming and going we had our own compartment, which was nice. We could spread out a bit.

Vilnius 1

I’m finally getting around to posting some photos from our spring break trip to Vilnius.  I have a lot of pictures I’d like to share, so I will do it in a couple of batches.

We took the train to and from Vilnius. The trip there was on the slow train (about 4.5 hours) and on the way back we were on the fast train (about 3.5 hours). The train left early in the morning (6:40), hence the darkness.

The first afternoon in Vilnius we visited a big mall there. The kids knew about a big indoor play land there and really wanted to visit. We figured that was their compensation for wandering around looking at buildings the rest of the time. The first morning there we went to a small village outside of town, Trakai, which has a castle that was once the seat of government for Lithuanian nobility. Here we are in front of the castle.

This is a photo inside the courtyard of the keep of the castle.

Inside the rooms of the castle were displays of various artifacts, including a bit of armor and weapons. I thought the vaulting of the rooms (shown here) was very pleasing.

The kids, peering out a window high up in the keep.  The castle sits on a small island and is completely surrounded by a lake.

A shot of a street in the village of Trakai. There are many of these wonderfully bright and cute wooden cottages.

Another splendid little cottage.

Dare I include one more?  You can see part of another castle in the background.

A view down a side street next to the castle from the photo above.

An interesting contrast: here is the bus station in Trakai, built during the Soviet period.

I went for a walk at night to see some of Vilnius in the dark. I saw this interesting statue on the entrance of a theater.

Peering down a side street in the old town.

The palace of the grand dukes of Lithuania.

Our little people, looking out our hotel room window.

Saint Casimir

Last night we returned from our brief trip to Vilnius.  It was great and I think I got some decent pictures out of it.  You’ll have to wait until the next post for those, though, since there is something else in the hopper first.  Last weekend was a little festival in town in honor of St. Casimir.  He was part of the ruling family of Poland and Lithuania back in the 1400’s.  He showed little interest in politics but instead followed after the model of St. Francis, giving his attention to God and the care of the poor.  He is the patron saint of Poland and Lithuania, whose life is celebrated each year on the Sunday nearest the anniversary of his death, March 4th.  The festival consists in an outdoor market, which was held in Theater Square in the old town.  Talk of a “festival” quickly became “carnival” in the minds of Chayah and Noah, who expected to see Ferris wheels, cotton candy, and who knows what else.  In the event, there wasn’t much that interested them–except the booths selling candy.

Quite separately, for those who are interested, LCC publishes a newsletter once a month that carries short stories about students, alumni, and faculty.  You can find the latest one here: https://www.lcc.lt/newsletters/transformations/2016-03/index.htm

One of the distinctive crafts of Lithuania is carving, often these sort of grotesque figures. The guy with the lantern is just too big to carry back on the plane. Otherwise, I think he’d look great on the front porch.

A sausage booth, of which there were several.

There is always lots of amber for sale. The Baltics are known for amber, which washes up on the shore here in plentiful supply.

A view of the crowd in the square with the theater in the background. Hitler once gave a speech to the citizens of Memel (as Klaipeda was then called) from the central alcove of the building shortly after the city was added to Germany before the start of the war.

For some reason I found this collection of faces in the crowd intriguing.

Those of you reading in Wyoming will chuckle at this. Here we have an “Indian life museum.”