VILNIUS, LITHUANIA

2016-01-15, 16:30, JASON

STAY: POGO HOSTEL

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The bus ride to Vilnius was one big struggle. Hopped on the bus at Warsaw, and it took a good 12 hours. The seats were extra-reclinable, as in, the person in front of you's head was visible from where you sat, almost pushing into your chest. As a result, Thorin got a good smellful of the guy's scalp in front of him. That, and all the coughing on the bus really called for a public health nightmare. Protip: Bring yourself a facemask. You may breathe harder, but you won't be sick for your trip.

As a result of that horrid ride, gotta admit, Vilnius was a blur. I was cranky. But, we get in to the beautiful bus station and begin our walk towards the hostel. The entire part of the city we visited almost looked like a small English town, with stone-paved driving roads alongside a row of houses stacked closely. Since we got in around 7 or 8, there were still people washing up from the night before. Love a good party city!

The whole city itself wasn't planned too well, so we just took strolls down old town and took pictures of the local buidings. But, seeing as most of my phone's battery's were drained since we couldn't charge it the night before, we got sparse pictures as well. The first thing we stumbled on was Arkikatedra Bazilika -- a local Cathedral, with a small clock tower by the side of it. It doesn't have the magnanimity like Western European churches, but rather a sleek white exterior painted in a more basic fashion. The building almost looked like it could doppelgang (that's a verb now, Germans may disagree but English-derivative countrys' English speakers rejoice) as a town hall center. We continued on to the Presidential palace and took some subpar pictures (seriously) 

As it goes with most European cities, we also climb to a vantage point, usually a church clock tower. Um, Ok, why not

And, as it also goes with European cities they usually have a castle or two, and a few more larger churches. We check out the main Vilnius Castle, or, the remains of it. The main tower that we head to is Gediminas' Tower, which is the last relic of the upper castle, porked with a Lithuanian flag. Classy. The walk continues on and we hit (not literally) the Church of St. Nicholas, which has Russian Orthodoxy just breathed all over it. Sharp, frigid Gothic architecture in brick.

Other than that brief trip, we stumbled upon a small local cemetery while walking around some of the older parts of town. On the way back into town, we ran into some unique architectural piece and stopped to take pictures without entirely knowing what they were. Were they famous? Had some name? Probably, but the day hat gotten to us so we just sat and had a nice meal down their main street, near to where our hostel was. The street was full of restaurants, small street side vendors, and appeared as the high street of Old Town. Looking at a Google Maps, the name of the street was Pilies g. Had a meal, and a huge jug-pint of beer while we were at it!

From Vilnius, we went to the local airport via bus and took a flight onto Helsinki. This is the beauty of budget traveling: you look at ways to get out of cities with efficiency. Flying back from Riga was the cheapest, but flying out of Vilnius to Finland was cheaper, so we decided to kind of do a roundabout. Funny story about the Vilnius-->Helsinki flight. There were only 10 passengers on this small commercial plane, and so the flight attendant asked Thorin and me to go sit in the back to weight the plane more evenly. About 17 empty rows in front of us, and then the rest of the people. Ah, Vilnius, land of plenty (space).