Everybody's Working On the Weekend

Fun day. So I'm told to meet in at the president's palace by a p. Rita, but not the same p. Rita from Parliament. I'm on my way to the presidential palace when I realized I left my map at my room and had absolutely no idea where the palace was. I figure the presidential palace is something similar to the White House, so everybody should know where it is. I ask a lady working at the Cathedral, a main Lithuanian tourist attraction. She pointed North, and said, just go there, ask anybody, they'll tell you where it is. So I walk, hoping that maybe I'll just run into the palace, but I did not. So I eventually ask someone, and they point me South. I eventually get to the palace and as it turns out, it's exactly 1 block west of the Cathedral. 'Ask anybody, they'll tell you where it is'. Thanks.

So once I got to the palace, I read up on some of the history of the palace since I was early. Apparently, Napolean Bonaparte stayed here, and then some other historical Lithuanian figures. I later met p. Rita, and we get on a nice bus to go to a 'dvaras', or an estate, near Paneveziai, a city 200 km away. The people on the trip were the people working the office for President Grybauskaite, such as the secretaries and assistants. The estate was impressive, but the main attraction was the tulips. We took pictures, walked around,talked, and took a few more pictures. It seemed like every person in the park enjoyed having senior-picture-type pictures taken of them. P. Rita enjoyed taking those pictures. Much of the time was spent with p. Rita and Mindaugas, the assistant to President Grybauskaite. Mindaugas is the equivalent to Charlie from 'West Wing'. They mainly talked about politics, and it really reminded me of how Student Government works, just on a larger scale.

The whole office then had a picnic. One lady offered my wine and at first I was a little taken aback and didn't respond immediately. Then she said 'Oh, you're not allowed? You're not 18?', and then walked on. She was a funny lady and she was pretty nice, but somehow that became the running joke for the rest of the picnic.

The trip through Lithuania really reminded me of Ohio. There are 2 main differences though. 1, all the cars are different. There are many news Mercedes Benzes I haven't seen yet. There are also main car brands I haven't seen before. 2, the houses on the farms are traditional Lithuanian houses.

Tonight on the plaza where I'm staying is a contest to get on Eurovision. Eurovision is Europe's music countest. I actually have friends to go with too, so it'll be fun.

Fun post of the day: Memorable Eurovision moments:

Pictures will hopefully be going up tomorrow. By the way, none of the students on my floor go to Vilnius Jesuit, but all of them are really cool.