Dan vs. Dan

Greetings, World!
I don't have a clever theme for this blog post. I thought about a few ideas but I decided to just go with the general update.

So the weather is getting colder. And not like "I love fall weather, let's wear a sweater" colder. I'm talking "Last week I was wearing short sleeves but now I'm putting on every article of clothing I own" colder. And it still rains just about every day. But there are some great rainbows (that's the view from the window above my desk!) Luckily, I have a very useful raincoat and many layers of warmth and an awesome hat to keep me warm and dry!

In recent news, I have a new roommate! We have a dorm suite with a common kitchen and bathroom, then two bedrooms with two guys each. The guy who lived on my side, Sergiy, decided to move into an apartment across town because it is apparently cheaper to live there and commute to campus. So a new guy moved in this weekend. His name is Tsikhan (pronounced Tea-Honn) He's a freshmen from Belarus and he's really friendly and talkative. My other roommates are Dima and Vanya, who are both second-year business majors from Ukraine. They're super nice and friendly too. It's a good time!

So I have furthered my cultural culinary endeavors by making Šaltibarščiai, a traditional Lithuanian beet soup that is served cold. I tried it at a restaurant and really liked it! So I got some beets and learned to make it myself, with a little help from Vanya. It involves alot of vegetables and some keefir, which I had never had before. It is sometimes served with a boiled potato. Here's a picture (it's from the internet, but this is pretty much what mine looked like!) I also got to try eating pig's ear (reminded me of a bacon-flavored fruit-rollup) and some kind of squid (reminded me of a bacon-flavored soggy marshmallow).

I've been keeping pretty busy lately, with worship team and rehearsals for The Crucible (see previous posts for more on that). And I've also been doing alot with my teaching practicum class. Up until last week I was just visiting the local public high school and observing the English class. Last Tuesday I actually got to present one of the activities for the class, which was fun. And this Tuesday I got to teach an entire lesson! The students are in eleventh grade and they've been taking English classes for about seven years, so they speak near-fluently and know some pretty in-depth grammatical concepts. I got to teach them about writing informal letters. They read some examples from their textbook about friends writing letters and asking questions about hobbies and music and stuff. Then I decided to have the class write a short letter to me, asking me questions to get to know me better! (I'll be teaching more and more throughout the semester, so it was a good icebreaker.) They asked me how I like Lithuania and how it's different from USA and what music I like and what my hobbies are, and all sorts of fun stuff. It took a while for the students to warm up to me, because their regular teacher is quite strict and doesn't really promote peer interaction much during class. They didn't really know how to respond to my style at first, but by the end I think they liked me. It was a little strange since some of them are less than 5 years younger than me, but I really liked it, and the teacher is giving me alot of freedom to do fun things. It's cool to be "the authority" on English and pronunciation when it come really easily to me, although it's intimidating too because most of these kids know three or four languages and I only know like one and a half...

Next week is the last week of classes before Fall Break! The break occurs exactly halfway through the semester and it's a week long. The study abroad program is sponsoring a trip to Russia, and I'm super excited about it! We'll be in Moscow for 4 days then we'll go to St. Petersburg for 4 more days! Usually on these trips we have alot of freedom to go places and see stuff and do whatever we want so tell me, World - WHAT SHOULD I DO IN RUSSIA???? Any suggestions? What should I see? Where should I go?? What weird or wacky item should I take a picture of??? What kind of souvenirs should I purchase???? So many choices! I'll do a blog post with lots of pictures when I get back! For now, I've got one more week of classes before then...

Don't forget to check out my pictures on Picasa!
I put some pictures of Riga and Tallinn on there (see previous blog post)
Also, if you miss me, Skype me! My Skype name is stan.doddard

Does anyone have a request for what I should write about in my blog (about Russia, or Lithuania, or just in general)? If you have any questions or queries, or perhaps even a quandary or two, write a comment on this blog post and I'll address it in my next post! You can also suggest stuff for me to take pictures of if there's something you want to see...

Dan vs. The Other Baltic States

Note: this blog post is about stuff that happened two weeks ago, but I wrote stuff down that I wanted to tell people about so I wouldn't forget it all. Unfortunately all that did was allow me to procrastinate. Here's my harrowing account of epic adventure and peril:


So two weekends ago we went on a trip to Tallinn and Riga. Riga is in Latvia (North of Lithuania) and Tallinn is in Estonia (North of Latvia). Both are the capitol cities and they both have historic Old Town areas where we spent most of our time.
We left LCC at 10:30pm on Thursday night and "slept" on the bus on the way to Tallinn. Seeing as this bus didn't have beds or bathrooms or pillows or anything remotely comfy, I didn't sleep much. Nonetheless, I was excited to be somewhere new and exciting once we arrived in Tallinn at 9am. We went to breakfast at a hotel and they had bacon! I hadn't had bacon since the summer, so that was a big deal, since it is one of my favorite food groups. Then we got some time to explore Old Town. We went to a palace with gardens and climbed up mysterious steps and posed under tunnels of flowers. There was a wedding happening, or at least a woman in a white flowy dress being escorted by guys in tuxes and people with cameras. So I guess it could have been a prom, or a music video or something, but I think it was a wedding. It was raining, but that didn't stop the nuptials or the exploring.

That night we had dinner at Olde Hanso, which is a medieval-themed restaurant. They don't use electricity in the dining area, only candles and gravity, how old-fashioned. We had a feast of all kinds of different foods that were really tasty but I don't remember what it was. There was something like sauerkraut, something else with beef, and some salmon dish too. And something like apple crisp for dessert. For entertainment, they had girls playing flute and drums and even more entertaining were the real live candles on the tables! After that I went exploring with Brock and Kevin and got some cool pictures of the city.

The next morning we went to a hotel pool that had waterslides and hot tubs! I hesitate to call it a waterpark, so it isn't confused with the American kids-screaming-running-wild-throwing-water-everywhere-extremeness of a typical waterpark in the US. This one was relaxing and calm and relatively quiet, and best of all only 105 Estonian Kroons (which may sound like alot but it actually equals about $10 American!) After the obligatory snack shopping and souvenir browsing, we boarded the bus again for the next leg of our journey.

We got to Riga at about 8pm. I'll start by saying that it's a great city, but I'll add that Saturday night is not the best time for making first impressions of a city. There were some people of, shall we say, questionable morality roaming the streets. It was a little disquieting at first, but we successfully managed to avoid the fists of drunks and the heckling of scoundrels. We saw some more cool buildings and bridges and parks, which were great but the real show was when we saw some guys playing with fire for money! They were street performers, fire-twirlers who had flaming balls on chains and hurled them around to make cool shapes!

The next morning we got a very different view of Riga. There was a stark contrast from the city in its raucous nightlife to a solemn Sunday morning. We went to an English church service in the chapel of a large Catholic church in the heart of the city. Then we walked around some of the historic building and statues and monuments, and of course we did some souvenir shopping. Then we went on a boat ride through the canals of Riga! The city is right near the Baltic coast and the canals go all around and through the city. We got some more cool pictures and great views of new and old buildings. Then it was time to head back, but not without a stop at a giant Latvian lunch place! It was this giant lodge building with all sorts of food and great Šaltibarsčai (beet soup - more on that later!). It was a great end to an awesome weekend exploring Baltic Land!

Although it was a little disappointing to return to the realm of homework and tests and waking up to do something other than eat deliciously fatty foods in a strange new city, it was a good experience to leave Klaipeda for a few days. Returning to LCC actually felt like going home. Sort of. To quote the great philosopher Little Orphan Annie, "I think I'm gonna like it here."