The Hill of Crosses

Hi everyone,

Thanks for  keeping up with me and my travels. I am on a train right now, recently departed from the Latvian capital, Riga. On the way from Klaipeda, Lithuania to Riga, Latvia, we made on stop at a wonder of the Lithuanian countryside: The Hill of Crosses. I heard that there are over 100,000 crosses on and around this hill. It seemed like there was were much more than that even. Various people have scattered crosses throughout this hill making this such a unique man-made wonder. I was a good reminder of how significant the cross has been in the history of our world. 

 

The Baltic Bash

After a few days in the capital Vilnius, we traveled to Klaipeda, Lithuania. (just a few kilometeres from the Baltic Sea). We are now hanging out at Lithuania Christian College (LCC). We arrived yesterday. Some of the more interesting happenings of the last couple days involved visiting the US embassy in Lithuania, dancing with a group of Polish lawyers, storming a Lithuania castle, and swimming in the Baltic Sea. At this point we haven't had more than a couple hours of class time, but the next few days will be full of classes before we catch a train to Russia. 

Lithuanian is a difficult language. Basically, the only word that I have been able to master in Lithuanian has been "thank you". Communication would be extremely awkward except for the fact that just about everyone younger than 30 speaks English, and most of them speak it quite well. 

Here is a picture of our group standing in front of the presidential palace in Vilnius. It has been fun getting to all these people. Over half of the group is from Messiah college, but there are others from Biola, Olivet, Anderson, Taylor, Milligan, and Houghton. 

Here I am standing in front of the 14th century Trakai Castle. One of our stops between Vilnius and Klaipeda.

This is the Baltic as seen from atop a sand dune. It was about as cold as the Pacific Ocean in Oregon (it will make you legs numb). We could go out really far without the water rising above our knees, subsequently there were not really any waves here. This picture is actually looking out on the small Russian territory called Kaliningrad. I got some dune jumping in. 

-AJW

In Lithuania

As I write this, I am sitting in a bed in a Lithuanian hotel called the Domus Maria ready to recline and sleep in a bed for the first time in over 72 hours. The past three days has been full of traveling, meeting new people, and exploring Vilnius, Lithuania. Traveling was long but palatable because I was able to use that time to sleep, get to know some of the many people I'll be spending the summer with, and I was reading a good book (Captain Blood, thanks Jordi). However, the one piece of unfortunate news is that one of our fellow team members misplaced his passport on the flight to Germany and could not make it to Lithuania with us. Our prayers are with him now, and we are hoping he can work it out to get here by tomorrow.

After our initial orientation. We all got some Lithuanian food, and then a lady named Irena gave us a tour of the historic parts of the city. I am digging the architecture all over the city.

Tomorrow, we'll be at the US embassy here, and we'll initiate the academic portion of the trip.

My Blog

Hello family, friends, and others. This is were you can find updates and pictures of me as I am traveling about. I'll try to post something about a couple times a week or at least between each stay in a country. I am excited for this trip, and I am looking forward to sharing it with you