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