We had a three day weekend because Monday was Estonian Independence Day. I probably would have wanted to say in Tartu if anything big was being celebrated here, but the parade was being held somewhere else, so we decided to make a quick trip to Lithuania.
Ariail, Laura and I left our dorm at about 1:40 am to walk to the bus station. We had assigned seats but some people were already sitting in them so we sat somewhere else. It ended up actually working better because we each got a row to ourselves. The ride went by pretty quick since I was able to lay down and sleep. We arrived in Riga and had about an hour and half wait until our next bus to Vilnius. We were all still so groggy that we just wanted to be on the bus already! Once we got on the bus we each had a row to ourselves again. The ride went by quickly again and we arrived in Vilnius around eleven. We stopped for lunch at McDonalds (don't judge us) and then continued to walk to the apartment we had rented for the weekend. Ariail found the room through Airbnb and it was a really nice place! The woman who lived there was very nice and showed us around the small but charming apartment before she left. She left all sorts of stuff for us so our stay would be comfortable such as lots of blankets, towels and maps of the city. Her only real rule was to not store meat in the fridge since she is a vegetarian. We had been planning on taking a nap once we got there but found our lunch had seemed to wake us up. We watched a little bit of Harry Potter before we decided to head out and just take a quick look around. The architecture of the town is very mixed but beautiful. We walked through some shops, crossed a bridge where there is a mermaid fountain and looked quickly through a small market. We headed back to the apartment, finished the movie and at around five thirty headed out for dinner. We had decided to eat out one night and then cook the other. We went to a german restaurant and holy crap was the food amazing. Ariail got a bratwurst and Laura and I got schnitzel. All of our meals came with pan fried potatoes and red or sour cabbage. Once we started eating I'm pretty sure the only words said for about ten minutes were "this is so amazing" and "I love the Germans." We were stuffed by the end but still decided to get two creme brûlées because we could. We watched another Harry Potter movie and debated about making brownies that night, but decided instead to wait until the next night.
We woke up at about eleven and Ariail made pancakes with chocolate! Yummy! We then walked through some shops again, the cathedral square and walked through the Cathedral of Vilnius. We walked a little more until we went into a grocery store. There was a section with these really cute ready to drink cocktails. I decided to try a rum and coke/gin and tonic because they weren't that expensive and I wanted to see if I like anything alcoholic. I also got a box of Vanilla Rooibos Te because it's my favorite. We then walked up the Hill of Three Crosses, a pretty major symbol of Vilnius. The hike was pretty but it reminded me how out of shape I am. We took a few pictures of the pretty view and then headed down the steps. This was probably worse then walking up because they were steep and I was worried about tripping. We headed back to the apartment and then Ariaii made a yummy dinner of potatoes, hot dogs (closest to sausage she could find) and tomatoes. After we ate Ariail started to make the brownies (Anyone else notice a trend here? She is the reason why Laura and I didn't starve this trip) and they were amazing! We had vanilla ice cream on top to make it even better. We decided to watch Pirates of the Caribbean but we were all a little distracted. We decided to get up at ten so we could go to a few shops before we headed to the bus station.
After Ariail made pancakes in the morning, we packed up and then headed back to a few shops we wanted to look at again. One of them wasn't open even though it was their business hours, so that was sort of a bummer. We couldn't spend much time looking since our bus left at noon, so we headed back to the apartment to grab our stuff and then we walked to the bus station. We got there at a pretty good time and didn't have to wait around long for the bus. We got on and, once again, we each had a row to ourselves. It was another perfectly fine bus ride and we arrived at Riga at around four in the afternoon. Our next bus didn't leave for about three hours, so Laura and I went to grab something to eat while Ariail checked out a church before the sun set. Once she rejoined us, we walked around a little until we found a cafe. We sat and drank lattes for about half an hour before we walked around again. We didn't really see anything specific but we were enjoying the architecture of the building.
We headed back to the bus but this time it was a very full bus, so none of us got to sit on our own. Laura and Ariail got to sit next to each other but I was next to a stranger. Let's just say I don't think she was playing with a full deck. Also, there were tv screens for us to use but the one in front of me was broken, so I had nothing to do for four hours. At first I thought the woman might be sleep talking but then I realized she was just yelling things out and yelling at the bus driver. Admittedly, the bus ride did take longer than it should have, so she did have some reason to complain. I'm still not sure what happened but we were going in circles for a bit and then at one point started the direction back to Riga. A girl sitting behind Laura and Ariail told them she thought the driver said we had lost someone so we were going to get them. I had no idea what this meant. Only one person had gotten off the bus, a sort of drunk guy, and he had gotten back on. For a minute I thought she meant we might be heading back to Riga, about two hours back, but then we started to head back to Tartu. Weird. A couple sitting in front of me got off about forty minutes early which meant I could move into their seats. This was very good since the lady next to me had started fighting with the drunk guy for talking and was doing weirds stuff like grabbing my hand to hold her yogurt. Once I moved to the other seat I was able to watch a movie until we got to Tartu.
As you can see from the pictures, the trip was full of very beautiful things to see. I'm very glad we were able to take advantage of the long weekend!
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