Snow Snow Snow Snow

Thank you Lithuanian pagan god of snow! He finally saw my snow dances, laughed and took pity on me. There is snow on the ground! My balcony is covered in beautiful, white, perfectly powdery snow...and it was baby blizzarding all night so everything was perfectly smooth until morning when it was trudged and driven through. No worries though, as more is on the way! I even have a fire going in my fireplace because it's pretty cold out now, a drastic 15 degree drop (C) from last week.

My dinner party was a hit! Every morsel of food was gone, and someone even did the dishes for me! Preparing everything was so fun, and I had some help from those who came early. I combined two recipes for chili and it turned out great, and the lasagna was perfect as always. Custard pie is a snap to make, so I'm sure I'll be making it more often for 'events' and I would like to plan these dinner things more often. It went so smoothly - those who wanted to play poker could do so in one room, while those who wanted to watch a movie could do so in another and those who wanted to do neither could do so in the other other room. Photos will be posted soon!

In other news...I 'taught' my first class today to a man who wants to improve his English. We'll meet every week day for an hour after work at LCC, and I found a great resource online with worksheets and lesson plans, so I will be more prepared tomorrow. I am also working on my own Lithuanian, but I've hit exceptions to grammar rules, plurals and all kinds of fun stuff...so it's not flying by as I had hoped. I will prevail though! Viva Lietuva!

In other other news...I worked out for the first time yesterday in...several years maybe? I almost died on the eliptical machine, but I pushed myself to hit 15 minutes so I wouldn't be such a wuss to my work out buddy who was just plugging away without a care in the world for another 15 minutes after I crawled off the machine. I'm supposed to go again tomorrow, so my days are just getting more packed and packed with English tutoring and shaping up! Here's to slim, buff Chelsea who teaches English in her spare time while volunteering at a Christian university in Lithuania!

I Love to Bake

Snow is coming! The weather forcast predicts flurries and cold weather - finally! Stepping outside is no longer as bearable as it used to be with the windchill factor and an official hurricane that occured last week - but if it means I get to throw snowballs and wear bundley clothing...then hooray for croquet! Anyway, enough about the weather!

I am having a dinner party/poker night/goodbye to a friend event tomorrow night and I am so excited! I just took a custard pie out of the oven, and popped in two chocolate cakes to make a black forest cake. Tomorrow I'll be making lasagna and chili and some other side dishes for my 10 guests. I am so appreciating my oven at the moment and I just love to cook! I'm sure I will write a full report of the event after tomorrow :)

The Familiar Smell of Routine

Ah, routine. Back to work, back to seeing friends who are refreshingly not so bogged down by homework (yet), back to Biskvitas lunches, back to...rain! Though, it has been devilishly windy here - while walking to the bus stop this morning against the wind, I was actually slowed down by the force of it. I've even had to resort to wearing my 'Mom, I can't put my arms down' coat because my precious pea-coat isn't up to par on cutting out the cold. Function wins over fashion for the moment...mew. And still no snow on the horizon, which I am hoping doesn't mean that for the first time in Lithuanian history (probably) a winter will pass without snow. Last year's winter was horrendous I hear, with temperatures dropping to 30 below (C, not F). Thankfully it has hovered right around 7-9 C, so not unbearable.

Last night I watched a scary movie that capitalized on doors opening when you know you closed them, hearing footsteps when nobody's around and other creepola things instead of thrusting guts at your face which isn't scary, but just gross. Needless to say I was a fraidy cat, with the wind shaking the windows and my creaky wooden floors, and had to sleep with a light on. I'm 22 years old and I have to check my closets and sleep with a night light? Come on! Of course, this has always been the case, unless I had my sister or Ronan or someone to be there with me in case something spooky happened. And of course I won't stop watching such movies, because for some reason, it is almost fun to be scared...Oooogey boooogey!

I received a package today from my mother full of 'essentials' like Kleenex tissues, Scalloped potato mixes, brown sugar, foundation and 3M wall hooks. Weeeeeee! Thanks, Mom!

That's all - just felt like updating a bit!

New Years in Finland!

What a way to spend the New Year - in Helsinki, Finland! It was my first New Year not in California in or around Lompoc, so it was a unique experience for that fact alone...but by being in Finland, it made it all the more awesome.

Christmas, too was wonderful - spending it with a friend's family made it special and again, it was one of my first holidays not in California (or WI) with my own family. Language skills were put to the test, and my belly was constantly full of delicious home made dishes - I'm sure I've gained a few pounds. Everyone was warm and kind and made me feel right at home. I baked chocolate chip cookies, which were a hit and gone within minutes. Presents were opened after dinner on Christmas eve in a free-for-all frenzy, so I got to see what everyone received the next morning when everyone was re-examining their gifts. I received generous presents from everyone, which was unexpected and lovely. Christmas dinner consisted of a specific set of 12 dishes which included lots of herring (delicious!), stuffed carp, potatoes, salads and other stuff i don't remember. Basically, there was plenty of food for leftovers the next morning to snack on. I got to see small villages in the countryside, a funny house covered in pots and bowls (pictured), old cemeteries, and rye fields everywhere.

So, on to Helsinki - I was in four countries in one day! That's 4 stamps in my passport, baby! Latvia made us nervous because the lines to get in were unbelievable and the border guards were taking their sweet time checking people...talking, smoking, changing shifts, standing around...ugh! It took us almost an hour to get through into Latvia and 30 seconds to get into Estonia...our hypothesis was that it was because women were working the Estonian border. The same story goes for the drive back across both borders - 30 seconds and no line because women were working! Girl power!

Anyway - we took a three hour ferry into Helsinki, hopped on a trolley straight to our hotel - which was amazing. Our rooms were upgraded to superior class which entitled us to the use of an executive lounge with free internet and snackies, which were more than welcome in a country on the Euro with food prices much higher than our broke Lithuanian wallets wanted to handle. There was a sauna and pool, and an amazingly huge breakfast that we filled up on so we didn't have to spend money on said expensive food. We even brought our own stuff to make sandwiches. The weather was gloomy, but picture worthy and everything was still decked out for Christmas. Beautiful architecture was all over the city, and many parks with joggers - not a usual sight in Lithuania. There were churches everywhere - and we met the New Year in Senate Square in front of the big cathedral pictured. There was a speech by the Lord Mayor, performances by fire artists and musical groups and lots and lots of fireworks. Hooray for 2007! Photos are up in the Lithuania 2006 folder, and I will start a new folder called Lithuania 2007 for the remainder of my stay here so it's easier to distinguish when things happened and keep me more organized.