Los Angeles, California, USA: Had to get up ridiculously early in order to make the 4:00 am bus in Santa Barbara down to LAX. I asked "which side will the sunrise be on?" and the bus driver said "...we won't see the sunrise" so hooray for early travel! Thankfully security was a breeze at such an early hour and I got to sit at my gate trying to stay awake...then had a stopover at Newark for a couple hours chatting with Regis on the phone, oddly trying to realize I'd be seeing him in just a few hours...fast forward to Birmingham 7:00 am England time and I have arrived!
Dublin, Republic of Ireland - Regis and I spent 2.5 days in the wonderful Irish city and saw the major sights:
St. Stephen's Green, Grafton Street, Trinity College, Temple Bar, a small seaside suburb called Howth and most importantly - the Guinness factory. Now I don't care for Guinness beer at all, but it was fun to see the seven-story building packed with informative information about how Guinness is made and old advertisements that state "Guinness is good for you, have a Guinness a day!" and learn that the Guinness Book of World Records is in fact related to the Guinness beer! A free pint was included in the admission price, so we got the pints on the seventh floor bar with a panoramic view of Dublin and we were able to take three sips each before deciding we still didn't like Guinness and put the glasses right back on the bar. Sorry Ireland, I know you love your milkshake of a beer, but when given the choice between Guinness in a noisy, overcrowded Dublin Temple Bar or a Beck's beer in a posh hotel piano bar, I'm going to choose the latter...and did. It was lovely! Alas, the Dublin adventure had to end with an Aer Lingus flight back to...
Coventry, England day. Other events of the week included spending hours wandering Ikea coveting furniture and lampshades, discovering what a "chip batch" is from the local fish & chips shop (it's a buttered bun with chips inside...basically a french fry sandwich), eating at aforementioned chip shop several times, watching films whilst eating delicious ice cream, experiencing Curry Night and chicken vindaloo (spicy!) and just generally enjoying myself and ha- Back to England just in time for Regis' birthday, which was celebrated in style with chicken fajitas, lots of Pringles and fancy cheeses. Dancing commenced after some wine and I ended up being a party pooper and falling asleep around midnight, but it was a fun funving fun. England was fun, but I was so looking forward to heading to...Joniškis & Klaipėda, Lithuania - Oh my beloved Lithuania...how I missed thee! I could not have guessed that I would have found myself in Lithuania so soon after tearfully leaving last summer. Regis and I left from London after a long bus ride and after having a delayed flight due to mechanical problems on our plane, we were told we'd be switching planes, then wait! they fixed it! and we were off.
I have never laughed so hard on a plane and I think the woman in front of us hasn't either - various things kept us entertained - our Polish stewardess, tiny bottles of white wine and our iPods. When we arrived in Riga, we were both starving and Regis' mother had an amazing spread of karbonadas, veggies and mashed potatoes. So nice to see that family again! After a day or two, we went to Klaipeda and it was a blast - we went by train in the morning and arrived at LCC early afternoon to hopefully surprise some old friends. Chad happened to be at home in the new dorm and Regis knocked first and Chad answered and said "oh hey, come on in" and I snuck in behind him. Chad sort of glanced behind Regis with a "who's that?" look on his face and when the recognition came, 
I believe the words were "no....unbelievable! what are you doing here?!" and so on and so forth, with great big hugs and similar sentiments when I stumbled upon Arunas, Rasa, Viktoras, Irma, Giedrė, colleagues and acquaintances on campus. I had lunch at the cafeteria and caught up with friends and then we headed off to Twelfth Floor for capirovkas and an amazing view of sunny Klaipeda before meeting Dovydas at work. After Regina also got off work we piled in the car and went to HBH for a gigantic dinner. Evaldas was on his way from Vilnius and so we met him after dinner and had a blast catching up and bedtime didn't roll around until 5 am. 
I got up relatively early to go to Akropolis to meet Cathal for lunch and some quick shoe shopping while the rest of the gang went to Chinese and the Dutch Cap...I would have loved to go as well, but unfortunately our time in Klaipeda was short short short and our train was early in the afternoon back to Joniškis. More of Regis' family had arrived for a birthday celebration and much more delicious food was served and I jotted down recipes for various cakes and cookies and hope to be able to duplicate them at home. We went to the newest Joniškis attraction - a brand new movie theatre! There were about 50 seats in a tiny theatre, and even though we were the only ones attending the movie, we were asked where we'd like our assigned seats to be. So Lithuanian! Maybe some day they will get buffets, free refills and general seating in theatres. My birthday was Sunday and I made chocolate chip cookies and enjoyed a lazy day enjoying Lithuanian sandwiches and television. Monday we ran around doing errands and got the special treat of climbing the church bell tower and seeing the town from the windows in the top. We left that evening laden down with chocolates and gifts to arrive back in Coventry at around 4 am. Phew! It was wonderful to have spent even a few days in Lithuania, and I do hope to go back sooner rather than later, but we shall see what fate brings. Back to...Coventry, Manchester & Littleborough, England - I got to spend time with Stasys finally in Manchester and Littleborough and we saw the QUEEN! of England! We were on a random street in Manchester, took the bus one stop too far and
were walking back when a line of police motorcycles and then a car passed us by with a little old lady in a pink hat and jacket that looked an awful lot like the Queen of England! Later we find out that she was in fact in Manchester in a pink outfit! Also lovely to see Stasys' family again, his mother is also an excellent cook and Manchester is such a different city than Coventry or Birmingham - full of old buildings neat alleyways filled with fire escapes and steel tubing. I bought another pair of amazing euro-shoes at the mall and Stas and I ended up eating at the same pub we ate at in November. I had a lot of fun and unfortunately had to head back to Coventry after only a couple days as I was leaving the next day...on a jet plane...don't know when I'll be back again...I packed up at Regis' house in preparation for the early 5 am departure from his house. 5 am rolled around real fast and I got to the airport in plenty of time and said goodbye and a million hours later arrived back home in California.
