So...pretty much my 'one day weekend' was not as bad as I was thinking it would be. We had a holiday weekend last week that included two days off from work, and so the official make up day was Saturday and so I went into work yesterday. Apparently, according to Lithuanian labor laws, on Fridays the work day ends an hour early so I got to go home a little early and get my pizza topping for the pizza making party at a faculty member's house. The get together was fun, and lots of staff/faculty showed up, so I met new people and got to chat further with some that I had previously been introduced to. Then I got a random text message (Lithuanians call them 'SMS' - which stands for 'Short Message System') from Giedre, asking if she could spend the night at my house. She was visiting a friend in Palanga and couldn't go home that night on the train/bus and so needed a place to sleep for the night. So, I met her and we had coffee and watched Pirates of the Caribbean and drooled over Johnny Depp. The next morning, we had more coffee and went to 'brunch' and poked around shops looking at shoes and trinkets while waiting for Rasa & Stasys to join us at a pub in Old Town. I then proceded to order, receive and partake of the best milkshake I've ever had in Klaipeda. Usually milkshakes are pretty much like frothy flavored milk and not so much ice-creamy, but this one was the more like a milkshake as I'm used to, so it was a delicious surprise. It was so fun to just enjoy the beautiful day with friends and not worry about papers being due or a project to finish (though that's something I keep forgetting I won't really have to worry about...potentially ever again...academically at least). So the day was spent walking around sunny Klaipeda and going to cafes and drinking coffee and milkshakes and 'greipfrutu sultys' (grapefruit juice) - a favorite of mine because almost all restaurants have it for cheap and I can never find it in the States.
Sitting around the table with some of the Lithuanian friends I hung out with most last semester and on my visit this spring, I felt so at ease and never an awkward pause or out of place - really as if I never was gone. It's funny how you can be away from people for an extended period of time and then see them again and pick up the friendship, conversations and daily interaction as if no time had passed from the last meeting. I experienced that when JoAnn was gone for two semesters straight and then saw her again after we had both been through so much, but our friendship picked right up from the last time we saw each other - pretty much how I feel with the Lithies so far :)
So, I have a 10 lita bet going with Stasys about a Madonna song and whether or not she says something in Lithuanian. The song is 'Sorry' and includes Madonna saying 'sorry' or 'forgive me' in different languages, and so she says it in Japanese, Spanish, Hindi, etc - and the 'Lithuanian' in question is listed as a Polish word in all the literature I can find online. I agree that it sounds like the Lithuanian phrase for 'go away, please' but it doesn't make sense to have her saying go away, when she's saying sorry in all the other languages. The battle has waged online in various forums whether or not it's Lithuanian, and it seems like the excuse that the Polish word is mispronounced is widely accepted because she uses an incorrect Dutch phrase in the song as well. I already won the war on this issue with Regis, so I predict my wallet will grow 10 lita richer one of these days...
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