Part Three- Siauliai, Trakai, and last day in Vilnius

The next morning was Sunday, and we got up super early to catch the train out to Siauliai (though still not early enough apparently because we were only about 45 seconds away from missing it!) Siauliai (pronounced Shaw-lay) was were Lewis served as the branch president back on his mission. It was a two hour train ride through beautiful country side and we even saw quite a few deer!
It rained on and off most of the time we were in Europe, and when we got to Siauliai everything was so fresh and green! We walked a few minutes to the church building, which was actually an apartment because the ward is so small there. the Sacrament meeting was held in a small room with only about 20 members there.

We got to watch a new sister be confirmed and Lewis and I were asked to bear our testimonies. After church we hung out with Lewis' good friend Skaiste and her husband Auntie and their two kids. There was also a young woman there named Usta who was baptized about a year ago but lives quite far from Siauliai. Every Friday she takes a bus to Siauliai and stays with Skaiste for the weekend so she can attend seminary on Saturday and church on Sunday, then Sunday night she takes a train back to her home. She is only 15 years old and it was so amazing to see such faith from someone so young! What was I even doing when I was 15?!
We ate lunch at Skaiste's parents house and then went to visit the Hill of Crosses.

The story with the hill of crosses as I understand it is that while Lithuania was being occupied by Russia they were prohibited from worshiping Christ. Lithuanians would sneak to this hill and put up crosses in a peaceful act of defiance against the Russian rule. Over the years it has become a symbol of "hope, peace, love, and sacrifice" and is covered by over 100,000 crosses.
After that we picked up some juice boxes and bandelas (pastries), and visited a park by the lake and this awesome park up in the woods. The pine trees there had this amazing dark red bark and it was so beautiful there!

So generous with sharing his pine cones! 

I am crazy for the wild Lilacs there! 

When we got back to Vilnius we ate the most amazing pizza ever at a place called Cili Pizza. And it was so cheap! We probably ate better for cheaper in Lithuania then we did the whole rest of our trip. The next morning we took a bus to Trakai. Trakai is a castle built on an island in the middle of a lake, but while we were walking there we got a bit nosey and found another castle that was not as well advertised as the other one. That meant we got to climb around on the walls and play with the trebushe!

 Since we got to Lithuania I noticed that all the women seemed to be carrying around fresh cut flowers (probably to put on their tables at home) but I felt a little left out. Lewis ducked into a flower booth when I wasn't looking and bought me a rose. :)
Here is the island castle.

When we got back to Vilnius we climbed to Gedimines Pilies (a castle overlooking Vilnius) and watched a storm roll in.

A view of St. Annes from above

 We could see a wall of rain coming toward us as we ran down the hill, trying not to break our ankles on the cobblestones. We barely made it under the balcony of a church before it started pouring. We were stranded there with quite a few other people who were trying to stay dry. We noticed a couple of teenage girls dancing in the rain in the square next to the church. They danced their way around the square and then down the middle of the street. It was fun to see such youthful energy!

When it finally stopped raining we met up with Brigita and Valerija, two girls that were in the Siauliai ward when Lewis was serving there. We decided to break the rules a bit and get desert before dinner. We went to this amazing gelato place and then dinner at a nice restaurant and talked the whole time about life, Valerija's upcoming mission, and the perils of wearing skirts or shorts in the winter :)

Lewis and I spent a long time walking around Vilnius and talking about life.

Part Two- Vilnius

The thing about Lithuanians is that... They are all so stinkin' Beautiful! It's hard to quite understand until you go there but to put it in perspective, the normal, average Lithuanian woman is like, an 8 or a 9 on an American scale. And it's not just my opinion, you can Google it. It's a thing.
Anyway, I was marveling about that phenomenon while we were walking down Pilies street the next morning on our way to get some crepes at this tiny cafe. Which were amazing.
The church celebration went from Friday night to all day Saturday. It was one long blur of amazing people, hugs, speakers, performances, and dancing!

 After the celebration we went back to Pilies street to eat at a place called Forto Dvaras. This place was built in the 1300's (older than most of the stuff we saw in Rome) and was actually a place that the knights would eat at back in medieval times! The most awesome thing about it is that it wasn't touristy at all. It was all just very matter-of-fact. We ate traditional Lithuanian dishes, Juodus Duonas and Cepelinai. Cepelinai was so interesting, basically what they do is extract all the liquid from potatoes, leaving kind of a potato flour, and then take the starch from the liquid they extracted earlier and mix it back into the flour, making a sort of dough mixture. Then they form the balls of dough into a football shape, stuff it with meat or cheese, and then pressure cook it. It tasted amazing, but it was just such a new texture! Like, really Really thick heavy jello. We also had potato soup in a black bread bowl that you can see in the picture.

After eating we took a walk around Old Town. We saw St. Annes Cathedral (probably the most amazing building I have ever seen), we wandered around ancient cobblestone streets and eventually found ourselves at the top of a hill next to a medieval guard tower overlooking the city. On the way back I got to sample a Kebab, which is not a skewer of meat, it's actually a burrito type thing with cabbage and lamb meat.

At the end of the night we heard this girl performing on the street. It's dark in the video but you can still hear her beautiful voice!