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| The calm before the storm... |
I didn't register what he was upset about. He took me by the shoulders and yelled, "The FRIDGE!"
And suddenly I remembered.
When we first got into our apartment I was a little paranoid about someone breaking in and stealing our stuff. Specifically, our passports and the bulk of our cash. It seemed like a good idea at the time to hide our valuables, so that if someone did break in all they would make off with would be our clothes and shampoo. The fridge seemed as good a place as any, so we wrapped up the passports and the cash in a dishtowel and put it in a dark corner of the fridge. We hid it so well... that we forgot it existed until we were at the station, already having dropped the key to the apartment into a locked box for the owner who was out of town!
We frantically grabbed a taxi and drove back to try to break into the apartment. The taxi driver was so nice and even grabbed his tool set to help Lewis pry his way back into the box the keys were in. Ultimately we were successful in getting our stuff, but we did miss the train. And we couldn't call to let Gedas (Lewis' employee) know we would be late, because we needed to find wifi to make a Skype call. We ran over to the bus station and just barely squeezed into a bus that would only get us there about 45 minutes late. I got to sit in a pop up seat next to the driver, which was cool :)
When we got there we got ahold of Gedas and his wife Natalija and hung out with them for the rest of the day. We saw another awesome castle, walked around Kaunas Old Town and got the best view of the city from the top of a really tall church.
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| They couldn't loose one of those kids if they tried! |
Gedas and Natalija were nice enough to take us to the airport in Kaunas where we were going to catch our plane to the Frankfurt Haun Airport. Up until this point I maintain that the only "culture shock" I had experienced was how expensive water was there. But when we started "lining up" for our RyanAir flight, I got to experience another European quirk. I was standing in line, no ambiguity as to what the order was, I was the first and only one in line, and this lady kinda shuffles past me with her suitcase, and stands right in front of me. It was especially obvious because the line was roped off. I was Seething. I don't think something has made me that angry in a Long long time. Lewis came and found me as Another person ducked under the line, RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! "Have they no shame?!" I hissed at Lewis. He explained that it was a cultural thing, and that the best way to avoid that is to not leave two inches between you and the person in front of you.
Boarding the RyanAir flight was a circus, but somehow we were able to find seats next to each other on the plane. We had kind of a rough landing in a very drizzly Frankfurt. When all of the wheels hit the ground everybody on the plane erupted in applause which I thought was kinda funny. We had an hour and a half to wait for the bus that would take us to the nearest train station in Koblenz and while we were waiting we met a Lithuanian girl who was waiting for the same bus. She enjoyed talking to Lewis in her own language and kept telling how "nice" his voice sounded. So few people learn Lithuanian as a second language that the concept of an accent doesn't really exist. We imagine Lewis' voice sounded "nice" to her the same way an English accent sounds "nice" to Americans.
We got to Koblenz at about 8:30 pm. The train we needed to catch was set to leave at 12:30 am and we were a tiny bit worried because it required a reservation that we hadn't made yet. But we figured we could make it at the train station right? WRONG!
The guy working the Information desk was very unhelpful and told us that without a reservation we wouldn't get on the train, but that he couldn't do it and the person who could had left for the night. There was also a number we could call, but we didn't have wifi and Lewis spent 5 euros on hold on a pay phone before we finally called it quits. We grabbed a bite to eat at Mcdonalds since it was the only place open, and then waited, cold tired and anxious for the bus to come to see if they would let us sneak on. While we were waiting I discovered with outrage that they charged a euro to use the bathroom. That's extortion right? I fell asleep for a few minutes on Lewis' lap until it was time to wait at the terminal.
We ended up getting on the train with no problem. We put the arm rests up on a couple seats were able to sleep fairly comfortably that night.
That day we traveled via trolley, taxi, bus, car, plane, bus again, and train.
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