Lithuania--first impressions

There will probably be at least one more Ukraine post at some point in the next week or so, but I figured it was time to catch you all up on life in Klaipeda, Lithuania.

Klaipeda is a city on the Baltic Sea. For many years, it was the German port city of Mermel, but now it's Lithuanian and (as far as I can tell) few vestiges of its German past remain. I haven't seen the sea yet, but we're going there tonight for a worship service on the beach.

LCC International University, where I'm teaching this summer, is very nice. It's a Christian liberal arts college, and as far as I know, it's the only one of its kind in the former Soviet Union (Donetsk Christian University, where I taught several years ago, does more theological training, whereas LCC offers more degrees in humanities, social science, and business). They've got great facilities, very up-to-date looking, especially for Eastern Europe, and a wonderful selection of resources and technology.

There are around 40(?) teachers here for the Summer Language Institute from Canada and the United States, ranging from college students to retirees. My roommate, Linda, is a semi-retired nurse from Vancouver who has lived in Ethiopia and Egypt and travelled extensively. Several of the teachers are professors or high school teachers back home, and a few of us are ESL instructors by profession. The two people I've gotten to know the most so far are Monique, another MSU MA TESOL grad who I met last summer, and Miranda, a PhD student at Baylor University. Miranda and I are headed to Riga, Latvia tomorrow, and we're pretty excited.

General observations about Klaipeda/Lithuania:

~The biggest difference, outside of standard of living, that I've seen between Ukraine and Lithuania is their attitude towards the past. Ukraine, while they generally don't want to go back to being part of the Soviet Union, doesn't look at Communism as something that was done to them, but rather was something that they were part of. Lithuania, on the other hand, has monuments commemorating the people the Soviets deported to Siberia and plaques that mention the 50+year Soviet occupation from the 1940s until the early 1990s.

~I get around here pretty well with Russian (the most), English (occasionally), and about five words of Lithuania (in an attempt to be polite and culturally appropriate). When Monique and I got our SIM cards for our phones, the guy used English with us but fell back to Russian when he didn't know the word.

~There is a line of grocery stores here called Iki (pronounced icky, although the food is quite good). They're very nice and extensively stocked. I could get spoiled and am trying to resist the sweets. :)

~However, our dormitory is a good 25-minute walk from the university, so the occasional sweet probably won't do me in. My calves might.

~I have hot water and Internet here. Really, what more does a girl need?

if the shoes fit, pack them?

Inspired by a) reading about sensible packing on Academichic (one of my favorite blogs) and b) prior knowledge that hauling large suitcases around Eastern Europe is a royal pain, I'm attempting to limit my luggage to a small suitcase (slightly larger than a carry-on), a shoulder bag inherited from my mother (which holds more than you'd think possible), and a computer bag (recently purchased since my old one gave up the ghost in New Orleans this past March).

Deciding what clothes to take has been a somewhat complicated process, since I'm doing so many different types of activities during the 58 days I'll be gone. In Ukraine, I'll be hanging out with kids in a small town, being a bit of a tourist in Kyiv, and attending a wedding. In Lithuania, I'll be teaching, but on the weekends, I'll be traveling and possibly biking. Ukrainian summer weather is quite warm, but I'm told that Lithuania is cooler, and since we'll be on the seacoast, it may be a bit damp.

I've written and rewritten and rerewritten my packing list over the last few weeks while my students were taking quizzes, and I'm fairly happy with the results (of course, I haven't tried fitting it all in my bags yet). However, I am concerned by the amount of footwear I'm taking: everyday sandals (for Ukraine and warm days in Lithuania), dressy sandals (for the wedding), brown shoes and black shoes (for cooler teaching days), and tennis shoes (for being active). I think I'm taking more pairs of shoes for two months than I did when I left for two years in Peace Corps. Eastern Europe, you have won (except that I have no high heels or pointy toes planned).

packing, plotting, and planning

Greetings, readers! I'm once again headed overseas for the summer on Monday, and so I am once again planning to blog on a somewhat regular basis. For the benefit of people who check Facebook but not blogs, I'm planning to import my blog posts as Facebook notes. For the benefit of people who check blogs but not Facebook (hi, Mom!), I'm using Blogger. I haven't blogged regularly since the last time I went overseas in 2009, so hopefully I can get used to expressing myself in longer forms than status updates or tweets.

What are my summer plans? So glad you asked. For the first two weeks, I'll be in Balaklia, Kharkivska Oblast, Ukraine, visiting friends from my Peace Corps days. Partway through that time, my friend Melanie, who's been teaching in Poland, will make the journey from western Poland to eastern Ukraine, and then we'll head to Kyiv for a day or so. After that, I'm headed to Klaipėda, Lithuania for a month to teach at LCC International University's Summer Language Institute. I'll be there from June 27-July 24. At that point, I head back to Ukraine for my friend Natasha's wedding, and on August 3, I fly back to the US. At that point, if past history is any indication, I'll stop blogging on any sort of even quasi-regular basis.