February is my favorite month of the year. It is the last month of winter; my birthday is in February and some nice special days happen in February.
Fat Tuesday is known as Užgavėnės in Lithuania. Užgavėnės is a big celebration when people dress into animals, witches, or other strange people, eat pancakes, sing, dance and burn Morė (artificial woman usually made with straw) in a bonfire. All these activities are meant to get winter out and invite spring to come. The celebration is a mix of Christian and Pagan traditions. I definitely wanted to show kids how Užgavėnės are celebrated and what masks people usually make. They had a celebration at school, and we also went to the largest outdoor museum in Rumšiškės, which puts a daylong celebration. We made masks, ate pancakes cooked on fire with bacon, danced and soaked in the last days of winter. Can you guess who is who in the pictures? Hint, one of them is not a member of our family.
February 16 is Lithuania’s Independence Day. I remember those celebrations in the early 1990s as boring times filled with sad speeches and songs. It is so different now. Houses are dressed with flags, people wear Lithuanian flag attributes (hats, scarfs, pins). The day starts with signing the national anthem at public places. People wish each other “gražios šventės“ (have a nice celebration) or „su mūsų gimtadieniu“ (happy birthday to all of us). Every main city have their celebration. In Vilnius, there were many activities throughout the day, but 16 bonfires in Gediminas prospektas in the evening were spectacular. Anyone could add wood to the fire. Folk groups were singing by most of the bonfires, and you could join the signing. So many people were in the streets! All happy, excited, showing fires filled with love of the country for their kids. I am very proud how we celebrate the Independence day in the 2020s.
The next day was my birthday. Last time I celebrated my birthday in Lithuania was 25 years ago. This was the first time I ever celebrated my birthday in Vilnius.
If you know me, I had to have a party. I invited many friends and asked everyone to bring a salad. There was a competition for the best salad – everyone had to taste all salads and got one vote. People picked cities as secret names for their salads, and we all voted for favorite cities (I mean salads). Los Angeles salad won – it was with chicken and pomegranates. No birthday is without a cake. I bought two – Napoleonas and a meringue cake with hazelnut cream from my favorite bakery Pinavija. My friends brought more desserts, so we were all set. I was so happy to celebrate my day with my friends since childhood and school years and with some friends from early Chicago times. What a blessing to have long lasting relationships! Feeling a bit homesick for Madison, I showed a brief presentation about Madison, Wisconsin, cheese curds, Žaibas dancers and a wonderful Lithuanian community that lives in Madison.
I need to get to the topic of the city of lights. I visited Paris twice this February. It so happened that we bought tickets to go to Paris during kids mid-winter break (all schools have a week long break in February) and I also went to Paris on a work related trip for a workshop at the OECD.
The short summary: in my opinion French food is really good, architecture is elaborate, museums are huge and the Eiffel tower in the background is an impressive element. Now on to a longer story.
Maybe a strange way to start the story, but I went to Paris with a goal to buy a traditional French paring knife (if you only had one knife, this is the knife to have). OK, we had some other goals, including eating croissants and seeing Mona Lisa. The first morning we were supposed to go to the Eiffel tower and get a tour. Well, in a true French style, the Eiffel tower workers went on strike and our tour was cancelled. We decided just to walk to the Marais neighborhood and on the way, I found a BHV department store where I bought some knives (one pretty big chef knife (bigger version of the pairing knife) and a collection of smaller knives that included that infamous paring knife).
We continued our walk in the city and then we had timed tickets to the D‘Orsey museum. Once we got thru the door and had to go through the metal detector, I realized that I still had knives in my bag. I pretended like I was a lousy tourist, put my bag on a conveyer and walked through. The guy who was checking the bags turned away, I smiled and quickly took my bag from the conveyor thinking that maybe no one noticed anything. Apparently the xerox pictures of your belongings stay frozen on a screen and suddenly I heard in English „vow vow vow , these are huge knives. Real big one. Hold on.“ Ms. Aksamitauskas had to pause. We took the knives out of the bag, looked at them. I said that I just bought them at a store and didn‘t unpack them yet. Lucky for me, they have the whole procedure for people who come with knives to one of the most popular museums in Paris (!!!). A woman from the security carried my knife to the coat check in and checked in my knife (only the big one, I could still have the smaller knives with me). Before leaving the museum, the procedure was similar – a person from security carried my knife from the coat room to the exit door so I wouldn‘t be able to go to the museum with the knife.
D‘Orsey museum is really amazing. It has the original statute of liberty, lots of statutes from ancient times, endless halls of paintings, and of course, the famous impressionists (Monet, Renoir) and Van Gogh‘s Starry night. Seeing originals is special even when you are in a crowd of hundreds of people who are trying to take selfies of those paintings and you get in some of those selfies.
Next day was for Louvre. Again, we bought tickets in advance with a timed entry and still had to wait outside for 30 min to get inside. I didn’t carry any knives or sharp objects this time. The pyramid entrance is spectacular. You get downstairs and suddenly realize that will need a map to figure out where to go. I don’t know how to describe the size of the palace. Chicago’s Art Institute seems small, and museums in Lithuania would fit in the entry lobby of the Louvre. We saw so much art at the Louvre. We lasted 4 hours and toured only one floor. Obviously, we started with Mona Lisa. It does hypnotize you, but it is a pretty small painting, it is under glass and once you pass a crowd of admirers you are still pretty far out from the painting. We bought a few small souvenirs for the memory, but what really astonished me were all the shops AFTER you leave the museum. The shops seemed never ending, offering one intriguing item after another. I have never seen such an impressive tourist trap. They do know how to make money!
Versailles palace was on the next day’s itinerary. It was rainy and windy. We took a train and went about 12 kilometers west of Paris to the chateau of Versailles. With a guided tour we saw a lot of gold and learned about the French history. I don’t envy the French students – there were so many Louises (Louis XIV, Louis XV), they probably have to memorize wigs and recognize paintings and statutes of different kings. We took photos of Louis XV bedroom and Antoinette bedroom (it is missing the bed because it was made of silver and later used to make silver bullets), but the decorations and gold there are astonishing. All the doors have gold decorations but since so many tourists come, the doors are now covered with glass panels. For the grand finale of the tour, we went to the Hall of Glasses where the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I was signed in 1919. For a few million euros, you can rent the Hall of Glasses and have your own party there. King Charles from the UK recently had a reception there with $2,000 charge for a wine bottle. Maybe that’s after another 25 years for me (wink wink). I really wanted to see the gardens of Versailles, but they got closed due to heavy rain that day. Probably an item for another trip as well.
When we got back to Paris, the rain stopped, and the sun came out. The streets of Paris seemed so photogenic at that time.
We kept walking and taking pictures. We had a seafood feast with oysters, prawns, snails and a plate of frog legs. Even the kids felt they checked off their bucket list of foods to try.
We ended the day by the Eiffel tower. We had tickets (second attempt) to the tower for the next morning and, not surprisingly, the French went on strike again and we were glad we saw the Eiffel tower at night.
We spent our last day in Montmartre. We walked a lot, ate crepes and took a touristy train ride around the neighborhood. Dominick insisted on the train ride and we really enjoyed it once they started playing traditional French songs.
I also brought back to Vilnius sardines, green lentils, salt, chocolate, cheese, sausages and meats. Pictures below.
Paris is hosting summer Olympics in 2024. The city is under construction and beautification all over. I can’t imagine the crows at the museums during that time. February is low season for tourists and, trust me, we didn’t feel lonely anywhere. OK, one thing the French have not figured out yet is the subway tickets. You can’t pay with your smartphone or credit card. You have to buy paper tickets in a machine, it takes about 10 clicks. It took me three attempts to buy us round trip tickets to Versailles. Quite a big line formed behind us and both Vaidas and I were sweating by that machine. Maybe they will just make subways free during the games.
The last Lithuanian February phenomenon is the Vilnius book fair. It is not like a visiting a big book store, it is huge event that book publishers, authors and readers wait for the whole year. Everyone gathers for 4 days at the biggest exposition place (the same place were the NATO summit happened) and it is crowded. Seems like the whole Lithuania comes there. We didn’t even attempt to drive there, we took a cab and asked to let us out before we hit the traffic. Once you get inside, you see endless book stands. There are more publishers than you could imagine that a country of 3 million can afford (and have time to read). Then you see people carrying bags of books. Authors are standing by their books, telling stories what inspired them to write, signing books, etc. And then there are talks. Maybe 3-5 happening at the same time. There were about 40 talks on Saturday when we went. You have to figure out if you want to hear an author presenting their book or listen to a conversation about a specific societal or literature topic. Music hall is in a separate building where there are usually a few simultaneous concerts and lots of performers are selling their vinyl records. We spent half a day at the book fair. I went to two talks, kids listened to a music performance. We talked to three authors. As my friends say, it is not an event, it is a Lithuanian phenomenon. **some photos are from the event's facebook page. I was at awe and forgot to take my own pictures**
Au revoir, friends. Spring is coming to Vilnius (and Madison) and I have to read those books I bought.
