Open day at Kaunas mosque

The community of Kaunas mosque provided an opportunity for anyone interested to go inside the unique Tatar mosque of Kaunas, to see a Muslim prayer, look around and enjoy food from various countries and cultures. The mosque has become an important contact point for old and new Muslim communities, the latter consisting of foreign students, workers, spouses of Lithuanians, expats …

Open day at the Bank of Lithuania in Kaunas

The Bank of Lithuania has recently celebrated the 93rd anniversary since its establishment. It is the first year that the central bank is not implementing Lithuania′s monetary policy, so people are curious about how its functions have changed since joining the eurozone. Today′s open day had people of all age groups lining up to see the original building of the …

Hamburg ice cream and crowds

Like many people I know in Hamburg, I join all remotely interesting Facebook events if they pop up somewhere. Aside from being an idea for what to do with my free time, an ice cream market in Hamburg sounded like a great new experience, particularly because Germany is a great place to enjoy vegan and lactose-free versions of popular ice …

Egypt diaries: Luxor

We knew that an 11-hour bus ride would be quite a demanding adventure, but given the choice between jumping on a night bus and skipping the planned trip to Luxor, we chose the former. The train would have been a more convenient option, but a strike erupted in one of the railway towns, and workers would not allow trains to …

Brief visit to Marijampolė

I attended a debate in Marijampolė, the seventh-largest town in Lithuania, which was an occasion to visit this town for the first time. As a regional center of Lithuania’s historically most affluent region, Suvalkija, it continuously appeared in school textbooks. Many prominent writers and Lithuanian independence activists were from this region and had studied in Marijampolė. Still, I couldn′t have …