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 …
Egypt diaries: Alexandria
Why am I writing about my old trip (2011) to Egypt? I explain . [Diary] “This used to be a marvelous city,” everyone tells me, and it seems that locals here are more adequate to their environment, more natural. Signboards still remember what it used to be like, some streets have their names still written in French, and the place …
Hanami in Kaunas
Feeling very nostalgic about my proper hanami in Tokyo in 2009, I attended a Japanese Embassy / Sugihara Museum event in Kaunas, where a Japanese performance artist Kirie Oda cooperated with Lithuanian violinist and singer to create a performance around Sugihara House, which used to be the Japanese consulate before WWII and now hosts a Sugihara museum, foundation, and VMU …
Egypt diaries: Cairo
I went to Egypt in April 2011, but I was so busy that I hardly wrote anything about it. One exception is this article for Cafe Babel. I spent hours showing photos and telling stories to family and friends, but all of them were still waiting to be ′immortalized′ in the blog. I found an old notebook that I used …
Cyprus impressions: ancient ruins at your fingertips
As my travel companion Ugnė wrote (in Lithuanian), Cyprus is rich in well-preserved and accessible ruins, particularly in Famagusta, which she calls the capital of antique ruins. As I wrote in my , people interact with objects in a very direct and laid-back way. Sterility of museums seems to be alien to the local culture. There are museums, of course, …
Cyprus reflections: houses and balconies
I continue blogging about my recent trip to . I generally enjoy looking at buildings, although several of my friends are by far more knowledgeable about architecture. In Mediterranean countries I like taking pictures of shutters – I think this is a detail that really makes a difference (I found them even on apartment blocks in !). Sometimes I would …
Tallinn: like at home, but better
Estonia is often presented as Lithuania’s archetypical competitor, and, judging from many media reports, it seems that the main goal for Lithuania is to be ahead of Estonia one day. Personally, I grew up with my dad’s stories from Tallinn, after he did an internship there in the 1970s, about how Estonia was more western in many ways. Access to …
Idyllic in Budapest
Margit island, Budapest (click on the image to enlarge it)
Gothenburg notes: money and leisure
My most regular readers will think that birthday makes me overly nostalgic. But in fact, searching for some long-lost research notes, I discovered notebooks that I had long forgotten. One of these unexpected treasures is my very detailed notes from studies in Sweden. Below are my impressions from fall 2005. Some prices are too much even for the Swedes. So …
The most impressive sights in Seoul
It’s been a long time (3 years) since I went to Seoul, but, having found my guidebooks, notes and other things to lend them to my colleague, I realized that memory is fading fast, so I should record it now. The only blog entry I wrote about that trip .