Hill of Crosses (Siaulai)

Siaulai from Hotel Room

 Siaulai (pronounced shaulai) is a city in the centre-northern part of Lithuania, very close to Ryga, the capital of Latvia. While slowly walking to my hotel from the train station, my back breaking from the weight of my backpack, the first thing I noticed was the large number of youths in the city. I don't know why, but Siaulai gave me the feel of those suburban towns in the US where young guys huddle together over smokes or booze to talk big about how they're going to escape from town in their mother's car and never return. The city's only got one main pedestrian street where all the restaurants, cafes, bars and clubs are. There doesn't seem to be much beyond that. The only picture I took of the city was from my hotel room, on the top floor of the Siaulai Hotel - a soviet era concrete block of a building. Apparently it has recently been renovated, but the soviet spirit still remains. The rooms are comfortable, but austere and very functional; The furniture and paint are outdated and dull; at breakfast a hotel staff chases you around asking for you 'breakfast ticket!' But the hotel was such a welcoming sight after having stayed in a wooden cottage for two days - at last, wi-fi in my room and the facility to do laundry! By the way, the laundromat concept does not exist in Lithuania. All homes have washing machines. If not, then private companies will pick up dirty clothes from your home and return the lot on the same day or the next. If neither is available, well... Lithuania is rich with rivers. Seems I went off on a tangent... Ah, here's my old line of thought - so, why did I include Siaulai on my itinerary? Quite simply because of a very interesting sight called the 'Hill of Crosses.' Its title is self-explanatory: it is a hill covered with crosses. But it's the significance of the sight and how that significance changed over time that makes the place interesting.    

Hill of Crosses

It was a sunny day when I made my way to the Hill of Crosses. Rather than take the bus I decided I'd rent a bike and cycle all the way there (about 12 km). The city soon ended and gave way to green fields and tall trees. After about 45 minutes of cycling up and down hills, ingesting a few of those small flies that have nothing better to do but hover in the air on your cycling path, I finally made it to the sight. The hill stood near a winding river and tall trees. There was a gentle breeze blowing, the chime of metal crosses rang softly in the air. When I arrived there was a Polish congregation in front of the hill reciting something that sounded like a liturgy.      

Hill of Crosses

Although it isn't known exactly when the practice of planting these crosses first started and why on that particular hill, it is believed that people started out of religious reasons sometime during the 18th century. The political climate then changed: in the late 18th century Lithuania became part of the Russian empire. Lithuanians then started putting up crosses on the hill in remembrance of rebels who lost their lives fighting for independence. Independence was won, then lost to the Germans first during WWII then to the USSR in 1944. During Soviet occupation, from 1944-1990, Lithuanians planted crosses on the hill as a sign of their national identity and to protest against soviet occupation. The soviets bulldozed the sight a number of times, but Lithuanians kept on coming back to plant even more crosses.

Hill of Crosses

According to Wikipedia the number of crosses was estimated at 55,000 in the year 1990. There probably are over hundreds of thousands of them by now. After walking up, down and around the hill I sat down on a nearby bench to eat lunch. A small number of tourists walked by me, mostly belonging to some tour. From their language I made out Germans, Russians, English and even a Japanese couple. It's like an open air church - they look at the hill in solemn admiration. This sight does not attract droves of tourist. The people that make their way there are usually on pilgrimage, to listen to the chime of crosses and remember. 

A Soviet in the Grocery Store!

One of the things I said I'd do during my trip in Eastern Europe is to learn a few words from the local language. Not only will it make it easier to communicate with others but it also facilitates the immersion intova foreign culture. I picked the basics: 'Hello', 'good day', 'thank you', 'please', 'I don't speak Lithuanina', 'do you speak English?', 'toilets', 'coffee', 'wine', 'beer' and so on. So far it's been working well - people seem to be happy that I've actually made an effort to learn a few words from their language.

Confident with my grasp of what few Lithuanian words I know (it's only my second day in Vilnius) and armed with my Thomas Cook book on Eastern European languages I walked into a grocery to buy food. On my list is bread, sausage and cheese. Inside the grocery store there are two counters: one to my right and one to my left. I first approached the one on the right. Prashow (please) I say and pointed to sausage and cheese. The kind old lady put the food in a bag, rang me up at the till then handed the bag to me. Success! I now turned to the counter on my left. Prashow (please) I say. The old woman looked at me with cold eyes like I've insulted her mother. Roughly in her 60's I'd say and probably one of those nostalgic for the good-old Soviet years. She'd fit perfectly well back in the soviet days when stores were almost empty and the people working there had the power to help you, or not. There probably is a picture of Stalin in her bedroom, hung on the wall opposite her bed so he'd be the first thing she sees every morning. But her eyes spoke to me. They spoke in English. Well, not quite... They spoke in an accent so thick in Russian that there was no English left. But I made out the sentence - the only English sentence she ever learned. It was thrown at my face in disgust: Mother F***. But it sounded more like: "Mo-Ther-F***!".  I swallowed my saliva and timidly pointed at the black bread. She grabbed the wrong one. Ne (no), I said, and pointed to the on her left. She got all pissed off, grabbed it and rang me up at the till: 3.30 Lita. I took out all the coins in my pocket and counted them. It took a few seconds - there were a lot of coins (there are coins for 1,2 and 5 Lita. In addition to that, each Lita is divided into 100 Centai!). The total came out to less than 3 Lita. She kept on staring at me with that cold and impatient look. I put the coins back in my pocket and pulled out my wallet. All those coins in my pocket suddenly came back out again and fell to the ground, their chime echoing throughout the store. I remained as calm as possible and bent over to picked up the coins one by one. A kind lady even went out of her way to stoop down and point out a coin that fell behind someone's shoe, her finger nearly touching the coin. Trying to brush off this embarrassing situation I shrugged and smiled at the lady behind the counter. "Mo-Ther-F***!" her eyes said to me before taking the note in my hand and handing me my change and bread. 

Slavic witch, I should have beaten you with my sausage...     

Romain Gary

I'm in Vilnius, outside the old town. Up the street is a Russian orthodox church with bright green onion domes. Down the street, someone is climbing out of a big dumpster. The old building behind me is fenced off with wooden planks - now canvas for graffiti. In front of me is another old and derelict building. On the lower left corner is a bronze plaque that states (roughly translated from French to English):

The French writer and diplomat 

Romain Gary 

(Vilnius 1914 - Paris 1980)

Lived from 1917 to 1923 in this house 

That he mentions in his novel 

"La Promesse de L'aube"  (The Promise of Dawn)

Romain Gary was raised by his mother, a strong and eccentric lady with the singular objective to leave Lithuania with her son and move to France. And by eccentric I mean the type that would have no problems dressing up her boy in tattered clothes and putting on a grand act just to sway the situation her way. She started off as an actress, then became a tailor of some sort and later did odd jobs just to put food on the table. However difficult the situation she always prepared three meals a day for Romain, even at her dietary expense. The book "La Promess de L'aube" gave me the impression of her as a mother who, even as she pushed forward to paving a better future, made it a rule to everyday spend time with her son. Among other things, she taught him how to speak French, drilled him in the mannerisms of aristocrats and encouraged in him the wiles of a dandy - a real man, to her, is one who can wrap a lady tight around his finger. She took for granted that her son would have a bright future. This was not a matter of clairvoyancy, but justice: for, in her mind, something had to pay off after such a difficult life. In dramatic gestures and in a booming voice that only a stage actor can muster she would tell the child Romain how, in the future, he would serve honourably in the French army, become a respected diplomat and a great artist. 

And so he did - just as his mother said. Romain Gary served in the Free French Air Force during WWII, then became a diplomat and a famous writer. Romain even dressed in the 'English' style, as his mother fancied. As a writer, among his long list of achievements is to have written the screenplay for the 1962 American WWII film The Longest Day and to have won the Goncourt - the prestigious literary prize in France - twice. Authors can only win this award once. But Romain Gary, after winning the prize, completely changed his writing style and wrote under the pseudonym Emile Ajar to win the prize again! Only from a posthumous letter did it become known that Emile Ajar and Romain Gary are one and the same.

His mother didn't live to see his success - she died only a few years before Romain returned with his fellow soldiers to a liberated France. And he only found out of her passing when he returned home, all clad in his military uniform. Years later, after a long and successful career, Romain Gary found it difficult to accept the weakness and degradation of his body brought on by age. I imagine he was haunted by the void of a strong female presence in his life, of memories from the war or of all the emotional loss he suffered from the currents of time. He drifted in and out of depression for a long time until, at 66 years of age, he took his own life by gunshot.

A friend of mine introduced me to Romain Gary a few years ago. It dawns on me that I would never have met my friend and, therefore, not have known of this author if I hadn't lived a part of my life in France. Today I'm in Vilnius, Lithuania, standing in front of the house Romain Gary lived in. Down the road, on the street corner, is a small statue of the author as a boy. The statue shows him looking up at the sky and holding a shoe close to his chest, capturing a scene from his childhood when he ate one of his shoes to impress a girl he fancied. I, too, like to remember Romain that way.      

WTF! (Vilnius, Lithuania)

If it's not clear from the picture, the sign on the car door says:

Abu Dhabi

Abdu Dhabi Desert Challenge 2010 

A Look at Where I'm at in Vilnius

Here are a couple of photos of my room in the attic. Aside from that one blind by my bed I cannot close, the room is very comfortable. It gets cold, though, at night and early in the morning - the temperature these days ranges between 15 - 5 C. Going to bed and taking a shower is starting to be a relatively painful affair. It's been over 10 years since I've lived in a place where there are bad winters (the state of Iowa in the U.S.A being the last). I need to grow back my winter skin. The sun has been out for the last two days, but before that it was mostly a rainy affair. On the round table, sitting out in the cold, is the breakfast of champions: sausage, cheese, apples, bread and honey. 

The photo where the walls are painted with graffiti shows the street my bed and breakfast is on. Graffiti in Vilnius seems to be as prevalent as historical sights. You'll see it on derelict buildings, parks, modern buildings and even on churches. Hardly Banksy, the style of graffiti is more from the 'hood'. The fellow who picked me up from the airport shrugged his shoulders when I asked him about all the graffiti. Sometime back, he said, the government sent people to paint over the graffiti on that wall (the one in my picture). But a few days later the wall got defaced again. Even the vacancy sign outside the B&B I'm staying in got sprayed one night!

Zappa!!

In a run-down neighbourhood outside the city centre, sitting on a metal pole in a small parking lot  is one of the main reasons why I chose to visit Lithuania: the bust of Frank Zappa!! Yes, father-of-Moon-Unit Zappa!! This country can boast to be the first to erect a monument of the American rock & roll legend. Wondering what the connection is between Zappa and Lithuania? There is none whatsoever. According to the In Your Pocket Guide for Vilnius (August-November 2010) this piece of art was commissioned by a student and created by an octogenarian sculptor who once produced effigies of Lenin and other notable Soviet figures. If this isn't the definition of random, then I'm dunking my head in my toilet bowl tonight.

Sept 15: Latvia to Lithuania

We landed in Riga, Latvia. It's around 6 pm; my flight to Vilnius, Lithuania boards at 7:45 pm. I'm at a cafe, perhaps in the duty free section of the airport. All the tables are taken, so I picked a spot on the counter overlooking the runway. The bitter smell of coffee in the air makes me feel all lazy and mellow. Two airBaltic planes are parked in front of me - the green color of their tail matches the color of  the large patch of grass behind them. Scatterred on the runway are puddles of water - leftover from rain that fell earlier. Beyond the planes are trees - maybe pine. There are hundreds of them - all tall, thin and shadowy as the sun sets behind them. Overhead, thin clouds rush over the airport like cars driving on a freeway. 

In the cafe, we're all waiting. Some are slumped on their chair or couch while others are gazing at their laptop monitors. Some are enjoying their cigarette while the rest are either looking into space, reading a something or talking to someone.  Next to me is a lady - middle aged and blonde. Her black sun glasses matches her shirt and shoes. She sighs, picks herself up, drinks coffee then leans on the counter. She looks at her watch, stares at the trees in the distance, sighs again, drinks some more coffee and leans back on her chair. I drank my coffee, connected to the 3G network on my phone and went through the routine: update location on Google maps, check for new emails: more pictures/videos of my cousin's baby boy; reminders of bills to pay - mental note: check balance in account before paying; an acquaintance in Lithuania finally replied - we're getting nearer to scheduling a meet when I visit the city of Klaipeda; a couch surfer in Vilnius confirmed a meet this Thursday...  I must have been online for 10-15 minutes. When I looked up from my phone the blonde lady was no longer there. Sitting on her side of the counter was a mug, a plate with cake crumbs and a small bottle of Evian. The bottle sat on the edge of the counter near her tall chair. She left it behind still full, its water capturing the golden light from the setting sun.

*

It's 8:45 pm and we're still on the runaway in Latvia: the bloody plane has a 'technical' problem. Our original arrival time in Vilnius was 9:05 pm! I hope my airport pick up hasn't up and went. The delay wasn't bad, though. I made the acquaintance of the person sitting next to me and our conversation made time fly until we took off and until we finally landed in Vilnius. About how we met: I must admit that it did not happen out of an initiative from my part. I sat in the middle seat on one side of the walkway while he sat in the aisle seat on the other side of the walkway. The seats to my right and left were still free when all passengers were on board while he sat next to two people. He asked if I didn't mind he sit in the aisle on my side.... on the condition that I move to the window seat. The man wants his personal space - I completely understand. As a result, we got talking: from cloud computing to couch surfing and frank zappa. My acquaintance was on a short business trip and had a presentation to give the next day at a conference on internet governance. I hope that went well for him - I took his business card and promised to drop him an email.

To my surprise the airport pick up was still there waiting for me! He was a young man - tall, lanky and in dark clothes. He and his brother manage the B&B I'm staying in. I apologized for the delay and thanked him for his patience, especially for saving me from being ripped off by a taxi. It was around 10 pm and the streets of Vilnius were pretty much deserted. The drive in his BMW was smooth. He drove into a narrow street wide enough for one car, opened the gates to the B&B and pulled into a cobblestoned courtyard. After taking a copy of my passport the young lad showed me to my room. We walked out of the reception and into the courtyard, up a set of stairs, through a couple of doors and up some more stairs until we reached my room in the attic. He opened the door and turned on the lights: queen size bed, sofa, small round table + 2 chairs, chest of drawers, large cupboard, TV, stereo and a private bathroom. Some kind of backpacker I am...              

Prelude

Here we are: in less than 24 hours I'll be on a plane to Lithuania - the first destination in my Eastern European journey. It is exciting, to say the least. Exciting... yet frightening. The 'resignation-honeymoon', that high I felt after taking control of my life, has cooled off and given way to apprehension: I dropped my career and bid farewell to friends and family so I can throw my life into the unknown. That term -  the "unknown" - is no exaggeration. As it were, my decision to go to Eastern Europe is somewhat similar to walking alone in the Louvre at night during an electrical blackout in Paris and in the moon. Who I am and my personal/professional situation at the start of my journey will not be the same as that in the end. One of the countries I visit may become my new 'home'. I may continue working in the area of administration or become a teacher, a real estate developer, a butcher or work in a cinema. Or, by some blazing miracle, become a writer. Who knows? I've hit the reset button - the future, more than ever, is a blank page that I can write whatever I want on.

Yet I wonder whether I've not gone clinically bonkers this time. If that's truly the case, then I have none other to blame but my good friend M.D. To this day I believe she pulled an Inception-like trick on me by rummaging through the circus in my subconscious and planting the idea that is now hurling me into Eastern Europe. But I only jest, of course. My good friend, knowing how miserable I was in the environment I worked and lived in, asked all the right questions to get me thinking. She turned the light on - I decided where to go. The outcome may seem random and full of question marks, but it feels right. Only time will tell how it all worked out.

My backpack is ready - fat with travel gear that I'll need for the winter through to summer 2011. The more I think about it the more I believe I'm going on this journey to live out a story of my own creation, like I'm trying to escape the clutches of a stable and well defined life.        

So the journey begins...