In Warsaw

The two days of meetings...

What can i say? Atex is a British company, and the sales team here is straight out of a Family Guy parody of an English pooftah.

Meetings can be productive planning sessions, meetings can be great brainstorming colloquiums, meetings can even be enjoyable time-wasting events. This meeting was none of those things. This was the sales-pitch-black-hole-time-suck-acrimonious mother of all meetings. It was scheduled for two days, and it felt like a lifetime. If meetings were rock concerts this was that one where the rolling stones hired the hell's angels for security and everyone died. If meetings were football this was the Superbowl for the arena football league.

Every rule of a good meeting was broken. The presenters did not have their files ready and projector set up so the first three hours were spent looking for adapters and changing laptops for the right files (as if the files were chained inside each hard drive and never allowed to leave that computer). Everyone in attendance had a laptop out and was typing and doing other things throughout the meeting. People came and went and halfway through the first day it was revealed that most of the people there didn't need to be there until the second day.

I spent most of the time on my Xoom, dicking around, and would occasionally pop my head up to ask some inane technical question that was very unhelpful to the process. As Arunas said best, "let's say you go to buy a car and spend all your your time there, checking the engine, comparing gear ratios, and generally attempting to be an automotive engineer, even though you are, in fact, an accountant. The salesman comes out and you ask him, "what is the oxygen mixing mechanism, and how does the ignition work?" and he says, "are you an automotive engineer?", "no.", "then all you need to do, is sit in the car, and imagine driving it for the next 5 years. If you are comfortable with that, buy the car, if you are not, don't."" Words to live by.

All that being said the product was extremely comprehensive and really offered a lot of support and streamlining of the editorial process for both print and web with communication between the two. 

Near the end of the first day-long-meeting I am introduced to Maria, the GROW participant here in Warsaw. She works for marketing, and is dragged into the meeting room by her boss during one of our infrequent breaks.

Maria at a desk that isn't hers

Maria Urso

Maria works in New York normally, in marketing. We found a spot to chat in the office after the second meeting had finally wrapped up, and compared notes on our experiences in our respective locations. We came to the conclusion that we both felt like we had accomplished very little "work" compared to our usual productivity back in our home offices. However, this made perfect sense since a lot of our time was spent on the social "ambassador" activities of the program, and the staff we were added to was already full so we were, in effect, extra people. The projects I had worked on were supplemental to the daily production int he office, and likewise for maria who had launched a new title for Warsaw.

Drinking at the beach + Arunas has to catch a flight

Maria tells me that her and a few people from the office and around town will be going out to a bar after work for a few drinks, and invites me to come along. I am in. I also go and check on Arunas and Rolandas to see if they are already headed to the airport or not. Rolandas has gone off to meet with the head of the Warsaw stock exchange, but Arunas is still hanging around the office, killing time until his flight. He agrees to come with us.

There is still some time before everyone there gets out of work for the day so Arunas and I head out into the city to find a beer while we wait. After a few unsuccessful attempts we find a place that accepts credit card, we assume...because it has all major credit card logos on it's front door, and sit down for one beer.

After one beer each and an in-depth discussion of social mores in the Baltic region i try and pay with my credit card. The server glances at the bar where there are piles of card scanning machines and says, "no, we can't take credit cards". We are shocked. "Well I guess we will have to go to a cash machine. Whee is the closest one?" I respond. The server looks at the bartender. He grabs a card scanner and takes my card. I guess they did take credit card.

We head back to the office and find Maria and some friends standing outside waiting for us. We decide to walk to the bar called "the beach" that is not that far away and the walk takes us through a park.

We Start Drinking

I dive right in to whiskey but everyone else starts with beer. It is still very hard for me to get drunk at sea level so i am not really trying, just enjoying the conversation. The conversation begins to disintegrate as everyone loosens up. Arunas tells us of his time as the president of the "communist youth" during the soviet era, and his current disillusionment and political apathy.

Eventually the time comes and Arunas catches a cab to the airport, and I am with just the new people i have met today.

The Girl who Loves Snowboarding

I find myself deeply wrapped in  conversation with one of the Warsaw folks. She tells me that she tried snowboarding a few years ago and loved it. We have a discussion of snow and fun, and how she taught some snowboarding lessons there, but on hills that we would not consider worthy of sliding down.

Most importantly she can speak my musical language.

I cannot remember her name, so i will refer to her as "the obscure punk reference chick" or "OPR chick" for short. Like many of the people i have met in this region their image of the U.S. is painted by New York. But for this one, it was painted by the No Use For A Name song "Fairytale of New York". Good choice.

Maria Notices that the End is Near

I hadn't even begun to contemplate how close to the end of my time in Lithuania I was, but that night Maria seemed to be completely open to the knowledge that she would be leaving the people who had been her closest friends for almost 3 months. The tears begin to flow. She has two weeks left and every day is going to be like this for her. The fact that the end is near is still not real for me.

Waking up in Warsaw...again + Maria has a hangover 

The next morning i wake up early, for some reason, and get my grub on at the amazing continental breakfast buffet in the hotel. It is my first day alone here, and until Maria gets off work I have no direction.

So I eat breakfast from 9-11, it was delicious and i will not apologize for it.

What to do in Warsaw...when everyone else has a hangover + A sidewalk zoo + Sad bears

Nothing to do in Warsaw until your friend sobers up and can entertain you again? No problem. Just head on down to your friendly neighborhood depressing-excuse-for-a-zoo, zoo.

I wander the city and try and get lost. But with no success. 






Maria has Recovered + Seeing Old-Town


Maria met me and the beginning of the "royal route" where there are many palaces and historic buildings...however none of them are real since Warsaw was destroyed in WWII and the entire city was rebuilt to match its former self in the 1960's.

It is amazing non-the-less. 

At the end of it all, we say goodbye and she gets me a cab back to my hotel.

On the way to the cab we pass a parade of bicyclist, rollerbladers, and general merry-makers in costumes and on anything that rolls. Just like Boulder-Denver. The more things change the more they stay the same.

In Linas' Village + Generations

Riding in Trains with Sad People

I suppose my idea of trains in Europe was a little romanticized, but even with that in mind the train ride to Linas' village was underwhelming.

We avoided our earlier travel mistakes and got to the station with plenty of time. We ate some soup, boarded the train, and were on our way. The car we were in was not crowded, and contained no bicyclists (they were confined to the back of the train with their futuristic cyclopedes) most of the occupants were either very young or very old, and they all smelled vaguely of failure.

...that being said, it was a very pleasant trip. The scenery flew by, the air was fresh, and even without any cooling or heating system inside the train the temperature was perfect. The best part was the sticker on the window asking us not to throw either bottles or people out of the windows, i guess it could have meant we shouldn't throw them IN the window since the perspective of the illustration was not terribly informative, but that seems unlikely. Linas explained to me that there were in fact ninja clubs that jumped out of these very-narrow train windows while moving. Some people's kids.

Generations

The village itself was everything i hoped it would be. the houses were grouped together, with amazing farm machinery arranged over well manicured and truly bucolic lawns. There were kids swimming in a centrally-located pond, and a cow on a string grazing next to them. The dog was friendly and excited to see us and Linas' parents also seemed happy to meet me and see their son, although they didn't hop around quite as much as the dog did.

We went on a mission to the general store (one of two in the village) to buy some snacks and for me to get a bottle of wine for Linas' parents. When we got there, however, the store was closed and we would be forced to wait for the clerk to get back from a lunch/break before we could shop. Fortunately the store is simply half of a duplex house and the other half belongs to Linas' grandparents. We dropped in for a visit.

Grandparents are the same everywhere. Their house was big and beautiful, every detail obviously crafted over many generations. They were, however, sitting on folding chairs in the kitchen watching a small tv that was perched on a counter, surrounded by various herbs drying. Grandparents, what are you gonna do?

There were exactly as excited as Linas' dog to have company, even though they have very dutiful grandchildren and their kids live a few houses over. They took us into the nice living room, pulled out some very string smelling "millers" liqueur. And proceeded to guilt us into taking several shots in a row and eating some very rich and delicious cakes. Linas' heroically extracted us from this very pleasant social trap, and we went out the front door to discover that the shop was open again. Victory! We bought wine, white for his parents, and red to mix with sprite...delicious.

The food. Was. Amazing! 

You know how people say "there's no cooking like country cooking" or "you haven't eaten (blank) until you've eaten my mother's (blank)"? Or if they don't say that the voices in my head do. Well those people (and my voices) are right. Linas' mother's food was spectacular. Everything I ate was the best thing i had ever eaten. I have since tried to re-create here breakfast crepes and have come nowhere close to the magnificence that was here cooking.

Biker Parents

Durring the evening Linas' parents suited up in full leathers and rode off together on his father's chopper. An honest-to-god chopper. This meant that we were left to our own devices for the evening and after we had exhausted the fun to be had from badmitten, we hauled out his mother's guitar, and sat around in the back yard, drinking, playing, and generally causing a ruckus. We tried writing songs about what was around us for a while*, but that eventually degenerated into me playing every bad cover song I knew...it had been a while since I had held a guitar and I apologize to Linas' village, and the universe in general.

Bonfire of the Backyard

When it is dark and there is nothing around, and you have a lot of wood at your disposal you can build a really large fire. Linas's dag got back after we had some meat cooking and took charge of our meager bonfire. In his hands it grew into a beast and the beer started to flow freely.

Dinner was awesome, and the night got even more awesome when Linas' uncle and his wife showed up. His uncle had brought a personal breathalyzer, the kind that looks like one of the old Nokia cell phones, and immediately started testing everyone. When you have a numerical value assigned to your drunkenness it seems to make things a little competitive 

We had been drinking red wine and sprite all day, and now were drinking some very good local beers...things were getting loose. The weird thing was, it wasn't me and Linas. We were pretty much exhausted from all the drinking and doing nothing all day, and around 2 am we turned in and passed out.

And Then...

In the morning we discovered that the old folk had kept the party going well past dawn and were, in fact, still drunk. We ate breakfast, and waited for his uncle to sober up enough to drive us back into the city (because the train was sad, that's why).

We carried water from the pond for the flower and vegetable garden, and i felt very rustic and like i had accomplished a great deal of physical labor...I wasn't and i had not.

Eventually Linas' uncle sobered up and we said our goodbyes for now, I even got to take his mothers guitar home with me for a while since it was obvious that i was jonesin' for a sting fix.

*My dog is very hungry and those chickens look delicious is the name of the #1 hit song Linas and I wrote while at his parents house. Apparently his dog is notorious in the village for ruthlessly slaughtering anything that squawks. 

In Nida

I apologize in advance for the utter lack of pictures for this escapade. I was busy living the events and forgot to document them at all.

A Party in the Woods

Linas sent me an invitation to a party: WILD WOODS FIESTA II: DIVING INTO GREEN

"Praeitą pavasarį 150 žmonių savo apsilankymu mums pasakė “like”. Muzika, atrakcijos ir laužai kiekvienam dalyviui padarė tokį įspūdį, kad WWF I buvo aptarinėjama daug mėnesių. Šiemet legendomis apipinta Svajonių vila atgimsta, kad savo ištikimiems gerbėjams ir vylingų istorijų prisiklausiusiems padovanotų nepamirštamą naktį. "—an excerpt from the invite...use google translate on this and enjoy the hilarity.

Friday night. We catch a cab to the outskirts of town, it's an affluent neighborhood, some guys that all rent a house together are throwing the party on their property. The house is set back in the woods and other than the house there is no sign of civilization around you.

When we arrive the last band is finishing up. They are a 5 piece horn section with a drummer and if Ska had a baby with a marching band, and that baby was a fan of reggae and dance hall, this would be that baby.

After the bands are done the DJs emerge from whatever dark holes they hide in while music is being made. Que the techno-pop. 

The night is a blur of people, crowds dancing, and lots of bottles of various alcoholic beverages being passed around. We meet a group of three guys who have set up camp there, they are traveling across Europe together, they started in Finland. One is from Finland, one is from Germany, and the other from Bosnia. We all speak in English. Our group of misfits looking for trouble consists of myself, the three travelers, Linas, and 2 girls that Linas knows.

We wander through the night and the house watching the revelers enjoy the party and meeting the inhabitants of the house, who are welcoming like the good hippies they are.  Peace and love and you tube videos projected on the walls for all. The upstairs balcony has a great view of the party; the dj spinning on the stage below, the dancers under the tap in front of him, and the camp-fires of the visitors twinkling int he woods.

The party rages on and as the sun is slowly rising we find ourselves around a still smoldering camp-fire, eating the remains of fire-bakes potatoes right out of the tin foil, with the homemade butter of one of our companions for a condiment. Delicious.

The sun is up and it is starting to rain.

No Sleep Til Nida

5am, Saturday morning. Me and Linas catch a cab back to the city, throw some money at the driver, and dash off to our houses. I tear my room apart, tossing clothes and electronics alike around the room, and stuff whatever I can think of into a backpack. There is no way we are making the 5:50 bus.

I run to meet Linas outside of his place, and together we set off through the pouring rain to the bus station. My legs are burning from lack of sleep and the fast walking pace but we are making good time, but not good enough to be there by 5:50, we know there is a 6:00 bus as well so we decide to stop at the McDonald's outside the bus station to eat since we have been drinking all night with only a portion of a burnt potato for food.


The bus schedule is inaccurate to say the least, and we kill an hour waiting for the bus to Kaunas, which is our first stop on the way to Nida.

The bus ride is hot and cramped, but I am so exhausted that I fall asleep with no problems and only wake up as we are pulling into a rest stop with an urgent need to relieve myself...perfect timing (puikus). 

The Sea-port of Kaunas

Waking up in Kaunas

Another round of fevered sleep and we are in Kaunas. We peel ourselves off the seats and stumble out into the harsh light of midday.

Linas, who always seems to have a grip on what is going on, strides confidently up to the ticket booth to get us on the next bus going to Nida. There is no one at the booth. There is no bus to Nida in the near future listed in the book outside the booth. I follow Linas out to the bus terminals and we scan the departure schedules posted out there, since we have learned that the bus schedule that is published may, or may not, have any bearing on reality. But this time it is true, there will be no bus to Nida for us.

Never fear, Linas has a plan. We will catch a taxi to the ferry and get a bus on the other side of the bay...the bus we would have taken from the station would have had to take the ferry and change on the other side anyway. Awesome. We grab a taxi, and arrive at the ferry just in time to get on.

Kaunas reminds me of Alaska, commercial sea port, cold water, no-nonsense people.

We get off the other side and just as we are about to get in a depressingly long line for the bus, we hear a taxi/van driver shouting that he has two more spaces. We take them. We end up sitting intimately close to one another in the front with the driver in about 1and 1/2 seats. still it is faster and less stifling than the bus would have been.

  

In Nida 

If Malibu had a history dating back to the 1400's it would be Nida.

We arrive a little after 1pm.  Linas heads straight for the place he had scouted out in advance for rooms. There aren't really hotels in Nida, just peoples houses with extra rooms. They all want to make as much money during the summer/beach season to compensate for the rest of the year when no one wants to stay in their house. So...the cost and the quality have a large gap.

The Houses of Nida

Sand Dunes Above Nida

The place we get is one room with two "beds" one is a cot-like structure and the other is a fold out couch. We don't really care, we toss our stuff down and hit the town.

First order of business is food, as it always is for me. We eat some over-priced but good food at one of the two restaurants in view, I purchase some sunglasses because in my rush i forgot one of the most important items to pack for the beach...among so many other things, I'm just glad I'm wearing pants at this point.

After food we hike up to the sand dunes that tower over Nida. There is a steep wooden staircase up the cliffs to the dunes, and the dunes themselves boarder on brush-land that had wooden walkways spider-webbed throughout. 

From the sand dunes we can see into Kaliningrad which is a sliver of coastline next to Lithuania that still belongs to Russia.


Mimosas on the beach

We head away from the lagoon that is the heart of Nida and over to the sandy Baltic-sea beach. This is my first time seeing the baltic sea. Walking down the sand we discover no amber treasures, but we do stumble across a beach volleyball tournament and a radio station booth blasting smooth jams. Just up the beach head and on top of a bluff is a lifeguard station, and a bar. Well i say bar. It was half bar, half liquor store.

It is at this point that I discover that Linas does not know what a mimosa is. So we top off our overtly homo-erotic romantic afternoon with mimosas on the beach. We buy an entire bottle of champagne and some orange juice and mix it ourselves in small plastic cups. We sit on the wooden deck overlooking the beach (and the volley-ball tournament) that is attached to the lifeguard tower and bar-thingy.

It is an entire bottle of champagne later and we are feeling more than a little fruity. It's time for more food.

In Vino In Nida

That night we head to In Vino, which is supposed to be a good place for an evening if you are not a 16-year-old-girl, but are also not a 60-year-old-man. It is.

The Characters

The first character of the night (for me) was Solus, he introduced himself by saying "You're American? I hate Americans"and promptly launched into a tirade about Obama (with the use of many colorful slurs that my white guilt will not allow me to repeat here), and our bloody war history. It was an interesting dichotomy of amusingly racists, and the accusation of war-mongering that usually comes from those far-left enough to be embarrassed by the use of racist terms. He did end the rant (</rant>) with the admission that he wasn't blaming me for all of the things wrong with my country. He was neat.

The girls in this group were what I would refer to as "party girls" although that might just be because they were all on vacation. However, the age difference between the men (Solus was the young one at 43) and the women was striking. My favorite (read most disturbing to me) pair was the 55something man and his overly-exuberant girlfriend who had come back from Italy where she had been living for the past few years for this trip, and seemed to have brought along with here an all-encompasing European arrogance...but she might have always been like that. At one point she remarked to someone, who was asking me if I like Nida so far, that "of course he likes it he is from Denver (note for the reader Denver-metro area pop = 3,110,436) that's the middle of nowhere and this is Nida!"  (Nida pop = 2,000, Lithuania pop = 3,339,550). I was confused because I thought, as an American, I was supposed to be the ignorant and arrogant person in the room, but she total won that contest.

We hung out until the place closed and then got dragged over to an after hours bar called "Faxe", it was dingy, small, cheap, and i felt completely at home. While the party girls danced with Linas I found some people more interesting to me (not that the others were not interesting, the shine had just begun to fade a bit at this point) out on the porch. It was a group of young-adults with low incomes and low self-esteem...so much so that one of the girls was letting her boyfriend try his hand at landing one of the party girls with Linas, downgrade if you ask me. They introduced themselves as cousins in case anyone was wondering if they were together, no one was listening except me, and i was not fooled for a second. I did pretend to be surprised when the girl, a little later, leaned into me and whispered that he wasn't really her cousin...blah, blah, blah.

It was from that group of people, however,  that i got the invite to go to a late-night club/bar in Vilnius called "play club" because of the big green "play" symbol over the door. I would have to investigate...but that is another story. It turns out everyone in Lithuania if living in Vilnius, but is actually from somewhere else. Everywhere we go we see the same people.

Boating With the Boss

We wake up Sunday, decide not to go meet our friends from last night for breakfast (in the cold light of day they are not as interesting in our memories as we seemed to think they were last night), and head down to the pier to have a boat ride. It is a warm enough day, and the mini-yacht, driven by the Verslo žinios owner Rolandas Barysas (part owner now that bonnier bought some of the company), offers us a new view of Nida. Puikus.

Rolandas regales us with tales of wild parties in Nida during his youth, and even wilder parties out on the water during the regattas during his middle age.  We eat some cured meats, and drink some beer before turning back to shore. We also sail as close as possible to the Russian border without being shot or arrested by men in black with night vision and speed boats...Rolandas enjoys very much telling us in detail what could happen if we crossed the imaginary line in the water. There is a Russian border here because after the breakup of the Soviet Union Russia held onto a lonely strip of coast here. The area is called "Kaliningrad" (Russian: Калинингра́д ).

Going "Home"

I pass out from lack of sleep again, which seems to be the best way to ride the bus. This time I wake up about halfway through to find that the seat next to me which was empty when i fell asleep is now occupied by a teenage girl who is engaged in very animated conversation with the teenage boy in the seat behind us. I don't understand their conversation but i don't need to speak the language to catch the familiar cadence of teenagers gossiping. Linas later confirms this when he tells me they kept him awake the whole time with their conversation about the guy's (perhaps) cheating girlfriend. Chicks, man.

Linas Has a Party

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life...or whatever.

I'd like you to come to a party, there will be some very colorful people there.

DJ Linas in da house. Linas threw an 80's theme party, some people were not quite clear on the decade in question...or the pop culture cycle was really off during that time.

Enough Russian vodka, and whiskey and ginger (I had to introduce a Colorado favorite didn't I?) and no one cares what decade it is.

The night begins...

...with me wandering into a strange crowd of people and a backpack full of whiskey and ginger ale. Shortly thereafter they were no longer strangers.

And the beat drops...

...early in the night the enthusiasm for dancing was at a fever pitch.

And the beat goes on...

...Linas had a well thought out and intelligently crafted play-list for the decade theme of the party. It fell victim to alcohol and requests (read demands) after a while.

Linas' younger brother

I found out later that i had met Linas' younger brother. At the time he was just some dude in a wig.

Linas and Muzi

The night before we went stopped by the main square to see what was drawing such a big crowd and met a new friend Muzi, from South Africa, he was in town for the design conference "spring design week" (iconograda). We bonded over our shared revulsion at the sugar-coated-pop-fest that was Eurovision, the mysterious event that was drawing such a big crowd to the main square.

Needless to say, Muzi was at the party.

Remas holding it down

...nuf said.




At the end of everything Linas, Remas (pictured above) and I were the only ones left, pathetic I know, and we devolved into drunken heartfelt conversations and insisting on playing specific songs for each other. I know we were at least respectably drunk because to this day Linas will bring up a band that I just have to listen to and not remember that he already played it for me...that night. 

The Wingman + Discovering Punk in Vilnius

We arrived back in the city for the end of street music day/the beginning of street music night. The official end is supposed to be around 10 pm. but you could tell the crowds and the musicians had no  intention of stopping.

Wandering

We wandered the street for a while, finding DJs cranking dance music inside ancient walled gardens, and people spilling into the streets from every conceivable corner. Fire dancers entertaining for change on the roads punctuated the deepening night with bright light and heat.  

SMC Again

We find ourselves back at the SMC, I need some whiskey.

The Girl

"Can you order the drinks? I need to talk to this girl." As statements of romantic intent go, this didn't even come close. I just nodded my head yes—since I couldn't really think of anything helpful to say.  It is much harder to execute one's duties as a wing-man if you don't speak the language. Linas left me at the bar to get the drinks, I appreciated this confidence in my new-found language skills—however misplaced, and made his way outside.

The Discovery of a Secret Punk Rocker

I meet them outside with the drinks. They are deep in conversation, and i don't understand any of it. I keep my distance, trying to be a good wing-man (I guess, I mean at this point I don't know enough to even be sure that is what role I am playing here). I wander off a distance, to give them some space, and find some people speaking English that i can talk to. They are not that interesting. Boo-hoo for me.

Linas waves me over. "Stand like you're [in our group]". I allow myself to join them, but remain certain that this is a violation of bro-code. They start talking in English for my sake. I am introduced to Gaile. Hi Gaile! I bring up music since it is still going on all around us, asking everyone what their favorite music is—and what bands they are into...blah, blah, blah. The same questions we all ask when we don't know the people and have nothing good to say anyway.

She knows punk..a lot of punk.

We disintegrate into quizzing each other about punk bands. "Do you know Bad Brains?" "Hell yes!". I know a lot of current bands from American that she does not, she knows a lot of bands from everywhere else that I do not. We have common ground on the classics.

11/20

"Where can i see local punk shows" I ask her. She tells us about an underground venue, no advertising, no listing, that has one every weekend and sometimes during the week.

It is called 11/20, because someone, somewhere, said that was the day punk music died. I don't know what year, I don't know who said it, and I don't care.

Lies about the Toasters

"The toasters will be there on Wednesday!" Gaile says "The fucking Toasters!" I exclaim, then break into a horrible rendition of Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down. I extract a promise from everyone that we will go. They agree.

The next day Linas tells me, the toasters are not coming.

Bullshit Gaile. Bullshit.

The SMC + Linas

Shumutza...but we'll come back to that. (disclaimer: spelling is only for entertainment purposes)

Linas Kmieliauskas, Cheif web editor for vz.lt (Verslo žinios online)

Linas is a very unassuming person in the office, but I am about to find out that there is a different Linas.

 The first time we meet Linas comes into the office I am working in with Arunas to chat, it comes up that he lives very near my apartment in the old town of Vilnius...so he offers to walk with me home and show me (maybe) a better route than the one i have.

 As we walk we talk. A plan is made, Linas will show me around the nightlife (read bars) of the city.
The First Bar Crawl

The first stop of the night is a small pub just down the road from my place. It is dim, with a low ceiling and few patrons, all hunched together in their own private conversations. We have one beer hear, still having awkward conversations that tell us nothing about one another.

The next bar is very different.

This is more my kind of place. The music is loud. The bar is packed, and everyone is around the same age as me. The walls are decorated it early-punk-douchebag, and you have to exit into the mini-mall behind the place to use the bathroom.

We start drinking seriously now. The conversation turn into the all-familiar drunken exposé of our life stories to one another.

The "What The Fuck 42 Club"

Some guys come over to our table and Linas greets them. They both speak English very well so when we are introduced i am on easy footing talking to them. One of the guys speaks with a heavy British accent, and it turns out that he went to school there for a while, his sentences get more and more punctuated with "bloody" as we consume more and more beer.

Outside smoking a cigarette the British-accented one turns to me and says "do you know what 42 is?"
I almost can't believe what I'm hearing and before they can begin to follow up on that question I have launched into a rant on the topic of Life, The Universe, and Everything...to which we all know the answer is 42, but what is the question?

It turns out that these guys and Linas have a newly formed Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy club named "What the Fuck 42". Although I can consider them no more than mere neophytes in the game (since their experience of the tale is limited to the new movie) we have an instant bond.

...And the drinking ramps up from there, of course.

The SMC

Sometime around 2 am. Linas and i separate from the pack of 42-ers and he takes me to his favorite, and traditional night-ending spot. The contemporary art center. I know. But it has a fantastic bar-by-night, cafe-by-day, attached to it. So the "Šiuolaikinio meno centras" (contemporary art center), or "SMC" (read shumutza!) welcomes us in, and offers us whiskey. Ah, it feels like home.

Not-latkes

Potato Pancakes at 4 am.

Good thing around the corner is a resturaunt that stays open well past 6 am. because when we get the boot from the SMC at 4 am. I am starving...in that immediate drunk-hunger kind of way. God I love Lithuanian food!


FIN.