Hello
there!
How
have you been doing? Today I’m writing after a full night party
because yesterday I celebrated my birthday and I can’t believe what
a good time I had. I think that surrounding myself with such nice
persons just made everything work out perfectly and it will be a
night to remember.
Today
I’m coming with a post about my trip to Vilnius, Lithuania. I went
last weekend there for an audition and I was quite surprised with the
city!
Gedimino Pr. Street
So
let’s start from when I got to Vilnius airport. It’s one of the
smallest airports I’ve ever been into and the best of all was that
it’s located less than fifteen minutes away from the centre of the
city. I’ve never been into a cheaper Uber than the two I got to go
and come back from the airport. While I was in the car riding towards
my hotel some things got me surprised.
Vilnius Airport
The
city is quite old and looked very melancholic and a tiny bit sad but
suddenly, once we got closer to the city center, I saw big new
buildings covered in windows. One of the buildings was what I guessed
they were the offices of Huawei and there was also a big shopping
center with a fountain. This was at the other side of the river (the
river that crosses the city is the Neris) because on the side where
the Opera house was and I had my hotel room, there was located the
old town of Vilnius.
Panoramic view of the New Town of Vilnius
The old
town was very nice indeed and I just visited a tiny section of it but
I think it had a lot of places that I should go to revisit and
discover. What surprised me is that some constructions where really
old but the locals inside them (cafes, restaurants and shops the
most) where very new, clean looking and all of them very trendy. It
was very hard to see an old or very traditional restaurant because
even the restaurants that advertised Lithuanian cuisine, they were
freshly renovated and looked very edgy and just beautiful!
The two resturants I went to: Botanique and Vegafé
The
Opera though, although it was quite a modern style building structure
wise, the surroundings were a bit neglected and under construction
which made it look worse than in actually was. The foyer of the Opera
was extremely nice with big windows surrounding it and beautiful
lamps hanging from the extremely high ceilings. The working section
of the theater though was another story.
If
you’ve ever seen one of this Bolshoi Academy documentaries you’ll
know that all corridors are covered in carpet and the rehearsal rooms
have hard floors usually without any linoleum. Well, in here you
could find the iconic carpet but the ballet studios, although they
had linoleum, they had a bit of a hard floor which was new to me
coming from being in studios with a bit more cushioning in the air
chamber section of the floor. This usually makes harder your jumping
and it can make you jump with a lot of noise which is not ideal, but
if you engage your muscles correctly you can avoid major disasters.
Also, the room where we made the audition was interesting: it was
covered in dark wood panels and it had the piano in an elevated
corner of the room.
Sneak peak of the look of the studio.
Credits: Daria Olefirenko Instagram account.
She's a dancer with the Lithuanian National Ballet.
Now,
facts that surprised me from Vilnius!
1.-
They are not very communicative. In fact they’re actually very shut
even on the streets and when going into cafes or shops they will
prefer to not talk but just nod. I understand that of course I don’t
understand or talk Lithuanian but it was interesting seeing that they
could understand me perfectly and they still preferred to not reply
to me but just indicate me with gestures. I assume that it was a
matter of «I prefer to not speak English in case I mess up so I’ll
just make gestures and that will do just fine». But that doesn’t
mean they were «mean»! In fact all people I treated with there,
they were really nice and charming.
The hotel got me ready a bag with items for
breakfast on the day I was leaving
because I had my flight really early
and they left this lovely note inside.
2.- Bio
and ecological products can be even cheaper than non sustainable
products. I went into a supermarket to buy me a couple of snacks for
the audition and the almond packet I got was Ecological and Bio and
it was much cheaper than if I got it in Germany. It’s surprising
especially because Germany is one of the European countries that
promotes the most buying bio products and yet the price mark is much
higher than what I found in Vilnius! Actually, another curiosity is
that they had a lot of Spanish products that I would’ve never found
in Germany and even Spanish brands that I would’ve never thought
they would be imported to other countries!
Vilnius Cathedral
Saint Catherine's Church
3.- The streets are extremely clean and you don’t see so many bins around. People were very polite with where they were leaving their trash and another thing that surprised me in contrast to Germany is that almost anyone smoked. In Germany you’ll find a smoker every ten seconds and in Vilnius it was hard to find anyone. That’s one of the aspects I liked the most.
Vilnius Town Hall
4.- The offer of restaurants is endless and as I said before they’re all very good looking and appetizing. Also they have quite a wide range of cuisines to choose from and that made choosing a spot for dinner very difficult!
5.- The
traditional souvenir from there is amber. I didn’t know that amber
was such a big thing in Lithuania but apparently it’s a very famous
tradition to not just do jewelery with amber but also insert insects
into it and sell the amber pebbles as a souvenir. Apparently the
tradition of this souvenirs extends to the point of having a route of
amber that goes around Lithuania showing the places where «the gold
of Lithuania» is sell and also collected from the Baltic sea.
And
thta would be a small resume of my trip to Lithuania done! I would
like to someday do a route through Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia as I
think that they’re the lost countries of Europe that hold a lot of
secrets to discover and be mesmerized by. If I ever go back it will
be to really enjoy the location and the culture from the Baltic area.
In case
you were wondering, the audition went quite well. I enjoyed the class
as much as I could and I think that the ballet master was very nice
and marked pretty good exercises. We were not too many auditioning
which made it much more comfortable and we actually had room to dance
as big as we could. I didn’t get a contract but I think that the
experience was very worth it and I can’t wait for the next
audition! Every one of them teaches me a whole lot of new things and
I go with more energy and confidence to the next one.
I hope
you have a wonderful day and I’ll see you tomorrow!
Love,
Muriel
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