What a wonderful day. Peter, the fellow who I'm visiting while in Lithuania, graciously drove me out to visit some relatives on the Petrasiunas side of the family. I hope I have the spelling right but it was Edmundas, Terese, Egles, Kristinas and her boyfriend Aleksas. ( Sarunas is Egles' husband and is a musician and was playing on the coast and couldn't make it) These relatives are from the Petrasiunas side of the family. Terese is the daughter of Birute who is my father in laws sister.
They took Peter and I to a really neat place where you catch your fish and then eat them. A little piece of corn on the hook at the end of a very long pole and in no time at all ( a few seconds actually ) you have a fish on the end of the line. It isn't meant to be 'sport' since it usually takes less than a minute to land a trout.... no competition with the fish here ... the fish always loses. Indeed they will even catch the fish for you and cook it up to go so this is the equivalent of a REAL LIVE take out restaurant.
The pictures tell the story. Now Edmundas and Terese speak no english so the girls and Peter did the translation but we managed just fine and it was a very nice day ... not just the food but also the conversation. It is amazing how much you can communicate when neither party speaks a word of the other's language.
This place is less than a 10 minute drive from the 'sodas' where Terese and Edmundas live and is the favourite spot of my father-in-law who Vida tells me gets very competitive about who can catches the most fish, the biggest fish, the fastest to catch a fish etc not to mention the correct way of casting, landing etc.....
I mentioned it is a short drive!! well that kind of depends on who is driving. Edmundas is an older version of Parnelli Jones who won the Indy 500 in 1960. The speed limit on the side roads is 80Kph and I think he drove an average closer to 120Kph and that was the AVERAGE. Since their place is a bit off the highway he met us at a road side stop off the highway and we followed him to his 'Sodas' and man-o-man did he drive fast. So later when we headed out to the restaurant it took Peter and I a little more than 5 minutes but it took Edmundas about 3 minutes I swear.
The driving in Lithuania is to put it bluntly ... very dangerous. They pass at will on the highway ( very few divided ) and pay no attention to on coming traffic. The vehicle you are passing is expected to move partway onto the median and the on-coming traffic is expected to move onto their median to let the passing vehicle come through the middle. And it isn't that uncommon to have vehicles passing in each direction so there would be four vehicles across on a two lane highway and everyone going 120-130Kph. Needless to say accidents are common.
They started a photo radar program a number of years ago to control speed but the police are so corrupt they ended it ( this is a left over from Russian state control of decades ) and they now have photo radar boxes set up on the side of the road although by law they have to warn drivers with big signs that they are about to enter a photo radar zone. Somewhat ineffective if you ask me.
There is still a lot of corruption in this country with wages very low and probably more money earned under the table than above the table. There is a relative who is a doctor and after graduation he got a job earning about the equivalent of about $2,000 Cdn per month ... not too many Canadian doctors would settle for that ... indeed NONE. If you want proper medical care a few Litas on the side helps a lot.
Corruption is so accepted that the Mayor of Vilnius was re-elected even though he was caught and convicted in a crackdown on corruption. As long as you pour some of your under the table earnings back into the City then the population accepts you. It is only the corrupt officials, at any level, that become greedy that are frowned upon. This is going to catch up with them eventually but they seem to have little power to change the system since it is so ingrained into their culture.
Life if good .... Enjoy
They took Peter and I to a really neat place where you catch your fish and then eat them. A little piece of corn on the hook at the end of a very long pole and in no time at all ( a few seconds actually ) you have a fish on the end of the line. It isn't meant to be 'sport' since it usually takes less than a minute to land a trout.... no competition with the fish here ... the fish always loses. Indeed they will even catch the fish for you and cook it up to go so this is the equivalent of a REAL LIVE take out restaurant.
The pictures tell the story. Now Edmundas and Terese speak no english so the girls and Peter did the translation but we managed just fine and it was a very nice day ... not just the food but also the conversation. It is amazing how much you can communicate when neither party speaks a word of the other's language.
This place is less than a 10 minute drive from the 'sodas' where Terese and Edmundas live and is the favourite spot of my father-in-law who Vida tells me gets very competitive about who can catches the most fish, the biggest fish, the fastest to catch a fish etc not to mention the correct way of casting, landing etc.....
I mentioned it is a short drive!! well that kind of depends on who is driving. Edmundas is an older version of Parnelli Jones who won the Indy 500 in 1960. The speed limit on the side roads is 80Kph and I think he drove an average closer to 120Kph and that was the AVERAGE. Since their place is a bit off the highway he met us at a road side stop off the highway and we followed him to his 'Sodas' and man-o-man did he drive fast. So later when we headed out to the restaurant it took Peter and I a little more than 5 minutes but it took Edmundas about 3 minutes I swear.
The driving in Lithuania is to put it bluntly ... very dangerous. They pass at will on the highway ( very few divided ) and pay no attention to on coming traffic. The vehicle you are passing is expected to move partway onto the median and the on-coming traffic is expected to move onto their median to let the passing vehicle come through the middle. And it isn't that uncommon to have vehicles passing in each direction so there would be four vehicles across on a two lane highway and everyone going 120-130Kph. Needless to say accidents are common.
They started a photo radar program a number of years ago to control speed but the police are so corrupt they ended it ( this is a left over from Russian state control of decades ) and they now have photo radar boxes set up on the side of the road although by law they have to warn drivers with big signs that they are about to enter a photo radar zone. Somewhat ineffective if you ask me.
There is still a lot of corruption in this country with wages very low and probably more money earned under the table than above the table. There is a relative who is a doctor and after graduation he got a job earning about the equivalent of about $2,000 Cdn per month ... not too many Canadian doctors would settle for that ... indeed NONE. If you want proper medical care a few Litas on the side helps a lot.
Corruption is so accepted that the Mayor of Vilnius was re-elected even though he was caught and convicted in a crackdown on corruption. As long as you pour some of your under the table earnings back into the City then the population accepts you. It is only the corrupt officials, at any level, that become greedy that are frowned upon. This is going to catch up with them eventually but they seem to have little power to change the system since it is so ingrained into their culture.
Life if good .... Enjoy
Auto Guru in Europe
I haven't been to Belmontas for a number of years; they've 'spruced it up quite a bit ...
ReplyDeleteAnd the fishing place? We've been there TONS of times!!!! (it's a 7 min. drive from the "sodas" where Terese & Edmundas live) It's a favourite spot for Tetukas; he gets really competitive on who can catch the biggest/most etc. etc. not to mention the corect way of casting, landing etc. etc. We always take before and after pictures of our dinner. For the Cannucks, think REAL LIVE take out food; the kitchen will cook it up to go!!!! They'll even catch it for you if you're not so inclined!(speaking of Cannucks, the game's about to start!)
Thanks for the great photos, keep them coming! Did you plan out an itinerary for Paris with T & E?
And it's fun to see all my rellies knowing that I will be seeing them in just a few weeks. Aleksas is Kristinas beau and Sarunas, Egles spouse is not in the photos so I'm assuming he was elsewhere.
I'm glad it was sunny for you and hope you're enjoying Sunday - maybe driving out to visit Audrone or Peter's in laws? Or just taking in more Vilnius sights?
Vida