Riga and Vilnius

Our trip to Riga and Vilnius flew by so fast. On Wednesday night we left for Riga at 11:00 p.m. taking yet another bus we arrived at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. We didn’t waste any time and started our 1 day trip. We started by stopping at McDonald’s!!! Ha Ha… we are totally Americans!! Not really, actually we girls needed to apply makeup and other fun girl stuff first.  After our McDonald meal we walked across the street to a beautiful park where there was so much green grass and tall trees with leaves and to make it even better the sun was shining!! We have been frozen for so long that green things like grass and trees and a bright sun are so beautiful to us. We walked around on a free walking tour. Then we walked around some more and I got a beautiful amber ring!! I guess the area is famous for its amber. We wandered around until 11:00 at night then went back to the bus station. There we attempted to get a few hours of “bus station” sleep until our bus was ready for us at 2:00 a.m. in the morning! That makes for a long day trip! On to the next stop! 

We arrived in Vilnius at about 6:00a.m., and let me tell you, nothing opens in Europe until 10:00 or even 11:00 in the morning!! So we tried to keep busy until we were able to actually do some things! The first thing we did… are you ready for this… we headed to MacDonald’s for breakfast and to wash up. After that we went to a KGB Museum. It was very informative, and then went on a walking tour that took forever. By the time we finished my feet where killing me!! We made it to our hostel and found out we were sleeping in little cubbies!! It was so much fun!! We spent the rest of the time there and then took a bus home!! It was an 11 hour bus ride during the day!!! Talk about loads of fun!

There are 7 of this same building Stalin had built as symbols of victory and a new era of Soviet power! All called Stalin’s birthday cake!

 Pizza for 2!!!!!!!

Vilnius

Stone memorial of all the Jews in the ghetto!

A doctor who during the very bad poverty years would heal the poor for free! He believed the answer to all sicknesses with kids was warm milk and chocolate.