Laba Diena to all my far away friends! Well, as usual tons and tons of stuff has happened since I last updated you. It's funny because I think my dear roommate Kim, who hates the internet with a fiery passion, has updated her blog more than I have. To blame something on my lack of updating, I think I'll blame my project 365 I have going on Facebook, it takes years to add all those captions! But, I must say it's top-notch! So since I am not above spineless self-advertising, check it out! Plus, I add photos of Lithuania to that project more than I do on this blog. Or maybe I should blame the fact that I am in freaking Lithuania!!
So I wanted brag about all the Lithuanian we've been learning! I can officially count to 10, impressive, I know. Ahem: vienas, du, trys, keturi, penki, šeši, septyni, aštuoni, devyni, dešimt. Thank you! Thank you! You can hold your applause.
Russian is a whole other story though. That was a bad day. The teacher just started speaking Russian to us and throw us into writing and thinking of words in Russian. I almost started crying when she had us the sheet with the alphabet. H's are N's and Y's are O's and all kinds of other stuff! I am just so used to speaking with the Latin alphabet that I could generally understand what an Italian or Spainard or French person would say to me just based off the similarities that exist in Latin based languages. But honestly I am almost embarrassed now that I was never forced to learn another language like many Lithuanians were (or all Europeans really) while growing up. I think it's so impressive when I met people my age that can speak 8 different languages. I cannot tell you how frustrated I get sometimes when I can not communicate with a person because I know only English and they only know Lithuanian or Russian. It drives me nuts!
But it's been incredibly fun getting to know Siauliai and all the Erasmus kids. We are all worlds different from each other but I think this is more of a strength than a weakness. It's been fun just having conversations with everyone about our countries. And it makes my anthropological and historical soul float on cloud nine when I learn something about a culture or country that I never knew before. Me, in all my nerdiness, has totally geeked out on anyone willing to share anything about their culture. It's almost embarrassing...almost.
Like today, my friend Dora, Franci, and I went to go get coffee together and talk about our presentations we would do for our Language in Multicultural Contexts class. We all have it together, so we would figure that we would try to be on the same page and do the presentation the same way. This was to prevent any over-achievers (me basically) from doing a whole powerpoint presentation. The conversation we had started out as a discussion on the different languages present in our countries ending up as a discussion on the impression of Nazi German historic past in different European countries. It blows my mind how much I am learning from my European friends. It is changing how I see the world and I am so glad that they are open enough to talk to me about everything. Day by day I feel my eyes being opened to a world I was never told about. And the funny thing is, it was never a secret. It's just Europeans living real life for themselves and it just takes asking a question to understand what they feel, think and live.
And it's not all serious either, I've laughed so much here that I'm going to live forever (apparently, that's what all the Erasmus kids tell me). Take for instance the infamous "Freshman Christening" that Kim and I blindly decided to join in on. After three hours of having eggs chucked at us, running for our lives, crawling through mud, stripping, being covered in flour and ketchup, stripping again, shivering in a freezing cold lake, and swearing our souls away to Siauliai University I think we have officially become LITHUANIAN. If that isn't legit enough for everyone, I don't know what is. We were the first Erasmus kids to ever do the christening. It feels good to know we will go down in Siauliai University history.
So here are some lovely pictures for you and as always a song to accompany it. I've heard this song here more times than I can believe, but I sorta kinda love it to death (it's a guilty pleasure):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEPTlhBmwRg&ob=av3n
"I've got this moment
and no idea when it will end,
but every second of this life
is scripture." --Andrea Gibson
So I wanted brag about all the Lithuanian we've been learning! I can officially count to 10, impressive, I know. Ahem: vienas, du, trys, keturi, penki, šeši, septyni, aštuoni, devyni, dešimt. Thank you! Thank you! You can hold your applause.
Russian is a whole other story though. That was a bad day. The teacher just started speaking Russian to us and throw us into writing and thinking of words in Russian. I almost started crying when she had us the sheet with the alphabet. H's are N's and Y's are O's and all kinds of other stuff! I am just so used to speaking with the Latin alphabet that I could generally understand what an Italian or Spainard or French person would say to me just based off the similarities that exist in Latin based languages. But honestly I am almost embarrassed now that I was never forced to learn another language like many Lithuanians were (or all Europeans really) while growing up. I think it's so impressive when I met people my age that can speak 8 different languages. I cannot tell you how frustrated I get sometimes when I can not communicate with a person because I know only English and they only know Lithuanian or Russian. It drives me nuts!
But it's been incredibly fun getting to know Siauliai and all the Erasmus kids. We are all worlds different from each other but I think this is more of a strength than a weakness. It's been fun just having conversations with everyone about our countries. And it makes my anthropological and historical soul float on cloud nine when I learn something about a culture or country that I never knew before. Me, in all my nerdiness, has totally geeked out on anyone willing to share anything about their culture. It's almost embarrassing...almost.
Like today, my friend Dora, Franci, and I went to go get coffee together and talk about our presentations we would do for our Language in Multicultural Contexts class. We all have it together, so we would figure that we would try to be on the same page and do the presentation the same way. This was to prevent any over-achievers (me basically) from doing a whole powerpoint presentation. The conversation we had started out as a discussion on the different languages present in our countries ending up as a discussion on the impression of Nazi German historic past in different European countries. It blows my mind how much I am learning from my European friends. It is changing how I see the world and I am so glad that they are open enough to talk to me about everything. Day by day I feel my eyes being opened to a world I was never told about. And the funny thing is, it was never a secret. It's just Europeans living real life for themselves and it just takes asking a question to understand what they feel, think and live.
And it's not all serious either, I've laughed so much here that I'm going to live forever (apparently, that's what all the Erasmus kids tell me). Take for instance the infamous "Freshman Christening" that Kim and I blindly decided to join in on. After three hours of having eggs chucked at us, running for our lives, crawling through mud, stripping, being covered in flour and ketchup, stripping again, shivering in a freezing cold lake, and swearing our souls away to Siauliai University I think we have officially become LITHUANIAN. If that isn't legit enough for everyone, I don't know what is. We were the first Erasmus kids to ever do the christening. It feels good to know we will go down in Siauliai University history.
So here are some lovely pictures for you and as always a song to accompany it. I've heard this song here more times than I can believe, but I sorta kinda love it to death (it's a guilty pleasure):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEPTlhBmwRg&ob=av3n
"I've got this moment
and no idea when it will end,
but every second of this life
is scripture." --Andrea Gibson
Some of the Erasmus kids at the Golden Archer
Yes, I can walk on water. :)
My love for street art will never die!
That's all of us! (Kinda. We are still missing a few.)
Americans supporting our German heritage! DEUTSCHLAND!
Kurtuvenai
My friend Pauli-D took a picture of crap. Boys.
Educating our friends about American cuisine in all the best of ways, with jell-o shots.
The gnarly cut I got from the Freshman Christening :( Hello STAFF infection
Pizza Party in the hall!
Finally! Made it to the hill of crosses!
Until next time my loves! Going to Estonian for the weekend, so hopefully my next post will be very soon and about details from the trip! With all my love! Capa (That's my name in Russian)
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