Visiting Vilnius!

For all of you loyal followers of our previous blog, Journaling in Jerusalem, you will note that we both like alliteration and enjoy studying abroad. So, once again, we are combining these two pleasures, and we proudly present: Visiting Vilnius, a blog about our experiences for our month in Lithuania, studying at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.

We are living in a large and beautiful apartment in the old part of the city, not far from the university. Our windows face a small park, and the front of the building faces a large street full of restaurants and shopping. Vilnius is a colorful city with comfortably large buildings of a variety of colors, wide streets, and, at least for this time of year, hot and sunny weather tempered by occasional breezes.

We arrived in the afternoon yesterday and spent some time getting our bearings, walking around tourist shops and enormous beautiful churches, finding a grocery store, and learning how to use our appliances before cooking a healthy Shabbat dinner and basking in the at-home-ness of finally settling down after over a month of travels to a place that we can call ours for the time being.

In the morning, we set out to a supermarket to find some much-needed tupperware. It was a long walk, and gave us an opportunity to view the city in greater detail. We walked past the university and through the lazy Saturday morning in the city, bought ourselves beet salad and chick pea salad at the grocery store and sat on the steps to enjoy the refreshment. We are learning how to make change, how to say thank you (ačiū, pronounced "achoo"), and most importantly, we are becoming fluent in clumsy traveler's sign language. We walked up a long flight of stairs to a large building where the collector's club sells their wares on Saturdays. This was an antique market filled with gems such as a spinning wheel and old fashioned clothes irons, keys, stamps, coins, nick knacks of every shape and size. It stretched around the Trade Union palace, and we caught the spare end of the market, walking around to watch people pack away their portraits of Lenin, AC DC records, and chess boards. On our walk, we passed the Choral synagogue, which was built in 1903 and is the only synagogue remaining in a city that once boasted over 100 Jewish places of worship. We then walked back through the city and made our way to Hales Market, a tame version of Jerusalem's shuk. At the front of the market is a glass covered area with stalls selling women's underwear, shoes, and out of fashion clothing. At its center is a large brick building with fruit, meat, and cheese stalls and bakeries. We bought bundles of green onion for under a dollar, tasted lots of terrific honey, and purchased some sweets.

On our walk home, we stumbled upon a sign indicating that we were at the spot where once had stood the watch tower of the Vilna Ghetto, where over the course of a few days, thousands upon thousands of Jews were murdered. This area, which is right next to where we live, was a sobering reminder of the ghosts that haunt this beautiful and peaceful city, where we have come to learn a language that once graced these streets, but now is heard no more.

We're happy and proud to be living and studying here for a full month, and we look forward to sharing the vibrancy of this eastern European city with readers around the world. We'll be sharing pictures soon, and we look forward to our next update. Thanks for visiting Visiting Vilnius!