a year from now?

life as of lately.

i suck at blogging. uploading pictures onto facebook is so much easier then blogging. its so much upkeep and its all my fault cause i put it off for weeks and then i feel overwhelmed because i have so much to say, not enough time to write it all blah blah blah. so im convinced it is a good sunday activity. hahah anyways life lately in vilnius has been great.. i will explain whats been going on in some of these pictures....

WE GOT SEPERATE BEDS! jaclyn and i, as most of you know have been sharing a futon. but we got a bed-ish thing.... dima got a foam mattress thing, and a cover and BOOM you have a home-made bed! hahahahah jaclyn and i trade off who sleeps on it. its not too bad but i owe my back a nice massage after this trip is over with... thats for sure!!!!

on friday i asked Moze (the one directly behind me) if he wanted to meet up on saturday and play soccer. he was so excited and told me to meet at 2:00. jaclyn, holly and i went and played with them and it was so much fun!!!
people from left to right: patryk, moze, lukaz, holly, myself, simon, dora and jaclyn)
they told us it was girls vs boys and we KILLED THEM!!!! and you will be proud to know i scored the 1ST GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we had to go to the mall and grocery store so we had to leave after like 30 minutes the boys were SOOOO mad/sad at us!!! we kept trying to say goodbye and they wouldnt say goodbye because they were so mad at us. this was them giving us the silent treatment!

the kids LOVE these stupid ice age trading cards. they all bring them to class and trade them... and then we found these containers to put them all in! hahah THEYARE OBSESSED!!!!!

waiting for the bus.....

it is so cold here. yikes! its cold at home too, but its hard because we rely on the bus here so we are outside a lot more then i am at home so i have to just sit around and BASK in the freezingness!!!!!

this is Lukaz! hahah he LOVES this shirt and we all die when he wears it! hhahhaha hes the cutest!

i am known as the crazy teacher hahahaha

the ice cream here is wonderful and cheap. if you know anything about us Murray Hansgens... we LOVE our ice cream. here in lithuania it is harder to find big boxes of it and so, since the ice cream shoppes are so cheap we just get them on the regular! they have this cookie one and its AMAZING!

our apartment is freezing! they dont turn on the heat until it stays consistently cold for a certain amount of days AND our apartment has concrete walls! SO FREEZING! i sleep with tights, sweatpants, shirt, sweatshirt and scarf  everynight. yikes!

skyping my dad. oh how i miss him!!!!!!

jen and i were cleaning the house the other day and found a doily! hahah yay for fun decorations!

hahahah more fun trinkets we found!
fan chicken, cat bank, a firefighter brear, and a cross..... whahoo!

POLAND pt. 2

we went back to krakow over night and got in around 7am on saturday morning. we went right to our hostel, benedict and hung out for a few hours. we got ready and went out to enjoy some more pierogi at the same restaurant we had it at before. (we were all craving it) it was even better then the time before! so delicious!!!!  after that we went back to the main square of krakow and decided to take a tour of the jewish district, ghettos and Schindler's factory. it was so cool to see. we mostly just explored around krakow, said our goodbyes to the city and went back to our hostel. 

if anyone goes to krakow, YOU MUST go to this restaurant!

me, being the lord of the rings fan that i am HAD to get a picture with gandalf..... he tried to kiss me and he growled at me... i need to upload the video of it because it is UNREAL! hahahha so funny!

chasing birds!

saying goodbye to the city!

my new friend Keith. he was staying at the hostel we were staying at. he was such a nice guy! we stayed up at talked music and travel for hours. SUCH a cool guy!!!

all of us werent able to get on the same flight so megan, jaclyn and i flew from krakow at 2pm and had a 4 hour layover  in frankfurt. it brought back memories of coming to lithuania when we first got there for our 9 hour layover... it was fun we had a good time!

the terminal we were in served the best hot chocolate EVER!!!! and yes, we took advantage of that AS WE SHOULD HAVE!

URGH! so HORRIFIC! i am so glad i got a picture of it! so on the way here from fankfurt the FIRST time (in aug from america) this airline served us the most horifying thing ever. 2 sandwiches. one was a tomato paste and cheese and the other was TUNA SAUCE and bell peppers. seriously.... FREAKING EWE!!!! be grateful for american airlines pretzels people! 

BUDAPEST

the bus ride from prague to budapest, hungary was about 8 hours. like i said before it was an early start but we got to see the most beautiful sunrise i have ever seen! 

once we got to budapest we checked into our hostel, set our bags down and got right to hitting the streets and seeing all that budapest had to offer us. once again, budapest was SUCH a cool place! so many cool stores and such to be seen. i purchased most of my familiy christmas presents here so i am hoping they enjoy them. after walking around for a while we went to a yummy dinner, and got back to the city. budapest was cool to see during the nighttime and it made me so much more excited to see it more during the day! 

rastel hostel

my second Kürtőskalács but this time, megan and i got it with peanuts and chocolate. not as good as the original cinnamon but still delicious!

the next day we went exploring, per usual. the guy who owns the hostel we were staying at mapped out all of the things that were a MUST see here. we were kind of bummed because we only had one day here but he said if we did it right, we could see it all in one day!!!!! we we began our cramming at about 9am. it was a beautiful day. we were so lucky with all of the weather on this trip! 

liberty bridge

Locking your love; a custom that people do here in europe. they take a lock, put it on a bridge and throw the key into the water, to symbolize their everlasting love. this one was especially cool because of the metal detailing someone did to make a flower around the lock with metal. super cool!

Chain Bridge. my favorite animal is a lion, so i especially loved this one!

beautiful view of the Parliament Building

Fisherman Bastion

St. Matthias Church

Parliament Building again. 

Széchenyi Thermal Baths we went to. its a huge building and its full of about 15+ different pools with different minerals in it. saunas, steam rooms with different humidity and temperatures. it was sooooo relazing!!! i wasn't able to take pictures of inside, so i will attach pictures i find on google so i can show you how cool it was inside...

the next day (saturday) was a bit of a fail!! we had to catch a bus at 7am to go back to krakow in time to be able to fly out the following day (sunday) well our alarms didn't go off for some reason so we woke up at 6:40am we were in a mad panic to get out the door..we sprinted the streets of budapest, got on a metro to the train station and got there at.... 7:15. gosh dang it!!!! we didnt really know what to do... well, long story short by 11am we found a  train that would take us to krakow later that night. how lucky are we??? PLUS we got an extra day in budapest! we were all kind of tired from all the madness so we went to a starbucks and just hung out for a few hours. it felt so good!  

THIS MORNING WAS MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! you can see it in our eyes.

ahahaah okay i was DYING. i needed to go to the bathroom SO bad. we looked everywhere for a water closet (toilet) and we got to the train station and there was WC written on the wall. i was so excited to ran and turned the corner.....a man pulled himself out of his pants and started peeing on the wall. i DIED. hahahahahhaahah i didnt know whether to laugh or run away, so i did both.

starbucks croissant, heaven on earth

NUMBER FOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! seriously, we need these in america!!!

delicious, authentic Hungarian cuisine. paprika chicken & spaetzle . amazing!!!!! 

the largest apple i have ever come across..MONDO!

i was grateful to have the extra day in budapest. although it was this day that i realized how much i missed home. we all went out to eat at Fricia Papa and were in the middle of talking about who knows what and it just happened. i started tearing up and crying for really, no reason at all! i miss my family and friends so much and its been semi hard this past week but i guess that is part of the experience in being here! budapest was amazing and i would recommend it to EVERYONE!