užupis, more birthday, chinese food, & more

with the other girls in sweden, it left a quite house to jaclyn and myself. a girl that we became friends with, Luiza,  showed us a few cool places in the days they were gone. the first day, we met up with her and our other friend Sondra and they showed us a really cool place called Užupis. It's a neighborhood in Vilnius Old Town. The district has been popular with artists, hippies and free spirits. On April 1, 1997, the district declared itself an independent republic. it has their own constitution and if we want, they can stamp our passports because its "its own republic" it is SO small and we walked the entire thing in 30 minutes but it was a cool, artsy, urban place to live!

jaclyn, sondra, luiza and myself.

cute sondra and i

because of the mirrored background that the constitution has, i'll just type all of the terms that their constitution has

Everyone has the right to live by the River Vilnelė, while the River Vilnelė has the right to flow by everyone.

Everyone has the right to hot water, heating in winter and a tiled roof.

Everyone has the right to die, but it is not a duty.

Everyone has the right to make mistakes.

Everyone has the right to individuality.

Everyone has the right to love.

Everyone has the right to be not loved, but not necessarily.

Everyone has the right not to be distinguished and famous.

Everyone has the right to be idle.

Everyone has the right to love and take care of a cat.

Everyone has the right to look after a dog till one or the other dies.

A dog has the right to be a dog.

A cat is not obliged to love its master, but it must help him in difficult times.

Everyone has the right to sometimes be unaware of his duties.

Everyone has the right to be in doubt, but this is not a duty.

Everyone has the right to be happy.

Everyone has the right to be unhappy.

Everyone has the right to be silent.

Everyone has the right to have faith.

No one has the right to violence.

Everyone has the right to realize his negligibly and magnificence.

Everyone has the right to encroach upon eternity.

Everyone has the right to understand.

Everyone has the right to understand nothing.

Everyone has the right to be of various nationalities.

Everyone has the right to celebrate or not to celebrate his birthday.

Everyone shall remember his name.

Everyone may share what he possesses.

No-one can share what he does not possess.

Everyone has the right to have brothers, sisters and parents.

Everyone is capable of independence.

Everyone is responsible for his freedom.

Everyone has the right to cry.

Everyone has the right to be misunderstood.

No-one has the right to make another person guilty.

Everyone has the right to be personal.

Everyone has the right to have no rights.

Everyone has the right to not be afraid.

Do not defeat.

Do not fight back.

Do not surrender.

after walking around in the wet all day we went to this chinease food place and it was okay..not my favorite but not too terrible! after we hurried and got in our warm beds because it was freezing!

 the next day, luiza gave a talk at a lds bastism so we went to support her and the people getting baptized  it was interesting to see that EVERYONE in the branch was present at the baptism. i guess thats the kind of intimacy that you get when you only have about 50-60 in the branch. it was cool to see how all of the members were so excited for the two that became members.it was a good experience for me to realize that we all need to be welcoming and genuine to those around us. after the baptism, luiza took jaclyn and i to a finnish grocery store that i have been wanting to go to for a few months now but didnt quite know how to navigate myself there. it was inside of a HUGE mall here that we didnt know existed but it was fun to see. we  will be coming back for sure with the other girls! after that we were STARVING and one of the people who got baptized earlier that day, his aunt has a restaurant that the missionaries in our ward told us that we HAD to try. being the chinese connoisseur that i am, (and luckily jaclyn as well) we made our way there. it was like a 45 min bus ride and a 10 min walk up a million stairs (slight exaggeration) but it was MORE THAN WORTH IT! urgh, i may even go to say that it is the best chinese food i have EVER had! yummmmmm! it was delicious and i WILL be back!

jen, myself and luiza

us at this cool look-out point in vilnius

 the next day was my birthday! yahoo the big 2-1. i cant believe i am that old, it doesnt feel real yet, and it probably never will. i want to do grown up things, without the grown up responsibilities, is that so much to ask?! haha anyways my day was spent at church and then in bed. i have been with a sickness for over 2 weeks now and it was no good. (cough, runny nose, sore throat, achy, and because of all the pressure in my head, i have went deaf in my right ear. no joke, i cannot hear!) 

anyways, i slept and watched lord of the rings (per usual) and waited for my dear friends holly, jen and meg to come back home. once they got home jen jac and i were in jen's room chatting about their time spent in sweden and TA-DA they had yet ANOTHER surprise for me! they had a big ice cream cake with candles and everything and brought it to me in bed! yayaya for them! i love them so much. after the cake festivites i had skype dates with my friends brandon brown, kenzie pehrson, brittney brown, mikey jacobson, and sean moysh i have the best friends ever! it was so nice to laugh and talk to them, even though i was way sick! and THEN my whole family skyped me from my uncles house! i was so excited to see them! it was so nice to see their cute faces but it made me miss them oh so much! i cant wait to be re-united for christmas!!!!!!!!

this past week was insane. monday i woke up and wanted to die because i was so sick. the missionaries gave me a beautiful blessing which helped my spirits, but not my sickness. which sucked. i woke up on tuesday and didnt feel much better but taught my classes because i felt bad asking jen to teach again because she was saying how she didnt feel well either so she didnt come to school tuesday at all. i was miserable. i love them so much and had missed them over our short break, but it was all i could do to not cry because i was so ready to be done within the first 6 minutes of class. after school, jaclyn said she felt like crap too! YUCK! then, wedneday jaclyn, jen and myself were alll SOOOO sick and dima canceled class for wednesday and thursday for us to be able to get feeling better. i didnt want to go to the Dr's here because dima said they arent very good and do not help at all and they are very expensive. (50$ a visit and 40$ for any testing they have to do ex. step throat test etc) so we didnt go to the actual dr's here but the pharmacy's here are different then at home. here, you go to them, tell them your symptoms, they check things off a paper and write things down and then give you what you need.... kind of sketchy but at that point, i was desperate. they gave me medicine and by thursday i felt 60% better. it was so nice to be able to rest and rejuvenate my body! 

ahhh  i love these kids!!!!!

hahahahahahahh for one of my classes i taught them how to place charades. oh my heck so hilarious. i could stop laughing and neither could the kids. best game ever!!!!! what i would do is i would choose one of the kids, they'd come out in the hall with me and would pick a piece of paper and on the paper it said different things that had to act out (fish, bird, pirate, boat, lion etc) ^^^ the video is one of danielos (of course, because he is my favorite and i dont care who knows it) and he was being a bird, can you tell? oh my  heck, i love these kids so much. today the girls and i were realizing we only have 4 more weeks with them. i legit started crying (shocker? no i am a hansgen, and our tears flow like rivers) but no seriously, i am so sad. i am not ready, nor will i ever be ready to tell them goodbye. i have developed such a huge, strong, unconditional love for all of them... ahhh i am not looking forward to having to say goodbye.

anways, later after school i was ready to be out of the house. i was developing a strong, awful case of cabin fever and needed to me out and about. holly, and megan felt the same and so we began on a journey to akropolis to see a movie. once we got there, we realized the movies we wanted to see weren't playing (if you cant remember, click HERE to read about the last encounter) anyways so we walked around, they were hungry so they ate, we watched a hockey game thing and then went to the grocery store. 

try this on for size!!!!!! (objects in picture are bigger then they appear)

i was so sick of eating starches, noodles and other cream colored things (ULTIMATE SHOCKER) and so i purchased bananas, 5 pomegranite, 15 clementines, 2 bell peppers, and a tree of broccoli  stevie is putting her foot down on carbs! hahahah we will see how long it lasts..... the only downfall of all this fruit/veggie buying was i had nothing to carry it in. needless to say, my arms were sore but they will be happy once i feed them with yummy nutrition!

we took the girls on the adventure we went on the previous saturday. prisma (finish grocery store) and then the amazing chinese food. they were so in love with us for  showing it to them. yayayya best roommate ever awards go to jaclyn and i :)

WE  WILL BE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!