| Winter
28 November 2004
Winter has come to Lithuania! It's been snowing here for days and
the temp promises to stay below freezing for some time now. There's
about 4 inches of crusty stuff on the ground that may very well
stay till spring. I have loved looking out my sixth flooor window
at the large flakes coming down all week and I'm absolutely itching
to get on the hill! At home, it's so the pink rooves of the Old
Town are so beautiful covered with snow.
Thanksgiving was a lot of food. I cooked for the Marines with my
friend Abby and I have to say, Abby and I make quite the culinary
team. She ordered a fresh Lithuanian turkey that we planned to put
in the oven at the Marine house early that morning. When Abby pulled
it out of the bag, she turned to me and said, "What do we do
with this?" I looked over and she was pointing to the long
turkey neck still attached to the bird! We both looked at each other
and just said, "Lithuania!" Neither of us really wanted
to touch it and since the boys were sleeping I made a quick search
for their driver to come help us. Not finding him, I ran back into
the kitchen and said, "Give me a knife!" I grabbed a large
butcher knife and hacked of the neck as low as I could. Unfortunatly,
it wasn't low enough and we realized that if we wanted to get any
stuffing in there I was gonna have to take it all the way down!
So there I was with Tom, ripping his neck of at the base with my
bare hands. Success! I just wish Abby had brought the camera. We
had a great dinner, sweet potatoes, mashed, green bean casserole...
Abby's oven isn't big enough to do it all at once so we kept stuff
warm in the sauna till it was all done. Worked perfectly. After
dinner I played in the snow with Colter and Ian. I haven't played
like that since... Carin and I built a snowman on Thanksgiving '99!
We played snow football today, but I spent most of this weekend
watching ski racing live from Lake Louise and Aspen. It was an exciting
weekend of racing for sure!!! Finland won two out of three in Aspen
and Bode Miller was double trouble in Lake Louise winning both the
DH and SG. It was the first DH win of his career. It's a lot of
fun watching, but it would be nice if I had someone here that I
could watch it with!
I went to watch the Christmas tree be lit in Cathederal Square last
night, it was weird. The tree is beautiful, truely, but the presentation
was just, well, odd. They were doing a sort of modern euro-trash-pop
extra-melodramatic version of the Nutracker which for me really
took away from the whole experience, but whatever. Last week I got
to see Santa when we photographed him for FHM. I told him for Christmas,
I want new skis, a cat, and my brothers in Lithuania. Not too much
to ask for right?
I know that I never wrote my Marine Ball part 2 email where I tell
you what it's all about and give my two cents about the experience,
etc., but if you checked the pictures, I think you got the idea.
Next Saturday will be my 1 year anniversary in Lithuania, and it
will also mark the longest time I've ever been overseas. Of course,
I was in the US for two weeks in July, but it hardly seems to count.
I hope this pre-holiday email finds everyone healthy and happy and
looking forward to a lot of snow this winter!
Take care and stay in touch!!!
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