Window on the World

4 September 2005

It's been beautiful weather in Lithuania for a few weeks now. We're all taking great advantage of it as it won't last long. As the French say, "Il faut profiter du soleil!"

The mornings are the best. My windows face N.E. so my apartment is filled with sun. The air is crisp and cool, and it makes it easy to get up in the morning. I make my Celestial Seasonings Mountain Chai (recently resupplied by my Mom) and check my email with the BBC in the background. At 8:58 EET, I stop everything I'm doing and sit down to watch Windows on the World on the BBC. For about 2 minutes, they show live cameras on various cities around the world such as Venice, Kyiv, Seattle, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, London, Palma de Mallorca, Hong Kong and Dubai. I love to watch it, and check the temperatures (shown in F and C!) and to see what's going on in the world - it also tells what big events are coming up. I like especially to see London, because it's only 6:58 GMT there, and the city is just waking up. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate to get up before 8, but when once in a while I have to, I have always loved to be out in the city in the early morning with a hot travel cup of coffee.

Last weekend, I was at a lunch in Trakai with a photographer friend. The guests included another photographer, dialect coach and two actors working on the ABC TV movie about Pope John Paul II. They are filming in Lithuania this summer, and the show will air in early November. Back in Vilnius, I met them at their hotel lobby on my way home and we stopped to talk a bit more. I also got to meet the 11 year-old boy playing the "young pope" and the pope's father. The timing is interesting, as this past week celebrated the anniversary of Solidarity, the Polish labor party that came to power in the Gdansk shipyards under the leadership of Lech Walesa and is considered, with the encouragement of the Pope, responsible for the fall of communism in Poland.

Filming a movie in Lithuania is so cheap that a number of foreign films have been here recently, Alicia Silverstone was here in the spring, Trakai castle stood in for a BBC movie about Elizabeth I earlier the summer and I hear that several more international stars are due to show up in the coming months.

The air is cooler this weekend for Sostenes Dienos, or Capitol Days, here in Vilnius. Unfortunately, FHM is going to press on Tuesday morning and we're a little behind schedule. Before going to work yesterday, I took the opportunity to walk around a bit and check out the scene. It's all the same Vilnius galleries exhibiting every time there's an art festival on Gedimino Prospektas, but they are still fun to look at and it makes the day a little more fun. I've been on call for a week now waiting for the interview and photo session with Macijauskas, one of the top Lithuanian basketball players, which means I can never stray too far from my camera. Probably, we'll drive to Kaunas later today to do it, finally. I hope so, because if not, we're in big trouble for time and have a big hole in the magazine!

It's Sunday morning, and I'm home working on the computer. I was about to start throwing eggs out the window at a guy who couldn't shut off his car alarm. That is the one thing that makes living in Vilnius really annoying at times. The alarms are often so sensitive that just walking within a meter of the car will set it off. I'm not exaggerating either. I like to sleep with the windows open, and I find myself often praying for rain, because then there won't be anyone out on the street to set off the alarms!

I'm starting to get really homesick for Colorado. It's a terrible conundrum, because I like Vilnius so much. It's fun now to be able to look out my window, and see all the tourists standing on the Hill of Three Crosses. I like all the little streets, and going out to the lake on weekends (when we get good weather!) and I have a good job with really cool people... well, the FHM boys anyway! I try to stay away from the drama at the other magazines. Too much estrogen. The funny thing is, the first thing I miss when I think of Colorado is not the mountains, or the weather, it's shopping at Whole Foods, followed closely by margaritas on the patio of La Iguana. Not because I miss free-range beef and tequila, but because those things usually signal a get together of good friends. And that's what I really miss the most, the generous, laid-back tempermant of Coloradans. And ok, the sun!

So now I admitted it, and I'm going to forget about it, and go back to loving Vilnius, and Lithuania. Fall is upon us, and so is ski team training. Next weekend is the Vilnius City Marathon and Mini-Marathon, and then it's just weekend after weekend of different events until Christmas. I may be homesick, but I'm staying for a while, so come visit and we'll go to the lake and eat sashlyk and drink beer.

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