Quote of the day (the day being two days ago)

"You know of course how to make a Molotov Cocktail..."

-survivor of the Vilna ghetto and partisan

Blergh

The guides are expensive.

I should hit the archives in Vilnius (Vilna) and Kaunas (Kovno) before I go to the shtetls and look for documents.

It will all happen, but right now it's overwhelming.

So for the moment, I will just get ready and go to class.

Timing is everything

Our professor invited us to a party at his place on Saturday night at 9p.

I couldn't figure out why it was starting so late. (Not late-late, but late to start a party for someone older...)

And then I figured out, because then it's almost after Havdalah. Those who aren't shomer shabbes can come at 9ish (when it's still definitely light out), and those who are can come a little after and the party will still be happening.

Lithuania for Everyone

Things I enjoy about Lithuania that I've seen here in Vilnius:

1. All the crazy dye jobs on the old ladies. The colors are like third cousins-once removed to natural tones.
2. All the crazy dye jobs on younger women. Perhaps it is a commentary on the fact that dyeing one's hair is artificial anyway, so let's just stop pretending and trying to look natural. Lots of combos of light and dark on the same head. It's not punk, it's just...um... contrasting?
3. That the word for chocolate sounds very similar in Lithuanian and is easily picked up. Pronounced: sho-ko-lah-d.
4. Good pastries.
5. Cheap bus fare. A student single-ride ticket is 1 Lita. That's about 40 cents.
6. The little old wooden houses tucked in the midst of city blocks beautiful restored buildings.
7. Sour cream.
8. Pear cider, on tap.
9. A cafe culture.
   
10. The inability of anyone to be able to predict the weather here. Just look outside, prepare appropriately, and then put supplies for all other eventualities in your bag. Because they will happen later.
11. Friendly people, even if they don't smile.
12. The sense of a society in transition.
13. That there are more open-minded, fair-minded people here than not.
    

Things that are annoying:

1. That traffic only stops in the rotary after you march into the street. You have to walk into traffic to make it stop.
2. Cobblestone streets. Yes, they can be charming, but after a while, they are just bumpy.
3. All the graffiti all over the city.
4. So many ugly areas of the city, brimming with Communist charm, beyond the certain popular central neighborhoods.
5. Greasy, greasy, soggy, soggy potato pancakes.
6. A lack of direct routes anywhere. Sometimes wandering is good. Sometimes you just want to go.
7. Having a Museum of the Genocide completely leave out that whole Jews-Holocaust thing, except for a little (skewed-numbers) poster next to the bathroom, and focusing on the Communist era. (But more on that and the amended definition of "genocide" another time.)
8. Having one key to our room so that Arielle and I have to coordinate our schedules everyday to meet up. (Luckily, we bought cheapie cell phones to communicate. The ring tone I chose has frogs ribbit-ing.)
9. Ants.

At this closed movie theatre, a graffiti war is happening. Right now, the line says, "Lithuania for Everyone." Soon, it will be rewritten by the other side to say, "Lithuania for Lithuanians." And it just keeps going back and forth like that.

(insert mushy song title/lyric about people needing each other)

Today's notable activity: contacting tour guides to take me to the shtetls.

I tend to be independent. I want to do things for myself. As in, "I'm capable, why shouldn't I? Are you saying I can't do it?" and/or "Other people just slow me down." These not-always-useful characteristics are magnified during solo travel, which is most of my travel. So I was a bit reticent when the guides were first mentioned to me.

At the opening of my "Jewish Lithuania" program, there was a large reception at which I met a woman named Sara and we started chatting. I mentioned wanting to travel to these family places and she mentioned being taken by a tour guide.

Mentally, one eyebrow goes up; me? take a tour guide? A *tour* guide? I don't go on tours. Okay, occasionally, but not as my usual posture. Not as my way of getting to know a less touristy side of the place I'm in.

But I listen to what she is saying and respond that it sounds like it was a really good experience for her. And she mentions that she has the name of a guy and summer is the busy season so a lot of guides are booked. I say that even if I can't get someone, at least I can go and see the places on my own.

Long story slightly shorter, I am convinced that I'd be a moron to not go with a guide. Sara tells me a story of some guy who didn't want to come with her and her couple friends with the guide, did it on his own, and saw nothing. The reason is that without these guides, I would go there and be that guy, and not understand anything I was looking at.

First, I wouldn't know where to look. So many things are hidden or outside where town is now or are just the spaces where things used to be. Second, even when I was looking at something, I probably wouldn't be able to read its significance.

When looking at hidden cities, it's best to bring someone with the decoder ring. Many of these places only exist insofar as these experts know how to see them and reveal them to others.

So this morning, I followed up on some names I had been given of good guides. All who do independent tours, specifically tailored to one's personal map. You can bring friends to split the cost or go alone. I'll probably end up going alone because no one has availability in the next couple of days and after that, friends in this program who would otherwise come with, will have left town. I'll get prices and details and then, I'll choose one.

I will spend two days because the towns are spread out. Gorzd (Lang-land) and Shalel (Leibowitz-land) on one day and Linkeva (Yaffe-land) on the other, with a stop in another big town on the way there.

I have been promised sites of massacres (fun!) and some gravestones, among other sites. More surprisingly, in Linkeva, because it was so small and out of the way, it also has an intact synagogue and Jewish cemetery. Either of those things are rare to find post-WWII (especially when the smaller towns didn't have as many synagogues to be destroyed so that some would remain, and the gravestones were used in building projects), but to have both is kinda crazy.

It's unlikely that any words will still be legible on stones from before WWI, but it's possible. It's also unlikely that in a huge intact cemetary I would be able to even find the right stones, but again, possible. Either way, I know I can at the very least get to the cemetary, which is likely where Baubie's (Sally's) mother's family is buried.

On the Mom's-side front, there happens to be a man in town (Vilnius) here who is from Shalel. I was talking to my professor here and when the names of the shtetls came up, he mentioned this man, who is probably in his 70s, at least. (I say 'at least' because I am a terrible judge of age and tend to guess too young.) He doesn't speak English, but there are others around who speak Yiddish and so we'll be fine.

He goes to the Choral Synagogue regularly, a synagogue which is the only pre-war shul still in use and used for its original purpose. Unconfirmed: It's possible that people are paid for regular attendance because if Jews aren't using it, the city can take the building, or something like that (but that is another topic). So there is a regular group. He is part of it.

Even better, there is a DVD of an expedition that took him and another congregant of another nearby shtetl, back to Shalel (and the other place). I am trying to get a copy. The only issue is that the soundtrack will likely be in Yiddish. So I propose that we gather all those fabulous family members with an understanding of Yiddish in someone's living room, and watch the DVD there all together, pausing for translation, to see Shalel and what he has to say. (He was likely there in the prewar period, after Anna Leibowitz's family left, but still, neato.)

And I am able to follow up on all these details because of the help of my family. (Cue audience: Awwww.) Which brings us full circle, now doesn't it? Only because of the help and information I've gotten from you guys have I been able to do this. Thanks to everyone who has passed along a found record or document over the years. And thanks Uncle David for all the assembling of bits and pieces in your work. And Aunt Rose. And Nonny for every call where I had just one more thing to ask you because you know about everyone. And thanks Nonny, Uncle Danny, and Uncle Herbie for dealing with the list of all my questions. And thanks Aunt Linda for asking that list to them for me when they were all together and filling me in with all the other info you have! And thanks Mom and Dad for sending me your records!

Oh, the records.

If you don't know, Mom has a hugehuge file of collected records and so many detailed notes taken over the years, asking extended relatives who pass through questions about parents and grandparents and back and back. And without her pressing Baubie a number of years ago, the chart from the Cohen/Becker/Yaffe side would be significantly smaller. And Dad filled in holes in the chart when I kept getting confused about who goes where from when...

But because of all that, I have three shtetls that I'll visit sometime in the next couple weeks, and a broader family context in which to put it all.

This is in no way an independent project.

First things first, or at least 24th

First, my apologies for not posting everything that has been going on. I've been writing them all in my head, but somehow that does not magically translate to the blog. (I will be working on acquiring that telepathy capability in the future.) It's just all *so much* that it's a bit overwhelming to try to put it all together and write it out without feeling like I'm leaving out the character of it, and so instead, I've just left out almost everything. Woops.

On to excuse #2: I have been exhausted at night. I've been going all day, everyday, basically, and the first free time is usually in bed at night and the thought of trying to be coherent at that point makes me giggle.

So, bibbity-bobbity-boo, in we go.

More to come on what has passed.

Ants in my pants

I wake up this morning at 7:30 to Arielle half-whispering, "Halley? Um, Halley? We are infested with ants." You have never seen me shoot up out of bed faster.

Overnight, they had come in and were in everything. All over the floor, but especially in the corners. And in my big, open backpack on the floor. With all my clothes. Especially my clothes. Pick up the bag, thousands of ants underneath. The little, black kind. And because they didn't go near the food, I am convinced they are also the stupid kind.

I went to shake out a bra and thousands of ants poured out and onto the ground, scattering.
So, so gross.

We call the office immediately and they rush over and give us a new room and are very apologetic and so nice. I am just trying to get my stuff out of there. My ant-infested stuff.

I separate it into two piles: clean and infested (mostly clothes). The backpack stays in the hall, with stuff to be washed. The rest goes into the new room.

The woman offers to do our laundry, for free of course. I say, I can do it. After a few trips of my hand into the backpack of ants, getting grossed out, she motions and says I should let her do it. I do. I get over the fact that a stranger has my underwear. I am just happy to be away from all the ewww.

But now, the only clothes Arielle and I have are the clothes on our backs, what we slept in. So we spend the day in pajamas because we have no other clothes. Because they are being washed. Because they are infested with ants.

We both happen to have cardigans which were away from the rest of the stuff. I also have an olive scarf. She has shorts on and luckily, I slept in black yoga pants. (It could have been the pink pear pajama pants.) We can't go to class because we have no clothes. (We send word to our professors, and I got a very nice email back from mine, so that was taken care of.) But still, we're hungry.

So we go to the corner bakery for coffee, tea, and pastries. We pass classmates and laughingly explain the whole thing. Why we're walking through town in our pajamas. In fact, we spend the whole day retelling versions of this story, often laughing. Always in disbelief.

Later, around 4:30, we must eat again and go to a nearby restaurant. Where we run into more people. I am wearing the black yoga pants, my 1987 Max Headroom - Coke t-shirt, a black cardigan, and the olvie scarf tied around my neck. Luckily, I grabbed a bra, too, somehow, before everything went kersplooey. But that was all. (Nobody wants underpants full of ants.) Arielle is wearing small purple shorts, a nature shirt, and a long grey cardigan. We are fooling no one. But we pretend.

We come home to find large racks of drying clothes in the front driveway. As in, I can see my undies from the next house over. On our busy street. Awesome. I go inside and ignore it. (One day ask me to tell you about the Great Nottingham Underwear Debacle of 2000...)

It was a great moment when the woman came in, around 9:30p with all my clothes, clean and folded, smelling fresh, including the backpack, which had been cleaned and scoured. This woman is a hero. (Yes, it was their place that gave us the ants, but whatever.)

The new room is clean, comfortable, and has our clean clothes in it. We are basically all set.

I've opened a tube of Pringles and we're going to watch a movie.

PS - It has not passed my notice that on a trip that has to do with going home, in some sense of that word, it has been impossible for me to get settled. First in the dorm, I switched beds. Twice. Then we left the dorm for the guest house. And then the ants and we had to change rooms. Within a little over a week. Just a couple of wandering Jews.

Trakai Castle

Why I love the internet III

Unlike at the dorm, Arielle and I have internet at the guest house where we are staying now.
And internet means I can take as long as I need to upload a bazillion photos. Okay, possibly fewer.

Photos are up.
Unlabeled.
(I'll fix that soon.)
But here ya go:

http://halley.shutterfly.com/

There's actually a phrase.

"What do you want? It's Lithuania, it rains here."

And the Lithuanian word for the name of the country? Derived from the word for rain.

It rains, then it stops. Then it rains. Then there's sun. Then it thinks about raining. Then it gets hot and bright.
Luckily, today was just nice.

I give you the weather report because when I looked online, it said it was cold and rainy in Vilnius today. It was actually warm and sunny.

But I figure that they just wanted to save some time and at the beginning of the month they just programmed in the weather for the next few weeks, forecasting rain. Odds were in their favor.

You say potato...

...I say, wow, they eat a ton of potatoes here, showing up in many, many forms.

Yes, including potato pancakes. Large ones, crazy greasy. All folded over. With sour cream. Some with fillings, sweet and savory.

But I would still say the main ingredient is grease. And then potatoes.

Line of the day (for last Friday)

In Riga, Latvia.

I wonder about not being able to understand the tram driver's announcements as we head towards the bus station.

My Belorussian friend reassures me, "Don't worry, they will also repeat in Russian."

Yay

This morning, Arielle and I moved from the dorm of eww into the guest house of woo! and have been giggling all day to one another because it is just that much nicer. I believe the phrase "shit-eating grin" would apply.

And it's only 8 bucks more per night. We are lucky, lucky people.
Heheheheh....

A picture's worth... a few more days before I have to get the full Stockholm post finished.

Yes, yes, the full low-down on my fabulous time in Stockholm with all the fabulous people there will come shortly, but in the mean time, have a few photos:

On the day cruise in the archipelago off Stockholm

Ashley and I, taking a break from playing boules down by the water

Chris and I dancing at Ashley and Moa's wedding on the Borgila.

And last but certainly not least, Majbritt and I at our first meet up, after dinner at the neato Sturehof.

If only I could find the Great Plains…

Warning: This post contains lots of complaining. If you don’t want to hear it, I suggest you skip this one.



Ohmigawd, what a craphole.

The dorm we are staying in (or rather, I have elected to stay in over a pricier hotel option) is connected to a music school. Currently, there is one violinist who appears not to have gone home for the summer.

I tried to think what worse bathrooms I’ve experienced. I’ve come up with individual examples – disgusting gas station bathrooms, rainforest bathrooms in Australia where bugs dropped from the ceilings – but I think these bathrooms win for overall effect.

The women’s bathrooms are down a long hall from my room. You enter a sort of foyer with three satellite rooms: a toilet room, a sink room, and a shower room. In the toilet room, there are four stalls – two are locked shut from the inside for unknown reasons, the third stall has nothing in it, and the last, filled with all manner of rotting and flaking pipes, has the toilet. Everything in here is cracked, mismatched or missing, except for a few tiles covered with splotches of paint, though what has been painted in here in the past few years, I cannot tell.

For anyone who has ever thought I spend too much time in the shower, here is your revenge. The shower curtain is a blue and white checkerboard pattern, with brown splotches. All over. No, it’s not someone rinsing out hair dye everyday over the course of a year, but instead, mold. I performed intricate choreography trying to get into the stream of water while not touching the shower curtain. It’s fun trying not to catch the plague while getting clean.

Because there’s no drainage in the floor and someone else flooded the room, I got dressed holding everything a few inches above the ground. A relaxing bathing experience.

Actually, that’s all on the second floor bathroom, while my room is on the third. I’ve gone down to the second because it’s the one with the western toilet(s). The bathroom on the third floor actually seems to be cleaner, so maybe I’ll start using this one, with its squatters (a stall with a hole in the ground). I mean, we were given a roll of toilet paper upon check in, so at least I know I’ll have paper whichever one I choose.

And at night, it’s all dark. Long dark hallways and no lights on. If you can find the lights, great. They will stay on for a minute. But you probably can’t find the light switch anyway.

Comparatively, my room is fine. The seven flies that came in here this morning from the open window have dwindled to one, who keeps flying in stupid circles near the (turned off) light in the middle of the room. But at least the flies keep out of the way – there is no avoiding the “mattress,” which maybe used to be a mattress, but is now a “mattress.” It’s like sleeping on a topographical map. The Mariana Trench is where the padding has completely disappeared and I hit the board underneath. Most of the time, it’s just a bright and airy basic room. Fine. Whatever.

And there’s no internet. Apparently music students don’t ever need to go online. (Though we’re told there is free wifi all around the city and in every café and at the language center.) I mean, why would one need internet at a school?

On the other hand, we are only paying $12 per night.

Going into town because it's there

After I got in last night, it was still reasonably early and I walked into Old Town, which is only about 10 minutes from the dorm. My guide book mentioned a vegetarian restaurant whose name translates to White Elephants.

(For those of you who would ask: why, yes, it was up a bit of a hill.) Got lost on my way, but kept wandering the right way into the right streets. I think I only had a problem because everyone kept saying, “Don’t worry, you can’t get lost.”

Walked past what looked like a solid building, but the front gate was open and a big rock concert was going on in the courtyard with hundreds of people, it seemed. Found my place, also a (covered) courtyard. Ate some fun tofu thing. Got a lovely pear cider from on tap, served in an enormous glass mug. You know I’m sold on any place that has cider on tap.

Old Town, as you’d expect, is prettier than a lot of other areas. Neat buildings. Relaxed vibe. Cheap food and drink (which only gets less expensive outside the cities).

And now, I’m going to get some crepes. And some internet.

(Later edit: I got neither crepes nor internet. But there’s so much patio eating that I had no trouble finding food and ate at a shaded sidewalk table and listened to some street musicians who weren’t terrible. At the end of the day, the bottoms of my feet are the color of splotchy burnt toast.)

Lithuanian word of the day

Aciu, pronounced AH-choo. (Thank you)

No, really. Ah-choo. That’s the word.

Tee hee.

First light

I was on the first plane before sunrise.

Still dark when Lisa dropped me off. The sun threatening the back of the Capitol as I waited at the gate. By the time I was in my seat for the six a.m. shuttle up to New York, the first reflections hit the loading ramp, traffic-cone orange.

Apparently our friends at Heathrow could sense that I’m not usually the first one anywhere and helped me to take forever to get off the plane, to get my passport stamped, and to get my bag. My bag was the last off. Of a fairly full trans-Atlantic flight. But I was rewarded with a fabulous welcome committee of fabulous Jo, who presented me with a (My Lil Pony) balloon at the arrival gate, chocolates at the car, and pink pad and pen on my bed. But best of all: Jo, Phil, and puppy Bentley.

Shameless plug: You must go to the best tearoom in Canterbury, possibly all England, Tiny Tim’s Tearoom. Yummy, yummy food. Yummy, yummy tea. (I had the Lady Somethingrather tea, among other things...) I also have it on good authority that the full tea is amazing, as are the proprietors. After a too short visit involving much flora and fauna and talking, I was sent on my way with scones and Plump Pilgrims.

The flight to Stockholm was fine. To my left, a Japanese man drinking beer and red wine at the same time. Over Oslo, a bright pink moon.

Madame Romantika* answers a few questions

Yes, there will be photos posted soon. The network on board here can't handle it, though.

Yes, I will fill you in on my time up to this point shortly.

No, not right now. It's now 12:53am Latvian time and I should probably sleep at some point.

Yes, I do think it's pretty funny to hear drunk Scandinavians sing karoake. "I love you, baby! And if it's quite alright, I need you baby! To warm de lonely nights!"

No, not funny enough to move into the bar. I can hear just fine from here.
Halfway down the boat.



*the name of the ship. And if you find golden accents on anything that could be accented romantic, then do I have the boat for you.

You can't get there from here

There are no ships that go from Stockholm to Lithuania. Nope. They go all points north and south, but not to Lithuania. I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t a reason… Who knew that Latvia was the place to go?

The ship is called Romantika and all announcements are made in Swedish, English (sort of), and Latvian. All of a sudden, signs are in Cyrillic and Roman characters and in about five languages. Want to know how to tell the difference between the Swedes and the Latvians? Ask them. Want to know another way? The Swedes (at least the women) are usually in black leggings, or jeans that are basically leggings. And everyone else is Latvian.

Except for my roommates. One is Lithuanian, and was surprised that I would be going there, too. (Again, what the hell? Why is going there so unusual? Should I grab a switchblade? Or will I just be spending a lot of time twiddling my thumbs and staring at trees?) And the other roommate is something Russian-ish, but not anything that the other one speaks. The rare sentences we’ve spoken to each other have all been in English.

It’s possible that I am one of only four non-blonds on the ship. And one of the others is the six-foot dog(?) mascot of the Tallink Silja Lines who is running around in a blue skirt, curtseying and taking photos with people against their will.

The sign on the back of the door has a safety diagram and we are assigned to assembly station D. The map is labeled with the following areas: 1, B, C, and 4. Awesome.

I love that I’m taking the boat over to Lithuania (via Latvia). I will be very literally, just off the boat. Not that this is similar to any boat my relatives took to get to the States because there is a casino and bars and dance clubs. And even with my cheapest possible ticket, I am allowed to go to all these places.

Still, when I’m down in my room on the lowest level people can go, I can sense some echoes. First, it smells. (Okay, it smells like feet and not like waste or vomit.) Second, there are no windows and it’s a small space. (But there are only three of us in the room, a room with beds and linens. And a TV. And my laptop is plugged in. By the mirror. Though we do suffer from a lack wireless internet down here.) So like I said, it’s totally similar.

But then there’s the rumbling. The engines are a loud bass and add an extra rumbling vibration to the swaying of the ship, which intensifies as you descend the decks. I won’t say the T word, but the sound is familiar from that film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Still, there’s no Irish dancing down here, so I think we’re okay.

It took a couple hours to get out of the archipelago off Stockholm. Yesterday, I earned some nice tan lines from my V-neck t-shirt on a day trip around the archipelago of islands on the S/S Stockholm from 1903, retrofitted with a snack bar and formal restaurant, because god forbid we take a three-hour tour without full refreshments. Okay, go ahead, sing it with me: “A three hour tour… a three hour tour…”

The (Swedish) guide on the tour lectured in Swedish and then repeated in English, in the kind of sing-songy, over-enunciated way people speak when they’ve said the same shpiel a number of times and they suspect those listening may not speak the language. Imagine the Swedish chef as an English-language tour guide. The best was when she would forget to repeat in English. For example, we passed the Island of Denmark (next to the Island of Sweden, the old boundary to where Sweden’s territory began), and she said, “Now, you would probably think that the island got its name from the time that Denmark and Sweden were at war, fighting over territory and claiming land.” The end. She explained in Swedish, and then moved on.

So I’ve made up the rest of the story myself: The Swedish must’ve been huge fans of Hamlet. They were such huge fans of Shakespeare’s story that they wanted to stage a version of it. However, so great was their admiration that a theatre wouldn’t do. Neither would an outdoor amphitheatre. The scope of their production couldn’t be contained by one small island. If they were going to have a Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, then their prince needed a Denmark. And that’s how the island was named. Before then, it was just called Archie.

But the low down on the area and the history (the real history) of the islands was great. And necessary – because after a while, all the islands start looking alike. They all have lots of trees, mostly pine. Beautiful summer houses spot the landscapes, different sizes, carved Swedish folk designs on the porches. Docks nearby. All very charming and pretty. And then there are lots more islands… with lots more rocks and trees.

And people stood with video cameras rolling. I feel sorry for the people back home who will be made to watch these boring, boring videos of endless water and trees. The same view, seemingly on a loop. Again, on the deck of this ship, there were people (okay, it’s really always men) shooting endless streams of the same (different, but the same) view on our ship’s way out to the Baltic Sea. Finally, after two hours of the same, the islands became small, low and almost bare for a few minutes, and then there was nothing but water on all sides.

I caught the change (a sea change, if you will) from the window of the café I sat in, glutting myself on free internet after having almost no access in Stockholm. What’s that you ask? Do I think it’s strange that I have easier access to the internet in the middle of the Baltic Sea than I did in Stockholm? Why no, I don’t think that’s strange at all. What I do think is strange was the Latvian man who walked by me wearing pleated denim shorts and a white t-shirt. The shirt had a pick-up truck waving the Dixie flag and the words, “Truck is Better.”

We arrive at eleven tomorrow morning. And then, the bus to Vilnius.

and a third

Just found a town from my dad's side, near the Latvian border. Leckava.

Because the whole country of Lithuania is only slightly larger than the size of West Virginia, it's really possible to get to all these places... even though these places don't exist anymore in any way resembling the old.

lingo

How do you say 'vegetarian' in Lithuanian?

Oh, no. (or not)

The moral of this story is:
Maps are hard.

Wait, no, it's:
Check the scale on a map.

But why should I do that, Halley?
Because otherwise you jump to conclusions about how there seem to be two towns named the same thing on opposite sides of the country and you start muttering to yourself.

Just me? Okay, that was just me.

In conclusion (yes, this moral has a conclusion), Shalel is where it should be and maps are our friends.
Sometimes.

Uses of the Internet -part 2

I just found a town I'm looking for, basically.

Online there was a map of Lithuania 1867-1914, during a time of Russian rule.
Kovno Guberna (Kovno Province), was the northern half of modern Lithuania, and was broken down into seven districts (uyezds).
Each district had a chart of the towns within that district. One of the towns was Šilalė, which was the Lithuanian name for the town of Shalel.

Shalel is the town I'm looking for.

Šilalė was in the district of Šiauliai (district name in Yiddish, Shavl).
Šiauliai is a city on the modern Lithuanian map.

It's on the map, so I can get there.
Pretty directly, too, it looks like.

And Gorzd? Also in the Kovno province, but in the southwest part of the Telšiai district. In Lithuanian it is Gargždai, a city that happens to be about 10 miles from Klaipeda, on the coast with it beaches and spas...

(click to enlarge map)

Everybody was kung-fu fighting*

I will be arriving in Lithuania only a few days after Dalia Grybauskaite, the first female president of Lithuania, takes office on July 12. Should be crazy.

More? http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/22904/

*check the second to last line of the article

It's all just a little bit of history repeating

Zayde Lang left Lithuania to avoid the Russians and being conscripted into the Russian army.

I don't expect a lot to be the same in Lithuania from the time of my great-grandparents and great-great. But there's one thing that seems to persist (in all the Baltics, actually): a fairly widespread hatred/dislike of the Russians and what they forced onto the Baltic peoples and the politic pressures they still enact.

Except now, the states are independent.

Still, it's less than a generation since that happened (in 1990/1991) and it takes time to wash Russia out of one's hair.

From the NYT

"Tracing Family Roots in Vilnius"
It's a short article with a video, too.

And a good one from 2003 on the Baltic Republics (but spends much time on Lithuania).

Pan Tadeusz -or- What am I supposed to be learning about Lithuania from this?

I am familiar with many forms of storytelling. I am also good at understanding and following along with most movies. That said, when this film ended I said to my tv, "What the heck was that?"

The film/book "Pan Tadeusz" (1999) was on a recommended reading list for getting acquainted with Lithuania. My guess is that in this adaptation from the book, they tried to cram in too many plot points and it ended up incredibly disjointed for most of the film. It began with an assumption of my generous background in Polish/Lithuanian history during the early 1800s.

They assumed wrong.

Once I generally figured out the Polish-Lithuanian co-state/non-state sort of relationship, and sort of figured out who belonged to whom in the sparring family storyline, I still couldn't quite figure out why things were happening. I knew what was happening, but couldn't figure out why any one scene related to the next many times, especially for the first hour and a half.

"Hey, let's have a war, with each other and with some Russians." "Okay!" bam! bam! bam! "Wait, we killed lots of each other? Okay, no biggie. We're nobility. Moving on..." Still, it never bothered me that the Russians were sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes locals, sometimes foreigners. Ambiguity with the Russians isn't so shocking a concept.

I could get that the film was trying to capture the style of the time in which it was written and affectations of speech. There were grand speeches and men talking to one another in sweeping metaphors that made more sense when I found out this was not based on a novel, but a Polish epic poem. Written in twelve volumes. Oy.

So what did I learn about Lithuania and/or Lithuania-Poland?

Lots of nature. Lots of mustaches.

(But I never figured out why the title, which translates to Mr. Thaddeus, was the title. Tadeusz was in about 15% of the film and not a particularly pivotal 15%, at that. Maybe it all makes more sense when read in 19th century Polish. Let's hope.)

omigoodness, omigoodness

Who let me do this?

And if you believe that...

I'm not flying out from Stockholm, but instead taking the boat/ferry that goes from Stockholm to Lithuania, to Klaipeda on the coast.

So when I get to Lithuania, I will be very literally "just off the boat."

I think that's pretty great, especially since I'm doing some loose version of the reverse trip of my great-grandparents coming to the US. I wonder if anyone will try to sell me a bridge.