House of Pong

There is at least one Lithuanian family who places ping pong far above basketball and they happen to own a hotel in the town of Joniškis, where we stopped for a night before driving across the border to Latvia. We're really not sure how much business the place gets, probably reliant upon local weddings that bring guests in from out of town.
The receptionist, who quickly shooed away the nine year old boy who was playing computer games at the check-in desk and initially greeted us, walked us through the dark lobby of the third floor to show us our room. We could make out a very small ping pong table and knew that display cases lined the walls, but once she left, we went back, found some light switches and discovered a veritable museum of Lithuanian table tennis.
There were stuffed dolls made in the image of famous table tennis players I had never heard of and signed portraits of Olympic pongers from around the world. Old magazines, newspaper clippings and artifacts like these proved this was the work of someone with an interest that spanned years or who had a very high buyer rating on Ebay.
A security camera must have tipped our hostess off to our exploration, because not soon after we began to snap pictures, she came back up the stairs with a big smile on her face. "You play?" we asked and gestured. "My family. A lot." She replied with a bashful pride that hinted she may be downplaying her own accomplishments. In fact, we were pretty sure this was her on the right. The signature on our receipt when we checked out verified it. Her name matched the portrait and the surrounding plaques and trophies.
Sure enough, on the morning we checked out, the man on the left showed up as well. It seemed like he came in only to greet the young couple who were "interested in my museum" as he put it. He was very insistent upon us using the table and looking at it some more and it was difficult to communicate that we were actually about to hit the road. He explained that "all the medals" were his and his grandsons and when I said "wow, that's a lot," he replied, "No. There are only a little up there. I have drawers more of them."
He was a player, but is now just a trainer and a coach, he said. A lot of the 'exhibit' was dedicated to high school pongers and the hallways had children's drawings depicting matches. When I googled the couple's last name "Franckaitiene," I found only that they organized the 9th Annual Baltic Veteran Table Tennis Championships. However, if Lithuania winds up taking the ping pong world by storm, I believe we will all have the Franckaitienes to thank.

To Grandmother's House We Went

Homestays in Lithuania are often referred to as sleeping "with the grandmother" (a sort of unfortunate translation). Arriving in Plateliai at around 3:30pm with winter early-evening darkness approaching, we stopped into the tourist office, where the very friendly and helpful woman made a quick phone call and then gave us two step driving directions to Granny Juliya's house.
She was waiting outside, hugging a long sweater around herself and returned my wave-and-smile with a bigger wave-and-smile. We pulled into her driveway and found that, like 99.99% of houses in Lithuania, she had a basketball hoop. Grandma Jules was really excited that we were from New York and, judging by the signatures in her guest book, we could possibly have been her first Americans. She apologized for not speaking English, explaining that she knew Lithuanian and Russian and had learned German in school. I made the mistake of trying to communicate that Merlin had studied French in school and I, Spanish, because she then excitedly began to speak to me in Espanol. I was too embarassed to admit that I hardly understood her - that her fourth language was better than my second.
We were given a tour of our guest space, on the second floor of her house, which could be accessed by a staircase straight from the parking lot. Our room, as you can see above, was lovely. I am a firm believer that matching is overrated, so I felt at home at once. In the hallway was a plug-in kettle, some tea and mugs. Naturally, I chose the one with the picture of her cowboy hat wearing granddaughter on it.
The bathroom had one of the most interesting plumbing mechanisms we've seen yet. There was one faucet for both the sink and the bathtub, it simply swiveled from one to the other according to your need. Up from its base was a shower hose that could be handheld or suspended on a hook overhead. We learned that the second option could result in some serious behind-the-tub leakage. Fortunately or unfortunately, all the water that spilled seemed to disappear. We really hope it didn't seep down and start dripping into Grandma's kitchen.
And this was our view. We could step right out onto our own private balcony overlooking a pond in the Zemaitija National Park. If you're wondering, it was the equivalent of $20 for the night.

Lithuanian Food

You can't start a Lithuanian Food post with anything other than cepelinai, meaning 'zeppelin' for its shape and definitely not its airiness. From roadstops in the countryside to cafes in stylish Vilnius, people ordered cepelinai. They are potato dough stuffed with meat, cheese or mushrooms with a bacon and cream sauce on top. The first one Merlin had was disappointing, filled with cheese when he was hoping for meat and having some strange sour taste to it. This second order, on a day he dubbed "The Day of Food Redemption" was, well, redemptive, living up to all the hype or at least being much more palatable. The consistency reminded me of boiled yucca and Merlin called it "gluey." I guess "glue" is better when fastened to meat.
The second traditional Lithuanian dish that was redeemed for Merlin that day was smoked pig's ears. His first helping, in Palanga, had been served whole, a thin, limp coffee saucer sized ear. Cutting into the strangely textured facial feature was somewhat off putting and, amazingly, it had been tasteless. This plate of it was shredded, had a strong smokiness and the cartilage had a bit more snap. Yellow beans that tasted like a cross between a yellow lentil and a chickpea were served alongside both and called "peas" on the menu.
A lot of food we saw pass by looked like this, but luckily only about three of our own plates did. After the second, we decided that anything that was translated to say "roast" meant breaded, fried and covered in cream or cheese. (The third plate was simply an ordering error). This was roast fish. It reminded me of German food, except with more veggies. That's the thing about Lithuanian food, it is almost always served with vegetables, which was really great. Broccoli, cauliflower and carrots appeared beside fish or meat time and time again and salads were always available.
Understand, though, that the term "salad" (salotos) here was pretty far-reaching. This was a sprat salad and, yes, that is mayonnaise on top. The sprats (like sardines or less boney smelt) were deliciously smoked and sat atop diced onion, carrots and hardboiled eggs mixed in with cream. Most often, I opted for a salad that said "vegetable." It was easy for both of us to recognize "Caesar" or "Greek" options and we wound up ordering quite a few of each between us, especially since they were a sure-fire way to avoid mayonnaise or sour cream. At the restaurant in Palanga where Merlin had his disappointing ear, my greek salad had cubed globs of cream cheese on it. Definitely a shocker when you bite in expecting feta.
When all else fails, there's herring. I've always liked pickled herring, but ever since this trip began, my love has really peaked. In Holland, I ordered it whenever I saw it, thinking my opportunity to savor the silky fish would soon vanish. But then, in country after country, there it was! In Lithuania, it is aptly named "silke" and always served with a big dollop of sour cream. It was less pickled tasting, a bit thicker and fresher tasting. The morsels on this plate at a tavern adjacent to a gas station reminded me of really great mackerel sashimi. The smoked fish here has actually been some of the best I've had and I'll always remember smelling the sweet smokiness all through the Curonian Spit. Merlin kept saying it was just wood smoke, but my nose knows seafood.
At a cafe in Klaipeda, between normal meal times, their menu simply had nothing without meat. Looking to the dessert menu for help, I found an apple pancake and was very pleased with my fried crepe with cinnamon-heavy shredded apple filling. Of course, served with a good amount of sour cream. After that, we started taking more serious note of the pancakes or "blyneliai" available everywhere. This was one Merlin ordered, filled with chicken and topped with (you guessed it) sour cream mixed with (surprise!) curry. The best blyneliai we had were cooked by the owner of our guesthouse in Nida. The first morning they were mini ones with jam and the second they were more crepelike, rolled around curd.

Some final notes on Lithuanian food: Šaltibarščiai is the best thing ever and widely available. Rye is always served and almost everything has dill.

The Curonian Spit

Somehow, we ended up staying fifty kilometers away from firm ground on a giant sandbar in the Baltic sea.
The Curonian spit seals off a large bay, creating a shallow, sandy lagoon. The whole spit is over a hundred kilometers long, but only two kilometers wide at its widest point. We were only a few minutes from the Russian Kalningrad region, which controls the southern half of the spit. The people here are referred to as Neringians, regardless of their nationality, and they're a hardy, seafaring lot. They've endured a lot in their history, losing towns and lives to shifting sand and encroaching water.
There is a little gap at the northern end of the spit, so we had to take a ferry from Klaipeda down onto the sand. There were quite a few people and cars on the boat, probably because it was a saturday. We waited for about forty-five minutes to board, then were on the water for a total of ten minutes. Because we were one of the first cars off the boat and there is really only one road on the other side - and because we were freaked about speeding tickets - we made a lot of people mad. Everyone was able to pass us eventually.
The people that live on the spit rely mostly on tourism for employment, but there is still a considerable fish-smoking industry. The smell of smoking fish makes its way downwind from each of the four Lithuanian villages - especially the two smaller hamlets of Preila and Pervalka, which are cut off from the main road and most of the tourists. Our hostess is originally from Klaipeda, but her husband's family has been on the spit forever. We met him briefly - he looked like a sea captain with his weathered face and white beard.
We were staying just outside of Nida, the southernmost Lithuanian town. Because the Russians are very picky about their visas, the land might as well have ended right there. All of the towns are on the lagoon side of the spit, away from the waves and wind of the Baltic. Nida is the largest and the most touristy - there are also a lot of vacation homes belonging to Lithuanians. Someone was having a party one night, and they had a rented sauna sitting outside their house.
We were able to make arrangements with our hostess for two bicycles, which let us get out into the wilder parts of the land. The spit is a highly protected nature preserve, so a lot of the dunes are off limits. The concern is that tourist traffic on the delicate sand environment will lead to the destruction of the plant life and make the sands more unstable. This is a long-standing problem - in the fifteenth century, deforestation caused the sands to begin shifting and fourteen villages were swallowed up. In 1768, the Prussian government began replanting trees and grasses to protect the dunes.
That seems like a very long time ago for such drastic ecological action, but it's the reason that the spit even exists today. There are a few paths up to certain sections of the Baltic (western) side, but even these are protected by latticework designed to keep the sand in place.
The one unprotected dune - the Parnidis dune - lies in the borderland between Lithuania and Kalningrad. It is spectacular, with its towering vantage points and moonscape valleys. The above picture is taken from close to Nida, looking south into Russia. It is difficult to gauge distance from the picture, but the landscape is vast. The sand is piled about sixty meters high. Walking down into the sand is almost frightening, it feels like a desert and it's easy to lose track of landmarks.
It feels like a tenuously solid place, as though the entire landscape could get blown away in the night. It's a beautiful, lonely place and it's totally unique in the world.

Lithuanian Stork Nests

Storks are a very popular animal here in Lithuania. They are supposed to bring good luck to any farm where they choose to build a nest and the government subsidizes nest platforms. Luckily, this is the part of the world where storks like to nest. The result: thousands of stork nests.
White storks come up from Africa in February, usually returning to the same nest that they occupied the year before. The structures are large, twiggy things that are easily visible in the leafless months - they sit on top of telephone poles, in the crooks of trees and on top of chimneys (which seems like a fire hazard). People apparently feel blessed if a stork chooses to nest on their property, and many people build platforms for them. In olden times (maybe not so long ago, really) wooden wagon wheels were used, stuck up on posts above the farmyard.

Lithuania has a springtime population of over 13,000 stork pairs, which makes it the most stork-dense of all the european nations. Poland has more storks (estimates are 16,000 to 20,000 pairs), but the country is much larger, so stork density remains fairly low in comparison, which is nice for those storks who prefer a more rural nesting experience. We see nests everywhere, here, sprouting out of trees and on top of poles. They really catch the eye. It's too bad that we're not here for the Lithuanian stork day, which is celebrated on the 25th of March, but you can't catch ALL the holidays...

Klaipeda Neptunas vs Vilnius Perlas

Merlin: They say that, in Lithuania, basketball is second only to god. Thirty litas ($11.90) got us into a house of worship this past friday night, where we witnessed the hometown boys take on the capital city team. Klaipeda almost pulled out the upset, but the visitors were a little too much bigger, better and they weren't coached by a raving lunatic.
Rebecca: I bought the tickets at a mall in Kaunas a few days earlier and we arrived in Klaipeda, hours prior to the game, a little unsure of where exactly it was to take place. After crossing and re-crossing a highway (and having a helpful woman at a jewelry counter call her teenage daughter for some insight) we figured out the game 'stadium' - which was really just a gym as big as any high school's - was adjacent to the megamall, Akropolis. We knew we were in the right place when we spotted the Vilnius Perlas team bus and a very tall Lithuanian in the parking lot.

Merlin: Basketball really is huge here. The NBA channel is on TV everywhere we've stayed and the national team has won three olympic bronze medals. I guess I expected more people to be at the game. The "stadium" was full, but there were only about three hundred people there. This league, the LKL, isn't exactly ready for television coverage or anything, but that wasn't the point. It was fun to be able to sit almost on the court, watch people compete at a fairly high level and get caught up in the excitement of a close game. We were close enough that Rebecca was hit by a ball - one of the things she had been hoping to get out of the experience.

Rebecca: It's true. Though, Merlin helped me to achieve my goal by deflecting the ball off of himself, right into my hands.
Rebecca: Every time the opposition had the ball, we would hear these awful horns sound over and over until they shot or turned it over somehow. Then, chanting began and we realized that there was a rowdy, enthusiastic bunch of fans in the corner of the gym, above our heads. I'm not quite sure why they took their shirts off. Maybe it was to impress the cheerleaders.

Merlin: Notice the police presence, at top right in the picture.

Merlin: Rebecca took this picture. I wasn't going to take any because it seemed strange to point my camera at them when we were sitting so close and they were dressed like cheerleaders. They had a number of costume changes and a more impressive routine than I would have imagined, given the small venue and crowd.

Rebecca: They had more than one routine actually. One involved hula hoops, another ribbons and costumes straight out of Aladdin. Of course, there were pom poms. I think the fatal error for our Klaipedians was that the cheerleaders were too busy changing their costumes to root them on during the play.

Merlin: We got a grease-smeared bag of these fried, garlic covered slices of rye bread. They were delicious, mostly because of all the oil that they were able to hold onto. We also drank quite a few beers and made friends with the concessions man.

Rebecca: Kepta Duona (fried bread) is a big thing here, but we've mostly seen it served as sticks not chips. When we bought these, we were sort of hoping (though also really not hoping) they were smoked pigs ears, which are also a big Lithuanian thing.

Merlin: The final score was 78 - 85, Vilnius. Our team played really hard, led by one guy we called "Steve Nash," because he was small and a point guard, and another guy we called "BGB," which is an acronym for "Big Guy Beard." BGB, it turns out, is from West Virginia, but we didn't know that until we checked the box score for the game.

Rebecca: Like Merlin said earlier, the Neptunas really did have a lot to overcome, like their height difference and their crazy coach. He reminded me of one of those wooden dolls with a pull string that makes their arms and legs move up and down simultaneously - or, like a big, pouty toddler throwing a fit while making a snow angel. Let's just say his emotions got the best of him and his limbs. Anyway, it was great.

Palanga

When the weather turns bleaker, when the first snow of the season is in the air, when the Lithuanian dirt roads are frozen and the days are getting too, too short... where do you go? Why, Palanga, of course! Might as well head to the seaside for some sun and sand, for rollicking parties and young, bronzed bodies.
Well, Palanga had pretty much closed up shop. The boardwalk was mostly deserted. The few places that did open up were empty. It had that lonely feeling that permeates all resort towns in the offseason.
The Baltic was calm and cold, the sand was wet from a constant drizzle. There weren't many people sunning themselves.
The pier was being used by fishermen, who were pulling a lot of fish out of the water. They seemed surprised to see us.

Our inn, Vila Ramybe, is perfect for this kind of town - it's the one place that has had any people in it. People from the town gather here with the family that runs it for drinks and food. People know each other, they play cards, it's cozy, loud, friendly and a perfect antidote for the miserable weather and empty streets outside.

It's Too Early for Christmas (So, how about those fruit vendors...?)

When we arrived in Kaunas, we saw the very first signs of Christmas market set-up. On November 15th. See, Europe doesn't have Thanksgiving, so there's really nothing to stop people from jumping headlong into Christmas as soon as November begins. The white, cobweb-looking light structure at the left of the building will soon sell wooden toys, hot wine and angels made of every material imaginable.
There's no doubt that these two little girls are very excited about ole Santa coming to town, but I just can't let myself get in the spirit just yet. It's too early. So, let's switch subjects.
These standalone produce kiosks reminded me of home. While candy, soda, magazine, cigarette stands have been around in almost every European city we've been to so far, these were the first fruit-and-vegetable stands where you could - say- grab an apple on the way to work.
Here's another one of the stands. You know this kid is staring off into the distance towards the Christmas lights....
Once you're done with your piece of fruit (or candy bar, if you've opted for the crap kiosk) you get to discard your core, peel, wrapper into one of these awesomely camoflouged trash receptacles. They are about as tall as a curb and have these removable metal containers that extend down into the ground. At least, I figure that's how it works, there being a little handle and all. They're perfect for the person who wants to feel the evil thrill of polluting. Go ahead, throw that balled up receipt on the ground. Just aim for the hole.

Gypsy Kitchens: Šaltibarščiai (Lithuanian Cold Beet Soup)

Rebecca and I have been eating a lot of soup in Lithuania - in the past month, really. One of my favorites has been the Šaltibarščiai, or cold beet soup. It is, of course, a borscht variant - like basically every recipe in this part of the world. The Lithuanian version is actually a summer soup, and it's characterized by the addition of kefir ("kefyra," in Lithuanian) and raw cucumber. It is one of the easiest soups I've ever made, even in someone else's tiny kitchen. Rebecca made a delicious mix of sauteed vegetables. She interpreted Brooklyn bacon-mania with an interesting, pescetarian twist, and it was great.
One starts with beets, which is pretty obvious. I started with three medium sized beets, but found that I really only needed two of them. It didn't disappoint me that I had an extra beet, though, because I love beets. Cook the beets well, boiling or roasting them whole. I would have preferred to roast the beets, but our oven didn't function well enough. Boiling had one great advantage: leftover cooking liquid.
Here are the beets - cooked, peeled and accompanied by a cup of beautiful beet-water. At this point, the cooking is done, which is awesome. It's good to do this a while before you want to eat. It could be three or four hours before, or up to a few days. Boiling beets is extremely easy to do, especially when it's the most difficult thing about a recipe.
Okay, so there are a few other steps. The most time-consuming is hardboiling eggs, though, which is about as difficult as pouring a glass of wine. The rest is grating and chopping, which goes quickly. Basically, the beets are grated into a pot (like I said, two medium beets were enough). Add a quarter cup of diced scallions, the yolks from two hardboiled eggs (smushed), one julienned cucumber and about a half gallon (less, really, because we're working with liters here - say one liter) of kefir. You can also use buttermilk, which is probably easier to find outside of Lithuania. Around here, kefir is big.

The final dish was pretty delicious: cold, rich, tasty and beautiful. The color is one of those shades that one expects never to find in nature. When garnished with the dill and egg whites, the dish has a nice mix of taste and texture accents, but the Lithuanians take it a step further. They serve the soup with hot boiled potatoes, which give the soup a nice hot-cold feature, but add about fifty percent more effort to the dish.

Here's the full recipe, which I adapted from a few sources:

Lithuanian Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beet Soup with Cucumber and Kefir)

Ingredients:

Two medium beets, cooked, peeled and chilled

One large cucumber, julienned

Two hard-boiled and chilled eggs

One quarter cup (about six roots) minced scallion

One third of a gallon kefir, or one liter

One cup cooking liquid from the beets

A lot of dill

Cook the beets in salted water for about forty-five minutes, peel them, put them in the fridge. Save about one cup of the cooking liquid. Hardboil your eggs to get that step out of the way - then go do whatever for a couple hours. It's very satisfying to know that you have a soup almost made, sitting in the fridge.

About twenty minutes before you want to eat: smush up the egg yolks with the scallion in a pot or bowl that's big enough for all of the ingredients. Grate the beets into the pot, then add the cucumber and the cooking liquid (which also should have been chilled). Mix it all up, then pour in the kefir until you think it's liquid-y enough. Give it a good dose of salt. At this point, just let it sit for about five minutes to let everything soak into itself - then ladle it into bowls. Garnish with the cut-up egg whites and a large dose of dill. Leave the dill and egg floating at the top because it looks great.

(This recipe is adapted from a version by Birutė Imbrasienė, found in "Lithuanian Traditional Foods," a cookbook that was lying around our rented apartment in Kaunas, Lithuania.)

I'll let Rebecca describe how she made her accompanying dish.

Rebecca: "I bought the salmon above at the fish counter of a tiny gourmet store in Kaunas' New Town. Merlin had his beet soup all figured out and I was looking for some inspiration for my accompanying dish. I really wanted to make a Stuffed Cabbage Head from the cookbook, but the recipe called for bacon. When I saw this fish, I thought it would make the perfect substitution.

Rebecca: "Unfortunately (or fortuitously), our oven was too finicky to try to bake the cabbage head, so I had to come up with something else. As a riff on the common Lithuanian "cabbage and bacon" model, I shredded some brussels sprouts and sauteed them with shallots in butter. Then, I added some baby spinach leaves, let them wilt and sprinkled in the diced up salmon jerky. It was very strong, so a little went a long way. Lastly, I added another ingredient we've seen a lot of, plums, half of one, thinly sliced. It was a really under-ripe plum, but the cooking fixed that."