My First Castle

Oh my goodness so much has happened since I last blogged! I really need to get in a better habit of writing more regularly. It has been a little bit chaotic to try to find a set schedule. From random trips downtown, to hanging out with our coordinator Dima and skyping with my favorite person in Seattle, I sometimes just put this last. As we all know, putting things like writing in your journal last is the worst idea. Then it never EVER gets done. I still have 5 days left of my China journal. That is just straight up pathetic because it happened a year ago! Anyways, I am going to be better, and you all should be too. (Rant over.)

This last weekend was just a blast. We had the opportunity to go to Trakai. Trakai is seriously the cutest place. As we were walking around, I felt like I was living in a scene pulled right out of a fairy tale. We woke up bright and early and got ready to go. Four of us could drive with Dima in his beloved Mercedes, but the other Two girls had to take the bus because they couldn't fit in the car. We met Dima at the bus stop and  then split up. I went with Dima. I am really happy I got to go with Dima because first, I love Dima, and second, I also love the radio. I am completely obsessed with European radio. It just cracks me up. Their popular songs are all in English, but I haven't heard them ever in my life. Either I am not with the times, or they are from England or something. They have they craziest beats. They would be the ideal teenage fist pump songs.  This cracks me up even more because everyone here is so stern. I have the hardest time imagining the people here jamming out to these songs especially some little babushka. I will keep my eyes peeled and let ya know if I ever catch people dancing. 

Here is my favorite  popular Lithuanian tune:







Seriously. This song is so dang catchy. I don't know how the whole country isn't dancing.

(Has anyone heard this song in America?...)

After we jammed in the car, we made it to the bus station. From here we would buy Hannah and Rachel ticket from the bus station to Trakai. The thing we found most interesting about the bus station was the fact you had to pay one Lita to use the restroom. We spent the longest time explaining to our coordinator Dima that we believed in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To us, that means being able to relieve yourself without having to pay while getting free toilet paper. Boy do we Americans live the high life.

The car ride to Trakai was filled with more car dancing. We also enjoyed looking around at the adorable countrysides of Lithuania. There are so many tall trees here, it is just so beautiful. My favorite thing we passed was the most adorable little graveyard. I know graveyards aren't supposed to be adorable, but mark my words, this one really was just so quaint and precious. When we finally got to the castle, we were all jittery with excitement.



LOOK AT THIS PLACE. IT IS PERFECT.

It is on it's own little island. Genius idea if you ask me. 

Cliche, but it had to be done.

Dima (The best coordinator EVER.), Me, and Rachel

Channeling my inner China.

Dying with joy because I saw my first castle.

We also got really really lucky because we came to Trakai on the one day of the year where they have their Mid evil festival. When we went inside, there were a bunch of people dressed up in traditional costumes. Their were peasants, princesses and even knights. It was so cool.  One of my favorite parts of the festival was when the knights did a joust. At first, all of us girls thought that the knights would come out on horses and joust like how you see in the movies and in Vegas. Boy were we wrong. The knights just had a little brawl on foot. To be honest, it was completely hysterical. Imagine two ridiculously dressed Lithuanians going ham on each other with fake axes. We just couldn't contain our laughing. Later on, we also got to watch the princesses dance. This was cool, but after like five minutes you realized why those dances died with the Renaissance. They are so slow! They just repeat over and over and over and over. They sure are pretty, but I am glad we have moved on. 

Here are some pictures to prove it. 

 Getting my head chopped off.

 The knights of ridiculousness.

Pretty princesses with Mikele.

When we were done  at the castle. We decided to take a boat around the castle. Let me tell ya, boating around a castle is better than regular boating.... because there is a castle involved. We found the cutest little Russian man to take us. His name was MeChez (pronounced me cheese).  I am so glad we picked him. He was a hoot. Every time we would say his name he would laugh and laugh and laugh. It was probably because we were way off base with the pronunciation of his name, but he still answered to it, so hey, it worked. He told us all sorts of interesting facts about the castle. (Dima translated for us.) We weren't really listening, but thanks for trying sweet little MeChez.

MeChez! Look at this cutie. 

Jessica and I on a boat. Next to a castle. Living the life.

When we were done, we had some time to explore the surrounding town. It reminded me a lot of Copenhagen. It was filled with colorful little houses with cute windows and flowers. I loved it. Bottom line, this was without a doubt one of the best days of my life. If you have the chance to go to a castle, never pass it up. 

 Goodbye Trakai! Until next time!

XO, Mikele

Vilnius

Vilnius is the Capital of Lithuania. It is also the city where we live. We had a chance to explore some of it yesterday, and I just cannot get enough! Here are some pictures of the beautiful city.

I just love the flowers everywhere and the cute Lithuanian flag to match!

 Hill of Three Crosses

 Gediminas' Tower

 Street art of Vilnius and Cats because why not.

 Part of the Cathedral.

 My lovely ladies! From Left to Right: Rosie, Jessica, Me, Hannah, Rachel

 The most delicious gelato I have ever had in my life. (When I get to Italy it has some tough competition!)

I just had the most wonderful day over in Vilnius. I can't wait to have some more quality exploration time there! I am even more excited to meet the kids on Wednesday. They are the best part of the whole experience. Until next time,

XO Mikele

A Little Copenhagen Adventure

Copenhagen, you have my heart! After such a crazy airport experience, I feel so blessed to be able to have a layover in Copenhagen to calm my mind and have some fun. When we arrived, we went to go find a locker to check our carry-on bags in. This was actually quite the ordeal. One of the girls in my group name Jessica had looked up the directions previously on the internet. We had to go to a parking garage to find it, but to pay for it, we needed money. We exchanged 40$ each into the Danish Kroner. (I like their money. It is so random and makes no sense to me.) We kept asking everyone in sight where the lockers were. Then when we would go there, we could not find them. Finally after asking like three different people, we decided to wander further into the parking garage. Finally, we found the lockers. If we thought finding the lockers was hard, paying for them and getting all our stuff to fit inside was equally challenging. Boy did we feel accomplished when it all finally worked out.
After we were done with our bags, we purchased subway tickets to the city center. From there we would be able to ride a boat through the city's canals. While on the subway, I remembered how fond I am of them. They brought me back to the good ol' China days where Kandis, Mindy and I would run as fast as we could to get seats. (If you ask me, the China subways are much more organized. I like it.)  I had fun thinking about the events that led me up to my new European Adventure. When we got to the subway station and walked upstairs, I was instantly impressed. The architecture there was just magnificent. I felt like each building had a beautiful story to tell about the city's past. The canals were so close to the subway station. When I saw them is when I fell in love. Seriously, It is the dang cutest city I have ever seen!

Here are some pics to prove it.

(P.S. Half of these pictures are stolen from my girls cause my camera died. Also, they were taken on the most adorable little boat tour!)

 Are you dying yet? Look at those adorable buildings. I want one with a matching tugboat.

From this beautiful spiral building they say if you stand at the tippy top you can see all the way to Sweden.

Apparently this is a statue of the founder of Copenhagen. He has a very mighty steed. 

 Mighty Danish flag.

Copenhagen has the best street art. I love this idea!

I love this one too. I especially enjoy how the facial hair is weeds of some type.

This is me and my girls! They are the best best best!

From Left to Right: (Me, Rosie, Hannah, Rachel, Paige, Jessica)

After the boat tour, we wandered the streets and admired the amazing street art. I think more cities should follow their influence! After, we went and bought some postcards and ate the most amazing pizza. It was such a successful day!

I just love love love you Copenhagen don't doubt that I will be back to explore you more one day!!

XO Mikele

The Departure in Retrospect

Man oh man oh man. What a crazy time it has already been. Luckily everyone is safe and sound and we have successfully  made it to Lithuania! I still hardly can believe it is real. Before I dive into Lithuania,  I am just going to rewind to Wednesday where it all began. Wednesday was a bad boy. I woke up after hardly sleeping (I was way way too excited), and I finally finished packing. By some miracle, My bags weighed just about what they needed to. Hallelujah! After, I went to go get my eyebrows waxed, (I had to have good eyebrows, I mean these pics will follow me forever), went to go visit my Becca Boo (She is my favorite human), and finally went back home for my cute Josh boy to come pick me up. Sadly, my parents were on vacation with my family and they couldn't take me to the airport,  so my grand plan was to have Josh take me to my grandparents who would take me to the airport. (Complicated I know.)
Josh came to get me and we went on our way. The nice boy decided to buy me my last American meal, so we stopped at Einstein Bagels and I had the most delicious sandwich on a bagel. (I practically salivate just thinking about it.) After we were done we scadattled to my Grandmas. We got lost cause I am the worst at directions, so we got there a bit after schedule. By this point I was pretty much freaking out. I had a super quick goodbye to Josh and we were in the car again off to get to the airport!
When we got to the airport, I was the last one there. I felt soooooo bad because I am supposed to be the one in charge and I was the last one to actually arrive. Once I got to the terminal, I found all the the girls really quick. I LOVE them. Not only are they all beautiful, but they are so kind and funny. I can just tell we have a great group and they will be willing to do anything to help the kids learn. While we were sitting and chatting, the plane arrived. The front cockpit window on the right side looked totally broken. Every 10 minutes the nice airport woman would say something along the lines of, "the plane is leaving on schedule because the plane is broken and we are fixing it so you don't die" (or at least that is what it translated to in Mikele Language.) An hour later, they just started boarding the plane. It was ridiculous! I was at least lucky enough to sit by Rachel a cute girl in my group. The whole time we were just sitting there freaking out about missing our flight to Denmark. Not only was it our longest flight, but I felt like it was our most important one. If we missed it, we would miss our flight to Lithuania and it would probably be a few  more days before we could arrive and preparation for teaching would be much more stressful. Bottom line was I didn't care if we had to run full speed, we were making that flight.
When the plane finally arrived in Chicago, I hurried to text Jessica another ILP volunteer who was meeting up with us. She told me that to get to our gate, we had to take a tram. She also said that the whole tram/ gate finding process took her over an hour. We had about 35 minutes. Things were not looking too hot for us. After finding the tram station we were pretty much in panic mode. There were no trams in sight and we didn't have time to wait. I was frantically running everywhere trying to find out why there were no trams. Finally, a tram came and we hopped on board. Our tram stop was the very last one. (Of course.) Since we had about 8ish minutes on the tram, I was able to text Jessica and tell her to try to hold the plane for us. She said that they told us 10 more minutes and they would leave us. We were not feeling very hopeful. When we finally got off that tram ride that felt like an eternity, we booked it full speed to the airport security. Security knew we were coming and the sweet black mama security guard helped me to laugh and calm down. (I will for sure be thanking her personally when I see her in heaven.) After we were done getting checked we had to run full speed to the terminal. This is not a time where the phrase "full speed" is exaggerated. I was running so fast that when my rolly bag hit a bump and flipped over, I didn't even stop running. I just kept pulling and running as fast as I could literally dragging my suitcase behind me. Eventually I stopped to flip it over when a meanie face flight attendant told me we had already missed our flight. Luckily he had a non-meanie faced friend with him who told me he was joking. I flipped that suitcase over as fast as I could and picked up speed. When I finally got to the terminal, everyone was waiting for us. They checked our tickets and sweat dripping all down my face and neck I could finally board the plane. When we got on the plane it was a tad awkward. By our appearance everyone could tell we were "those people" the ones who stalled the plane. All I can say is good thing most of them didn't speak English so we didn't know what they were saying about us! I was so thankful that I made that plane and so exhausted in every way possible, I had quite a nice Scandinavian Air sleep. Good thing Copenhagen was so wonderful that all this trouble was worth it!

XO Mikele

A Day of China

I pretty much had the best Sunday ever. My Chinese coordinator Kelly was here all the way from China! This was so exciting because I thought I might not ever get to see her again and I just love her so much. She was here with a group of about 32 other Chinese students who are here exploring  Western America through ILP's summer program. Mindy and I met up with them to go watch the Tabernacle Choir preform their Sunday broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word.  It was wonderful. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir wowed me just like they always do. I was also cracking up the whole time because most of the little Asians were falling asleep. The poor things were so exhausted, and the beautiful music put them right to sleep! When we were done, they had the most adorable Chinese speaking missionary give them a tour. It was so fun and it was definitely a unique way to experience Temple Square.
After Temple Square, we got to go to the Asians favorite, KFC. We went to the world's first KFC and I swear they were more excited about taking pictures with the statue of Colonel Saunders the KFC guy than they were with the Temple. They sure do love their KFC. My favorite part of the KFC experience was when the kids found out that that they could go get ice cream. There was this huge mob of little Asian kids who all congregated in front of the ice cream machine. They thought that how the ice cream was formed into a tall swirl was just about coolest thing they had ever seen. Then, they found out they could have chocolate syrup. All of them started yelling, "CHOCOLEEEE CHOCOLEEE!!" They were excited to say the least. It was the cutest thing.
Our last stop of the day was to Fashion Place Mall. The kids had to get their American shop on. While we were there, another girl from my China group stopped by. It was so good to see Kandis. It was especially good to see Kandis and Mindy at the same time! We sure did have a lot of catching up to do since we haven't been all together in months. It was even more special cause Kelly was there too. It was just an all around good time. After Kandis left, Mindy and I spent the rest of the time trying to help a little girl name Keiko find a purse for her mother. She really wanted a 500$ Michael Kors bag from Nordstroms, but we told her that was "tai gui le" or in other words: way way too expensive. We ended up finding her a nice bag in another store and she was happy with her purchase. We were happy too because now Keiko has a nice present for her mama.
Sadly, at this point our day had to come to an end. The children had to go meet up with their host families and I had to say goodbye to my day of China in America. Mindy and Kelly were going to have a sleepover at her host family so, the only thing that they had left to do was take me back to my car. It was sad to leave Kelly all over again. I gave her a huge hug and she told me to come visit her in China one day and bring my babies. I am definitely not opposed to that!! Until we meet again Kelly, WO AI NI!

XO Mikele