Happy (very late) Halloween Lithuania!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

AFAP

The title of this post is AFAP. What does that mean you might ask? Well, it is an acronym I invented myself. It means As Fast As Possible or in acronym terms AFAP. It has a nice ring to it eh? Well, everything I did to lead up to this vacation was very AFAP. Vacations are a time when most people take a minute to relax and just go with the flow, or at least that is what my mom always taught me. Well, never in my whole life has a vacation been more of a stressor to me than this one. While I was preparing for it, and while I was on it, I didn’t feel that relaxation factor. I guess that is what happens when you are in charge of five girls, have a to-do list a mile long and no time to do anything. Here’s the story:

The Friday we were leaving, I woke up with a time blocked schedule of things I had to get done.  The schedule went as follows- Wake up at seven, take a shower and get Halloweenafied, start packing, study for my test for one hour, take my math test for one hour and then help with the Halloween party for about three hours and get everything all ready before class starts at 3:30. I even told Josh all about it so he could double check my planning. I woke up with plenty of time to get everything going and completed… Well at least that is what I thought. Of course something had to go wrong.

Right after I woke up, I get a call from Dima urgently saying that we needed to go to the embassy and get our visa’s right away. We had been approaching our 90 day mark, and that is when you need to get a visa. If you don’t, you have to pay extra fees or you could get deported. Apparently, our official 90 day mark fell on a day where we would be on our trip, so we had to go get our visa right then. The main issue with this was that not everyone lives in the apartment. Rosie, Rachel and Hannah all live in host families, and it is quite a challenge to round them all up on such short notice. I jump out of bed and call all the girls telling them to come over AFAP ( so catchy, am I right?) to bring me their passports and fill out the visa application. I didn’t really have much luck with them though. They both told me the soonest they could get over would be in about an hour give or take. So, I hurried and jumped in the shower to try and get ready. While I am in the shower, Dima (local coordinator) skyped me again. I get out and while I am in a towel talk to him. (No fear, it was only on voice and he couldn’t see me thank heavens.) He told me he was on the way to come pick me up to get my picture taken since I was a big dummy and lost my visa pictures I had taken in America. I got ready ASAF (there it is again), and went to the bus stop to meet Dima.

For those of you that know Dima, you know that his heart is in ILP, his family, and his Mercedes. It was so interesting to me that he pulled up in a Toyota. Apparently, his car was in the shop and he was pretty sad about it. I just laughed the whole drive because he kept on telling me all the reasons why the Toyota was not on the same level as his Mercedes. What a cute and funny man. To get my pictures done, we went to the local grocery store named Norfa. We got my pictures lickety split and even got some snacks for the trip. Then we took the short little drive back to the apartment, Dima loving his Mercedes the whole ride and feeling sad his beloved automobile was in the shop.

When we got back to the apartment, I thought the plan was that I would go with Dima and take all the passports to the embassy to get our visa’s. I was a bit off base with this assumption. Dima wanted all of us to go to the embassy to get our visa’s. I hurried to find all the girls because none of them had any idea that they needed to come with us. Probably the best part of this whole thing was the fact that Rosie was wearing her Halloween costume. Her Halloween costume was pretty special. She was going to be a moth, so she had put a ponytail in the middle of her head and was wearing quite the eye make-up. She had to wear it the whole time we were at the embassy, and I am sure they thought we were complete wierdos. Oh well.

After we were done at the Embassy, we only had about an 45 minutes until school started. This was an issue for me because I hadn’t even done any of the things I was supposed to do. We all hurried AFAP back to the school/ the apartment to start getting the Halloween party into action. My sweet girls knew that I would fail my math class if I missed a test, so they said they would be able to do the set up while I took my test. Bless them.

When I finally got to the school it looked really darling. Even though my morning was crazy, the Halloween party made me so happy. It brought me all the way back to my China days where we did our haunted house and parties and all of my cute china babies were dressed up. I just think that Halloween is such a fun holiday for children. Even though everything was done AFAP, it was worth it to make our little Lithuania Babies happy.

Happy Halloween Lithuania!

XO Mikele

The Vasa Museum

The Vasa Museum is absolutely incredible. If you are in Stockholm, YOU HAVE TO SEE IT. It was easily my favorite part of the trip. This ship is the only 17th century ship that we still have preserved. It is still 98% original and it was as amazing as the story behind it.  Here's  the story.

The Vasa was a Swedish warship built all the way back in 1626. The King commissioned the ship to be built during a war with the commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.The commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania had captured their flagship and the Swedish King was not going to let that embarrassment go unnoticed. Obviously, he had to build something bigger and better to remind them who was boss.  You see,  back in those days, Sweden was known as a great naval power and the King wanted to keep it that way. The Vasa was meant to be a symbol of the Swedes power and wealth as well as a reminder they were a force to be reckoned with.

It took 1,000 oak tress to build this bad boy. It was 55 meters tall (180 ft.) and 63 meters (207 ft.) long.  It was painted in the most vibrant reds, yellows, greens, blues and golds. There were hundreds of carvings all around the boat. Not only was the boat beautiful, but it was made to frighten the enemy. At this point there were only about three other ships in existence that had two cannon decks. Of course this ship had to have the best of the best so, two cannon decks were created with 32 cannons each. Twice the firepower meant twice the threat... Or at least that is what the Swedish King thought. Turns out that the most intimidating feature about the Vasa was also what caused it's downfall.

I don't know much about building boats, but I do know one thing. It is harder than it looks. Just like with constructing a house, specific weights and dimensions need to be followed or the boat will sink. That is what happened to the Vasa. The architects kept the same dimensions for the boat even though they added another whole firing deck. This made the boat very top heavy. The architects figured it out fairly early in the construction of the Ship, but they were on such a time crunch from the king that they couldn't go back and fix the ship. The King had been pretty impatient on the construction of the ship. Ships like the Vasa normally took about four years to construct. The King gave them two.  He simply couldn't wait for the reveal of his great ship. Well I guess the jokes on him, because like I said before, this ship went down.

On the day of the ships launch, the King invited everyone to come. Nobles and ambassadors from all around were invited to see the launch of the great Vasa. When the Ship left the shore the 350 guests cheered and the 250 forced ship laborers went to work manning the boat. It was traditional back in those days to shoot off a canon as you left the harbor. This one cannoned salute wasn't good enough for our Swedish king. The king needed something bigger and better. He told them he wanted all 64 cannons to salute them as they left the harbor. The cannons were shot as the ship was leaving the harbor. Once the ship was outside of the bay, the wind started picking up. This is very bad news for a top heavy ship with all 64 cannon flaps open. 

Water started coming into the ship once a big gust of wind started tipping it over. Within 45 minutes the lower gun ports were below water and water began rushing into the ship. The cannons were too heavy to move quickly enough, so within 20 minutes, the ship was completely underwater. Most of the crew survived about 30 people died. 

The ship remained preserved so well because it was underwater and oxygen couldn't deteriorate it. It sat underneath the water until they finally had the technology to pull it up so many years later. I can't believe that the mistake of a pompous king hundreds of years ago allowed us to preserve such an amazing piece of history. It also makes me wonder about all the other artifacts under the sea that are just waiting for us to discover and preserve. You literally could be swimming in the bay and a giant old ship could be right underneath you. Think about that next time you swim in the ocean. I just had the most wonderful experience at the Vasa Museum. Go if you can. I know this turned into a whole history lesson on an old boat you never signed up for... but... oh well. This is my blog not yours. 

This is what the ship would have looked like back in it's glory days. They were able to see what colors each carving was painting by the faint flecks of paint still on the wood. 

I love you Vasa Ship. When I go to heaven, I am requesting one of my own. 

XO Mikele

(Disclaimer: I got my information from a tour guide. He could have been pulling my tail the whole time and I wouldn't know the difference. He wore a fancy badge though... So I trust him)