Some Russian postcards (actually it's not exactly clear what they are):
Not sure of the source, but I found it here. For all non bird lovers (like me), here's a little guide:
Top two: зарянка (zaryanka) is a robin and probably comes from the word sunrise (заря); мухоловка (mukalovka) is a flycatcher. It can also mean a Venus fly trap plant
Middle two: иволга (ivolga) is an oriole and поползень (popolzen') is a nuthatch
Bottom two: коноплянка (konaplyanka) is a linnet and дубровник (dubrovnik) is a Croatian seaside town and I have no idea! Suggestions on a postcard.
My dad likes to think we're Estonian or Swedish or something (or perhaps he likes building bonfires) so we celebrated Midsummer's Eve with a bonfire and rockets in the back garden.
Tomas sent me a link to this poster advertising Vilnius European Capital of Culture 2009 at a bus stop in London. It impressed me that they are making some attempts to reach out to the British audience and it the first piece of marketing I've seen aimed at us. Great!
Wow, look! My blog has been updated as promised. Tomas did all the hard work, of course. Thanks! Now you have my latest delicious items down the side along with an archive and a super obvious subscribe button. The logo up at the top corner is not official yet, but something needed to go there. The best way is just to see what works what doesn't and gradually make changes for the better. Let me know what you think.
I've just come back from another trip to Halle. It was really enjoyable. The weather was great and we did lots of nice things. Easyjet kinda messed up the end part, but I don't want to rant on and on about it. They cancelled my flight and I thankfully was able to stay with Aidas in Berlin. He was a great host. He made cocktails and we played Jenga. Of course, I will be eternally grateful :) I also met two hilarious guys from Manchester who also were on the fated EZY7226 to Liverpool. We all got redirected to Glasgow and had a lot of laughs on the long journey back. So there was a bright side to the whole debacle. Now comes the whole filing a complaint and getting compensation. I'll let you all know how it goes.
Tomas got me some great birthday presents. Feuchtgebiete (click on the link, they will be translating it into English) was one. I read it in about 2 days. I can't say it was too remarkable after all the hype there was in Germany about its content, but the real shocker of the book (how the protagonist's mother tried to kill her own children) was somehow skipped over and mentioned only when it was time for a convenient ending. He also got me a Polaroid camera. Amazing. I also want to show you this sweet card. I forced him to by it me in Paperchase, but I had a to wait so long to get it. I love it! The same company (1973) also makes matryoshka wrapping paper.
Today I received an e-mail from the Ambassador Programme for Vilnius European Capital of Culture 2009 offering me a 10% discount for flights with FlyLAL (Lithuanian Airlines). It's a nice offer despite it being purely an advertising campaign for the airline, but not very practical at all. I decided to let the organisers know how I felt about it. I replied to the e-mail I received to the address info@culturelive.lt and it bounced back. Later I tried the address given on the official website (info@vilnius2009.lt) and it bounced back again. It doesn't give a good impression of the event at all. Anyway, here's what I wrote to them:
Dear all
I just want to raise a small point about the little piece of advertising you sent me.
I live in the North of England close to Manchester and Liverpool airport. Flylal will be beginning a Manchester-Vilnius route (via Amsterdam) next year. These tickets cost £400 (£360 when I get the discount). Extremely expensive and out of the question for the type of people you want to attract to Vilnius European Capital of Culture. Moreover, the route via Amsterdam is simply inconvenient.
My proposal to you is to advertise convenient and affordable ways to get to Vilnius from the North of England and Scotland. Such a route would be Liverpool-Kaunas which I regularly take with Ryanair. However, as I discussed in my blog, people have trouble pin pointing Vilnius on a map nevermind Kaunas! Plus, transport connections between Vilnius and Kaunas are not great from the airport.
I hope you can understand where I'm coming from on this. I'm simply very enthusiatic about Lithuania and Vilnius and want the year of culture to be as successful as possible.
If Lithuania were a chocolate what would it taste like? Well, a chocolatier has actually come up with the answer. A box of chocolates called Eurodream has been created with 25 different chocolates each being inspired by a European country. So what inspired the Lithuanian chocolate? Vodka? Pork? Potatoes? Berries? Tomas' mum has some great strawberries from her garden they could use. They actually went for honey. Great Britain (under the usual umbrella term England) apparently tastes like tea. I think some of the connections are slightly dubious though. Luxembourg apparently tastes like peaches...
I'm sitting in my garden, the sun is shining and for the first time this year it really feels like summer. I had my first Russian lesson yesterday after ages of not speaking Russian. It wasn's as bad as I thought it would be - I understood everything perfectly, but my fluency when speaking is pretty bad. Speaking of Russian I had a bit of an epiphany (sorry to all non Russian speakers, this may be a bit boring) on Friday.
Now when Russians say "I'm going now, bye!" they use the rather illogical "я пошёл/пошла" which literally translates as "I'm gone". This has puzzled me as to why they say this: they are still standing in front of you, but they are telling you they've already gone. I put this down to the usual Russian madness that you just have to accept. However, at work on Friday my boss was leaving and she actually said "Right, that's it ladies, that's me gone". I couldn't believe it! We sometimes say the exact same illogical thing in English. It just had never occured to me before.
Have been reading some old Afishas (Russian youth/sub culture magazine) online and came across these grandads modeling some expensive cardigans (the red one comes from Tommy Hilfiger). Amused me a lot.
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