"News from the Baltics" a Vilnius Travel Page by jrgentle

Well they say that there is no rest for the wicked, and I know its true, because the very next morning I was on a plane to Vilnius, Lithuania. Courtesy of the US Army. Lithuania, a former member of the Soviet Union, is a lovely small country about the size of Ireland, but about 7 layers of clothes colder. It’s one of the three Baltic States, Latvia and Estonia being the other two. Now the purpose of this mission was to familiarize the Lithuanian Armed Forces in ways that the US army performs certain tasks. That was the official purpose of the trip. I think the real reason we went up there was to see just how much fun it is possible to have in a sub-zero environment. Now we get to the meat of the story. I will describe the work first. Everyday we would take turns explaining Personnel Functions to a classroom full of personnel managers from all over the country, and from all branches of their military. I have to say that the Lithuanians treated us with the utmost respect and kindness. They were very professional and asked a lot of very good questions. I welcome the opportunity to work with any of them again. We were assigned a 2LT, Skydra, to be our escort for the week and I think she knew that we were a bit wild. We also had an interpreter, Irina, assigned to us during the day, and by the end of the week I know she couldn’t wait to see the back of us. Not that we were bad or anything like that, it’s just that after 4:00pm everyday we were a bit on the carefree side. Allow me to give you the blow-by-blow.
We knew we were in trouble when we arrived at the airport. The customs agent was wearing a pair of boots with 5 inch, spiked heels. We were consumed with this desire to be body searched. Now at this point I must officially change the names to protect the guilty. My colleagues on this little jaunt will be known from here on out as Bubba Joe and Big Papa D. Trust me, I know what I am doing. Well that first night was kinda on the quiet side. In hindsight I am glad because I would need the rest. I did manage to check out the quietest Irish Pub in existence. It felt like a morgue. After this I walked around and took a few pictures of the cathedral and stuff. The next evening I met up with Julia, a friend of mine I had met in London 3 years ago. She took us to this really cool Chinese restaurant and then to the Armadillo Bar. Now at this point you should also know that Lithuanian beer is very good and very cheap. About $1 a bottle. And that was the good stuff. So throughout the rest of this little narrative, just assume we were happy. So on our first night on the town, we ended up in one of the bars that the US ambassador had labeled “Off-Limits” to US govt. personnel. OOPS. We of course didn’t find this out until Thursday when I bothered to read the little packet that they gave us on Sunday. Ah well. The night ended with Julia asking Bubba Joe when he was going to get around to kissing her and me actually doing so. Platonically of course.