An exhausting but very productive day. Got my new passport in which i look like a convict pirate. Hopefully it will be good enough to convince USA government to let me in their "magnificent" country. Driving to Vilnius was unplanned either when Domas' stressful and rather fearful driving lead to me, Ksenia and Gvidas taking a bus. Afterwards, a perfect catch of another bus to Trakai and day got way better. We saw both places and left there being more than satisfied with them. Obviously some rearrangements were done by us but it does look like (if god of weather will be happy) the day should be perfect. Domas did take the trouble of taking us back from Trakai afterwards. A small redemption I assume. So as i've said, exhausting but a very productive day.

All I have to say is bikes were not made in caring consideration of one's private parts. Or ankles for that matter. Or maybe I just suck. Having said that, cycling down a quiet village road at sunset with the wind in my hair and no thoughts in my head was exactly what I'd been looking forward to for so long. After shopping of course. Picking up every sexy item of clothing, doing a mental conversion of the currency and hollering 'I fucking love this country!' was pretty much how it went down with the shopping today. Lugging 5 bags back home was so worth it (and totally not happening again in those shoes I got from Aldo).
I'm tired, I'm satisfied, I'm happy, I'm nervous and I'm reluctant to wake up to the massive day of getting down to wedding business ahead of me, but one could only procrastinate for so long. Arse into gear I think.
By the way, Vytas is currently sprawled across the bed in his boxers with the cat enjoying much of his attention (and my jealousy). I'm off to show who's boss.
Night

Back home. The beginning of vacation in Lithuania

First of all, more than happy to finally be in the home where i've spent half of my childhood. Even more overjoyed finding that my oldest brother, Gvidas, also decided to come home for a few days. Did not see him a long time.
The trip itself was not as smooth as hoped. After giving guinnea pigs to Giannis in the early afternoon, we drove to the Queen street train station. Arived early there, so decided to get some food after getting the tickets. That is where my paranoia messed things up. This years experience on the way back from Canterbury to Glasgow made me always be in the airport or train station way before we need to departure. SO, my constant nagging in the queue in The burger king lead to running to an overflown train to Edinburgh. When i say overflown, i mean "fish in a can" packed. Train was full with wasted, yelling, laughing like animals Glasgwegian people. It was like half of east side of Glasgow decided to board the same train with us. After an hour of mental torture arrived in the Edinburgh. Both of our starvation lead to almost running to the Burger King where our morale was restored.
Afterwards, just a smooth ride to airport and with the power of priority boarding got seats in first aisle. Just the guy in the check-in managed to mess up with our luggage. He put the same number for two different baggages so I have to have a talk with the "luggage lady" which promised that everything will be fine - just needed to double check.
Smooth flight. Very proud of Ksenia as she spent most of the flight watching Desperate Housewives and not worrying about all the turbulence. I've even managed to read a book for more than an hour (this never happened before). A very decent landing, fast luggage pick-up and after 30 mins were home where hot Cepelinai were waiting for me. This is the real ambrosia in this world.

That's all so far. Let the vacation BEGIN!

Apologies for the epic mundaneness of my fiance's post,
bad enough it was a snooze to read through, it also revealed my embarrassing and progressive issue with flying. Yes, I am scared and no this is not my first time. My first time was when I was 2 years old and apparently I was happy enough wailing for the first half of the flight, the rest of which I spent persistently and joyously beating a man in front of me with a toy hammer (my mother should have seen the signs...)
anyway, i've flown what can only be described as a fuckload of times since -even to Shanghai - yet somehow managed to become spontaneously and inconveniently terrified of it one day during my summer break from university. Yes, it's counterintuitive and unreasonable and you're more likely to be killed by a squirrel or something but that's that, so get over it.
exhaustion and hysteria aside, another thing that's less than ideal before the onset of a summer vacation is being struck by a sudden cold the night before. Bad enough I've spent a whole month of summer in Glasgow where, frankly, one should not have the audacity to even pretend there is such a thing as sunshine...turns out you can't even get away without taking with you some reminder of the pissing weather. Thanks a bundle.
now don't be put off by my rant; I am really a fun-loving, positive person in general and will most definitely be excited about my holidays once my foot is safe on Lithuanian soil and I'm not bobbing about in a tincan far up where even birds are not stupid enough to fly...
wish me luck and see you on the other side.

The night before leaving

First post :
It's the middle of packing now. I have already packed almost all of my stuff and Ksu is still half way there. The only thing that always bugs me before any travel is forgetting someting very important. In this case, we cannot forget any important items for the wedding. We just CAN'T.
Tomorrow: wake up early, give in the guinnea pigs to Giannis and start the ride toward our flight in Edinburgh. Ideal plan is to get a bus and hop off just nearby airport as we managed to do once a year ago. 
Ksu is nervous as she always is before any flight. I'm just happy that we will be flying together and i will be there for her during all the turbulence.