Amber city: Vilnius and a little trip to Siaulai, Lithuania. My internship. Part 5

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This time I travelled to visit my old friend and some relatives in Lithuania without my guys. I took a night bus from Warsaw and headed to Vilnius. That was a trip when I understood the perk of travelling alone. My fellow traveller happened to be an extremely interesting Finnish guy with whom we had a long but very engaging converstation about all the places we'd been to, reasons for human fear of darkness and people's mistakes.

I arrived at 6 am and wanted to look quite brisk, so my friend (who was a live kindness and met me at such early time) took me for a little morning walk. I noticed for myself that the city was soooooo quiet and calm. At first I saw that it was because of the morning, but the situation didn't change a lot in the afternoon. It was completely different to Warsaw by architecture, pace of life and language, of course.

After an hour of such walk I decided to sleep a bit and thus recharge my vital energy to continue sightseeing. In the afternoon we walked through the city centre I had opportunity to try a dish from the Lithuanian national cuisine called "Zeppelin". It was some kind of dumplings stuffed with meat, served with sauce.

Honestly speaking, I found a lot of simmilarities with my country. The fact that most of people I met spoke Russian made it even easier to adjust.

The city itself is very popular for amber. I found dozens of street stalls and shops with this stone. Vilnius had a population of around a million people, but nevertheless I didn't feel any rush. I rather felt coziness. One of the best places I visited was a castle.

I also found my favourite place in Vilnius - some comfortable seats on the terrace of a bank. The sun was shining on our faces and half-sleeping I just enjoyed the perfect view of the city.It was strange, however, but I liked the smell of the city. This smell was very light and was flying in the air. It was adorable.

The very next day I decided to visit Siaulai, where my relatives lived. I didn't have much opportunity to sleep again, because my train was around 6 am. Having reached the city without any problems, I was glad to meet some relatives I had never seen before. They warmly welcomed me and we went to see Siaulai itself.

The streets were very small and calm. I'd say that it's a perfect city for elderly people to live in and relax, because there is no rush and everything goes very slowly. And again this type of city was in some way familiar to me. I heard a lot of Russian language (much less Lithuanian) and I felt no that much abroad.

One of the main sightseeings that makes Siaulai a place to visit is its Hill of Crosses. There are thousands of them and they look impressive, indeed. Many people all over the world go there for pilgrimage and you can find crosses with signs in different languages there. The place is really special. My relatives told me that this hill was burning once and a lot of crosses were destroyed, but very soon they were replaced by new ones.