Settling in....

Life has smoothed into a routine here in Vilnius. I spent the first week trying to make sense of one way streets and finding my way to the essential spots: the gym, our weight room, the therapy center, the grocery store, and numerous cafes. I bought plants and olive oil for my apartment and proceeded to figure out the washing machine and my garage door. The minutia of life always seems to take some time.

My life is comfortable here. I live in a nice apartment building in the center of the city, I have my own car with parking and I now know my way around the city fairly well. I drive to practice with my two American teammates, Crystal and Noel and we peruse the grocery stores on our way home, trying to make sense of strange products. Sometimes we stop at the mall and see movies, sometimes we watch the movie we asked for, other times finding ourselves in the theatre watching “Death Race” and wondering what happened, but glad its in English.

We practice twice a day so by the time we drive to and from the gym, eat and rest a bit, the day is pretty full. Sometimes morning practice is weight lifting and we go to a gym called ‘The Royal Athletic Club’ which is just as posh as it sounds. I watch BBC on the cardio machines, lift on my own, and then order a protein smoothie from the bar. I also sometimes try to catch a glimpse of a male basketball player’s abs. The place is clean and new and spacious. After the previous weight rooms I’ve had abroad, this is such a luxury.

So its been a bit of an adjustment to be on such a professional team. I feel very pampered. Living overseas and playing for all these different teams has led me to be very adaptable but I’m realizing it’s a lot easier, and a lot more fun, to adapt to better circumstances instead of worse.

Vilnius is a beautiful city. It’s a bit like a smaller Budapest. A river runs through downtown, separating the old town, the parliament and the more classic architecture from the opposite bank where contemporary buildings with glass fronts sparkle in the sun. The river isn’t developed but lined with grass banks and trees, all changing color this time of year and lining streets that connect over large bridges with fantastic statues. All throughout the city large cathedrals or government buildings open up to large squares and parks where people sit in the sun or walk with their families. It feels like a city filled with locals.

It’s a little strange having a car in Europe. I have gotten so used to public transportation while living overseas, that I forgot how nice it is to just get in your car, have all your stuff in your trunk, turn your music on, and go exactly where you want, when you want. That being said, driving in a city has its downsides. It’s not exactly relaxing.

The other day it took me over an hour to get to practice, spending thirty minutes at one light. Today it took me only thirty five minutes. I’m not sure what the breaking point would be for me to not want to live in the center of the city but I’m guessing it would be about four hours one way. If it took me four hours to get to practice, I might reconsider living in the coolest part of town.


But I do love driving in Europe. I love that you don’t have to be overly polite, you don’t have to give a friendly wave, in fact there is rarely a reason to; you don’t have to stop at inconvenient cross walks, you don’t have to get out of the way of the elderly or baby strollers. No one expects you to. In fact, if you do, it throws everyone off; cars get backed up and the woman with the baby stroller is paralyzed with trepidation, left wondering if you aren’t faking her out. It just simplifies things when no one has false expectations. No one expects people to follow the law and once you realize that, defensive driving takes on a whole new meaning. I’m not surprised when I get cut off, when motorcycle gangs almost hit my mirrors while passing, when cars don’t stay in their lane or come the wrong way down one way streets. When cars are double parked along a busy arterial during rush hour, causing massive gridlock, I don’t spend a lot of time or energy cursing them out. I’ve generally come to expect ridiculous situations such as the common face off along the narrow cobblestone streets of old town where cars inch into reverse or climb up onto sidewalks and pull in side mirrors to avoid scrapes.

It’s nice to have a smaller car when you have to maneuver skillfully. The parking garage is like trying to drive down a water slide and then park in a storage locker. The other day someone parked in my spot so I parked in another spot. Later I came back to find all my windshield wipers pointing straight up, a rubber tube on one of them, and a presumably nasty post it note stuck to my door. Sometimes it’s nice to not know the language.

The smaller car is also nice from an economical standpoint seeing as gas is approximately 6 dollars a gallon. I haven’t exactly done the math on the gas mileage but I plan on doing that soon just for personal interest. Its just always amusing to hear everyone complain about gas prices in America, as if at some point our gas guzzling cars weren’t going to catch up with us.

Lithuania isn’t entirely new to me. My very dear friend and college teammate was from here although at the time I couldn’t imagine a crazier place to be from except maybe from a farm in Iowa. But like most close friends, we proceeded to make endless fun of her motherland, spending more time than was healthy or normal researching the most random countries imaginable so that when we introduced her we could say she was from somewhere completely obscure like United Arab Emirates or Kyrgyzstan , none of which we could spell, well pronounce or find on a map, but quite confident on one else could either.

Among the many upsides to knowing Gintare, besides increasing my knowledge of esoteric countries, is that I could immedidately pronounce at least one of my new teammates names correctly, as it’s a popular women’s name in Lithuania. Many of my teammates know ‘G’ or at least know of her. I asked my new teammate Gintare how she knew my ‘G’ and she responded that her mom played with her. I nearly spit my water out. Of all the responses I think that might have been the one I expected least. I guess I’m getting a little older.