On Tuesday, we met up with some old friends in Latvia. Darrell Berry was my partner at our hospital in Pleasant Grove. He and his wife, Katherine, have been serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Latvia for several months. It sounds like they stay quite busy here. They took some time away from their missionary responsibilities to show us around a little.

We spent half a day with them at Mezapark. This was perfect for our kids.

Margaret was all about fitting in with the locals

Later that evening, we went to dinner with the Berrys and then visited at their apartment for a bit.

The next day (today), we spent the morning with them exploring a little of the old town. We stepped into a restarount that was started in 1290. It was pretty neat. It was below street level and lit only by candles. There was a well at one end of the restaurant. We didn’t eat there, but I did check out the menu. The “soup with chicken gizzards prepared in the way of tradition” did sound pretty good.

Then we said goodbye and hopped on a bus to Estonia. Well sort of hopped on. More like nearly missed. We use rideshare apps a lot for travel. There is no UberXL here and technically a taxi is supposed to take a max of 4 passengers. The driver who picked us up wouldn’t budge on this and we had to take a second car. That was fine except that Ashley didn’t have the app installed on her phone and I had to wait until they arrived a the bus station to use the app to call another ride. But we made it Ashley now has the app on her phone

Same bus situation as before. The kids love it. 4 hours of whatever they want to watch.

Our Air BNB in Estonia is another nice one. I’m hoping these two more recent accommodations are more representative of what we can expect while we are here than the one we stayed at in Lithuania. That one was just plain gross.

Maybe my next post will have a little more about the history of these Baltic countries. They sit in a pretty precarious place on the globe between Russia and Finland to the east and west, and Poland to the south. Historically they have occupied this small space (an area roughly 3/4 the size of Utah) between three vast empires–Sweden to the west, Russia to the East, and Germany/Poland to the South. They have been absorbed into or occupied by one of these powers for much of their history. It is amazing they have maintained their national identities for all these centuries.

Sleep schedule and home school schedule are getting a little better. We made it out another hour earlier than the day before.

Took in some more sites around Old Town Vilnius.

My overall impressions of the country would include the following:

1. It feels safe. No one in our apartment building has eyed us suspiciously as we have figured out the lock to the building door or our apartment door. People, including us, will leave their stroller outside the store while they shop without worrying it will be stolen. Nobody seems really ill at ease on the street. I have seen women and children waking alone after dark. I had a very different experience with all of these things in Russia in the nineties.
2. People are generally friendly and helpful. Half of our ride share drivers have been fairly excited to answer all my questions about their city. People have been eager to help with directions. Checkers at the supermarket and cashiers/greeters at restaurants have been a little more cold. A lot more like employees at the DMV. Both reactions may have something to do with me speaking Russian.
3. Things are pretty reasonably priced. Even in the main tourist areas, things are reasonable. Although we planned on using public transport, it generally didn’t cost much more to use a rideshare service (Bolt is the name of the most prevalent rideshare here) as compared to paying for 5 tickets on say the public buses.
4. The city is quite clean. Really no litter. Bathrooms have been pretty clean.
5. There are a lot of cool places to visit. I think we could see something interesting and new every day in the surrounding area if we stayed for several more weeks.
6. Tourist travel seems light to moderate. There are more Lithuanians at all the sites we have visited than foreign tourists.

The weather has been great, mostly sunny and in the 70’s. So, this has left a favorable impression on all of us, too.

Stupid title for a blog, I know. Ashley wanted to name our blog something more reasonable like AndersonFamilyAdventure2019, but I wanted something that was easy to remember and had a ring to it, just in case we get a million followers and this becomes our full time job, haha (although I do have a glimmer of hope).

Ashley suggested we make a post about what we are doing and why. Pretty reasonable suggestion, so here goes.

In 2018, my business partner and I sold our veterinary practice, which was something bittersweet I think for both me and him. It was a great practice and we got along well, but selling the practice opened the door to a different chapter in life for my partner–one he was ready to move on to. In any case, it changed what the future looked like for my career a little. I was still very committed to the practice I had owned a part of, but wasn’t married to it in the same way.

Ashley and I have always regretted that we hadn’t traveled more, both when we were single and after we had gotten married but before we had kids. Our kids are still young, but our oldest is getting to the phase in life where maintaining close friendships is becoming more important, and school, although still elementary school, is becoming a little more rigorous.

After a lot of thought and deliberation, we decided now was our chance to travel. If we waited even one or two more years, things would only get harder. It wasn’t really the right time for me to leave the practice I was working at, but it was the right time for our family.

So I quit my job, we rented out our house for a year, got our kids set up for an online home school program with their school district, farmed our pets out to various family members (tears were shed), we each packed a carry on bag, and bought plane tickets to Europe. By the way, the process of getting that all done takes MONTHS.

Our goal is to travel for a full year. Mostly Europe, but also Russia, Morocco, and maybe Georgia. We’re going to keep to a budget, so our travels will involve a lot of buses, trains, and AirBNB.

We are going to try to post a photo and few paragraphs every day so that at the end of all of this, we have a daily journal of sorts. Today, we start our first full day so……..we’ll see how it goes!

This photo was as we were dropped off at the Seattle airport. Thirteen and half hours and two budget carrier flights later, and we all probably looked a little less excited. But we made it.

The kids did remarkably well. No fussing and no complaints.

First thing they noticed was that Vilnius, Lithuania reminded them a lot of the US. There were streets, cars, trees and buildings, just like we have!

Took an Uber to our AirBNB and surprised our host who had fallen asleep on the couch. A half hour later with some lackluster cleaning efforts on his part and he handed us the key.

The best way to paint a picture of our dwelling is that it is definitely communist era Eastern European, and that it is cleanish–cleanish sheets, cleanish pillow cases, cleanish towels, etc. etc. By cleanish, I mean to say they might have been washed prior to us coming, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

First thing we did once we had our stuff situated was to hit the town for some real Lithuanian eats. I got a Big Mac with creamy barbecue fries (available only in Eastern Europe and prepared according to a traditional local recipe that appeared to consist of 3 squirts of mayonnaise and 2 squirts of barbecue sauce), Nolan and Margaret got cheeseburgers, Jane had chicken McNuggets, and Ashley got a true Lithuanian fusion dish–spicy cheese nuggets. And a Fruits of the Forest pie (available only in Eastern Europe). I gotta say, we all have been pretty impressed by the local cuisine.

In reality, though, we hadn’t eaten for quite a while, and at 850 meters away (about a half mile), it was the closest place to get something to eat.

After that, we hit the grocery store and hauled a few days’ worth of groceries home. Now it’s 12:30 am local time and 3:25 pm the day before in Utah. I guess it’s time to hit the sack.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton