Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Honey, I'm home pt II

Came back from the long weekend in Vilnius yesterday.
Now G&V are legally wed and on their way to Ukraine for their honeymoon.

Vilnius was nice, at lot nicer than I expected. We arrived quite late on Wednesday night and went to our B&B and then took a quick drink before bedtime. Thursday I spent most of the day alone since sis and Henrik had a jobmeeting. I walked around a big shopping mall but could find anything I wanted to buy. The fashion is very 1995, low cut jeans and tops showing a bit to much belly for my taste. I also noticed that there are no foreigners what so ever in Vilnius... Interesting. I saw one other black person and he turned out to be a Canadian tourist :)

Thursday night we met up with The Happy Couple and some other friends for dinner and drinks. Friday was nice and sunny so me, Hannah and Tanja walked around town...or correction we walked from one bar to the next. A glass of wine costs about 1 euro 5 cents in a bar and a beer is about the same. Friday night we all were supposed to go to the place where the wedding reception would take place and help out with the floral decorations but too much food and for some too much vodka put a quick end to those plans. We ended up in a cocktailbar instead...

Saturday morning it was raining like h*ll! We went to the KGB museum which is found the the old KGB headquarters. In the basement they used to keep their prisoners and interrogation rooms. Entering the place I got the same feeling that I got when I visited Dachau, concentration camp outside of Munich, the fear and anxiety is filling the air. Some of the torture cells really makes you sick but it was an important place to visit. The KGB left Vilnius in 1991..... I can't imagine that. I graduated from school in 1992 - it's not that long ago you could get arrested for telling a joke or reading the wrong book.
After the visit we had lunch at McDonald's - from one extreme to the next and then we went back to the B&B to get ready for the wedding.
It was a very nice ceremony, both in English and Lithuanian and they both looked very beautiful and happy.
They had arranged buses to takes us to the reception where we had champagne and hors d'oeuvres.

During the dinner I was placed next to a very nice frenchguy and his wife. We, as in the Swedish friends, performed a song we wrote which I think at least Gosta enjoyed a lot. Then we danced and drank until 3 in the morning. Me and Dan aka Travolta really heated up the dancefloor for a while (note to self: dry clean dress).
At lot of the Lithuanian wedding traditions are focused on having babies. Jokes like "we'll see you in the hospital in 9 months" and comments about grandchildren. Personally I don't think that's very funny but that's just me.... I know that G&V wants kids and I wouldn't be the least surprised if V is pregnant by New Years.

Sunday they had arranged a trip to the nearby village Trakai and huge lunch - at least 7 courses and a tour of the castle. On each table there was 2 bottled of wine, one bottle of vodka and one bottle of brandy. Since have our Viking heritage to live up (or down) to we did our best to finish the vodka but we didn't really measure up to the lithuanians...

For dinner that day all I could down was a cold cucumber soup. The bowl it's served in is made of bread - really cool.
Monday me and Henrik from Malmoe, who I haven't seen in ages, spent the day together walking around town looking at the old Russian architecture.
We left town at around 4 to go to the airport.

All in all I had a great time. Got to meet some friends I haven't seen in a long time: Henrik from Malmoe and K&J who live in Bruxelles.

Now, M&J, who have been engaged for 10 years have decided to get married. Knowing M who suffers from a huge inferiority complex towards most people she couldn't stand the fact that I would get married before she did. She has always felt like she had the upper hand on me when it comes to relationships. When I was single she had J, they moved in together, got engaged and suddenly so am I. So she needs to be the first one walking down the aisle.
Since Mr S and I are doing it in October next year they have planned to do it in May.... It's too bad but they don't really seem happy together. But I think they are both "security junkies" and once she actually said to me "you know what you have but you don't know what you'd get".

Update on wedding: rings are designed and ordered....that's about it. I'm still working on the Las Vegas-idea but Mr S has now teamed up with my mum against me. I think it'll be great. If we'd go for the drive in concept it'll cost $10. The average wedding in Sweden costs between 5 and 10.000 euros. Think of how many shoes I could buy with that money!

Take care
Love/E

Song of the day:

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