On Monday morning, we packed everything up in our bags and headed down to breakfast. I wanted to sit in the bar area, because they had chairs in their that better accommodated my ass. We were gently persuaded to sit in the restaurant, though, with a view of the tower. I didn’t want to sit in the restaurant, because I didn’t like being near the buffet and listening to other people’s chatter… and I didn’t like the chairs. There was a loud couple behind us who were cluing us in on the mundane intricacies of their lives. And… well, it didn’t “sit” well with me to be herded into the restaurant area, especially at the Grand Hotel Vilnius.
I have a feeling the server was hoping to minimize the areas that got “dirty”. I used to be a server, too. But then, there were people sitting in the bar area anyway, because there weren’t enough tables in the restaurant to accommodate everyone. I wished she’d just let us sit where we wanted to sit, so I didn’t have to leave with a less than positive impression.
Then, the same server who had brought me a birthday treat (not the one who herded us into the restaurant) came over to say hello and encouraged us to try a couple of items from the brand new breakfast menu.
Bill had Crepes Suzette and I had sour cream pancakes with forest berries.
Once we were finished with breakfast, we hung out in the room for about an hour, then checked out. A cabbie took us to the airport. A friend of mine from Gloucester, Virginia happened to be flying from Helsinki to Reykjavik. She warned me that security was very tight for some reason, but we didn’t have any issues. It was no time before we were checking our bags and headed to the business class lounge.
The lounge was nice enough, although I got the hell out of there as quickly as possible when a woman came near me with a bad cough and talked about how she’d been sick. Sorry… I’m not wanting to get sick before tomorrow’s journey to Zurich! I did get to try a local hefeweizen before we took off.
Our flight to Frankfurt was pretty full, but uneventful. The ticket scanner malfunctioned as I was trying to board, but it worked out when they used a different one. We had decent food on the flight– shrimp for me, and asparagus and feta for Bill. And I noticed the purser, though not as generous as the lady with the cool glasses on our flight over, was very kind faced and service oriented.
Below are some photos…
Once we landed a very polite, but clueless, little kid pushed to the front of the aircraft to use the lavatory. He wanted to pass me, but apparently didn’t notice that I had nowhere to go, and was trapped in the aisle. Bill managed to shift, and I made enough space for the little shit to go do his business.
Then we got off the plane and went to get our bags… always the worst part of any flight through Frankfurt. It’s a large airport and doesn’t have a train, so you walk your ass off. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if you need the exercise. Obviously, I do.
It seemed like many people were on their way to other destinations, so very few people were waiting for bags. We picked ours up quickly and then got a cab back to Breckenheim. This time, the cab driver wasn’t very chatty in different languages.
I really liked our time in Vilnius. I was impressed with how beautiful and clean the city is, the excellent food, the friendly and funny people, and the very nice temperatures for June. I’d definitely go back. I’m especially happy that I visited the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. That is a very interesting and important museum.
It still blows my mind that Lithuania had a Peace Corps program. It’s a very nice country… I’d say it probably could have been called a “Posh Corps” country, even back in the early 00s.
The very last post will be my ten things I learned post, which I’ll try to do tomorrow morning, before we head off to Die Schweiz. See you there!
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