at the baltic sea.

Last weekend we took a little trip to the Baltic Sea on Lithuania's coast, only about 3 hrs drive away from my city.  We went to Klaipeda, Palanga and the Curonian Spit. Those are all beach places that are busy during the summer and we went one week after the season was over so it was a bit chilly and pretty deserted, which made it even better to have the place all to ourselves.  

Klaipeda wasn't my favorite city, but it did have a cool Old Town to walk around with these old style streets (cobblestone!) and amazing architecture. 

The hotel we stayed in was pretty nice as you can see.  I was pleased. And again it was basically deserted.  After we got there and checked in, they pointed us in the direction of going up those stairs to get to our room. The girls all had brought rolling suitcases so it was a bit of a commotion getting those up the stairs when the hotel was already stone cold silent.  Once we all got to the top, Stevie set her suitcase to stand up and went to do something else.  I That's when I heard this bam, bam, bam, BAM!   Her suitcase decided to tip backwards, tumble down the tile stairs, and fall off the stairs dropping right into the lobby.  Stevie was laughing so hard that it was the silent, can't beathe kinda laugh and the hotel was again, totally silent.  About a minute later of her trying to stand up from laughing so hard, I finally figured out what happened and I was like Stevie.....is your suitcase still down there?  She hurried down the stairs to see her suitcase had dropped right in front of the welcome desk with the clerks standing there stone faced, smile-less, without a word.  They were not amused with the loud Americans. Typical.

We went to Palanga, another coastal town thats close to Klaipeda.  It was so beautiful! A little too cold to swim but still fun to walk around the beach. They also have a market kinda street where I got yummy fried doughnut kinda things and other good food.  And for dinner I had a chicken caesar salad....the first greens that I've seen in weeks.  My body was oh sooooo happy for salad.  And for chicken.  I went a little crazy buying scarves and a ring.  Shopping isn't cheap here like China was, but I have no remorse.  It was worth it cause I love em.  

3 words: treat yo self. 

We watched the sunset on the pier.

And this bachelor needed 2 girls to kiss his cheek for a photo at his bachelor party.  It was a huge group of drunk wanna be sailors so we obliged so that they would leave us alone.  

We rode horses through the forest and onto the beach also in Palanga. That was definitely the highlight of the day.  The people at the "ranch" were the sweetest and made it so fun.  The second highlight of the day was getting to wear a suede riding hat cause I make that look good 

The only time I got scared was when we got out of the forest and my horse made a beeline straight into the water and starting bending down.  Pretty sure he was about to just lay down and roll around. But the other horses followed him and got a little drink and I had to actually use my riding whip to get him out of the water.  I was trying to be confident and in control like giddyup horse we're going over here now but really I was like please please dont put me in the water, k? 

And my horse had bangs. 

We went to the Curonian Spit on the last day which is this cool strip of sand dunes off the mainland.  We took a ferry to get there and then drove down the "island" to Nida, the cutest little fisherman town.  This was a sun dial at the dunes.  

Another town on the strip is Juodkrante. In that town they have this place called The Hill of Witches.  Its this little hike through the woods with about 80 huge, intricately detailed, wooden sculptures.  Some of them you could even play with like a slide and a see saw.  They would have been super creepy to look at if they weren't so impressively crafted.  I was in AWE!  So cool.  

Best Halloween ever would be walking through that hike at night with a candle to guide your way.  Creeeeep-y.  It was such a fun trip though! 

P.S.  Sorry my current trip isn't as funny as the China trip was.  I think everyone that read my China emails wanted to read my blog in Lithuania too because I always had crazy stories.  Europe just isn't as crazy as China was.  So sorry I'm not as funny.  Stay tuned...maybe something slightly funny will happen.