Lithuania

What comes to your mind hearing the word Lithuania? Speaking sincerely and frankly nothing came to my mind until February  this year, when I was invited in an agreeable job concerning Comenius SO ECO GREEN project.  Slowly my knowledge of Lithuania has extended from month to month. In this process the day of 8-th of October was the cornerstone when I started to know personally Lithuania.

 Let’s go in chronological order. Tuesday early morning I got up at 3 o’clock. At 5 o’clock we were at the airport. At 5.30 we had the first unpleasant surprise, our flight to Vienna was cancelled. At 6.30 we started to run by bus to Vienna airport. The second unpleasant surprise was in Vienna, we arrived too late for Vilnius flight.

 Then we flew through Warsaw to Vilnius and arrived in Jonava in dark and cool night, but we were given a warm reception in the school. They waited for us the whole day. It was the third, but very pleasant surprise.

The next day we, the exchange students, and Lithuanian school girls and boys took part in workshops. We heard a presentation concerning the secret of successful business. Later we assembled in random groups and created a product promoting it.  This afternoon we paid a visit to the office of Mayor in Jonava town. The Mayor greeted us and talked about actual investment processes. This evening  an interesting event happened at school. The local girls and boys performed traditional national dances and brought us their traditional foods and national costumes. The guests of visitor countries performed their own traditions too, of course in fragments only. Our Hungarian fragment was a traditional Hungarian folk song “Spring breeze floods water” singing together with our teachers.

On Thursday we gathered in groups once again so called “Fair of ideas” then we demonstrated our products. In the afternoon we travelled to Kaunas. This town is the second biggest after Vilnius. Approximately half of the country’s students study at the University of Kaunas. This is the town of students. On Friday we paid a visit to the capital. On the way to Vilnius we could see Kernavé and Trakaji, which is a small town. Its castle stands on an island in the middle of a lake.  It was built in the 14th century.

About Vilnius: it was referred to as the capital of Lithuania in 1323. By the 16th century Vilnius was  one of the  largest cities in Europe. We visited the “Museum of money”. Here we could understand the development of Lithuanian money. We printed some paper money with our portrait.

Summarizing: Lithuania is a small country with great traditions and history, and with untouched, wonderful nature, with nice and friendly people.

It was a great pleasure to be there with our host, old and new friends. Thank you!

Maximillián Pál