Second impressions...?

I thought we would ALL benefit from this lovely map...

Adjusting has been rough at times, but mostly entertaining. It's the little things that catch me off guard. The main grocery store is called "Iki"...and they don't give you plastic bags for your stuff unless you specifically ask for one (which I haven't mastered in Lithuanian yet) and PAY for it. I guess this saves on wasted plastic. Not such a bad idea. They have me recycling mine. You also have to separately purchase both cream and sugar at restaurants to go along with your tea or coffee. Tea withOUT the bags is a big thing here as well...I don't think I'll ever really get used to huge tea leaves floating around in my hot water though.

As Americans, we've learned that we are the only country to carry water bottles around. It's such a beautiful and healthy habit too...I don't know why it hasn't caught on in Europe yet...but we get strange looks and questions. (Why are you so thirsty all the time?) And if you ask for water in a restaurant here you're guaranteed to be given weak sparkling water...or "with gas" as they say here. Yuck.

Almost every public restroom that I've been in (restaurants, malls, etc.) has black lights. At first I thought it was kind of cool...but now I've been told it's possibly to prevent people from being able to find their veins so that bathrooms don't become drug holes. Who would have guessed.

The other night my sweet, young Latvian roommate, Zane, invited me to watch a movie with a bunch of her Latvian friends. At first I was thrilled by the bonding invitation...until I realized we were watching Big Momma's House 2...in Russian. No subtitles. Yah that didn't work out so well for me. However, the Russian was only cheaply dubbed over the English. So, as my new friends kindly pointed out, if I listen hard enough I can still hear the real English script underneath the loud Russian translation. ;) They watched Ice Age 2 in the same "format" afterward...but I opted out.

While the girls remain gorgeous, the guys I've seen typically opt for a more early 90s look. The mullet is unfortunately "in" here. While guys back home cut mullets as jokes (usually)...they sincerely love them here.

I realized today that we Americans have a huge heads up on all of the other Eastern European students just because English was our first (and usually only) language. Two-thirds of the professors are from North America. Every class, chapel, and assembly is in English. Tests, readings, and homework assignments too. Everything. English. No wonder Americans are so cocky. My freshman roommate was crying in frustration yesterday because her literature professor was having her class interpret Shakespeare for homework. I told her that that's another whole language of its own.

I feel like I fit in pretty well. So far I've had three Albanian students tell me that I look Albanian...Two Ukrainian guys pegged me as Russian because of the dark eyes/dark hair. (But how common is that?) I thought I could pull the whole, "I'm half Russian" thing a lot more...but no one here is impressed by heritage unless you can actually speak the language. Knowing "thank you" and "goodbye" don't pull any weight. But the fact that I have relatives in Moscow has been a good talking point. I can't wait to go there at the end of October.