This next week will be the final week of my summer course in Lithuanian language and culture. In the past few weeks I have at least learnt to read and write simple Lithuanian phrases; speaking is still a bit hard due to the huge amount of cases in this language. I really don't understand who came up with a language system as complex as the Lithuanian one. This language requires some simplification, if you ask me: it's unnecessarily difficult to speak proper Lithuanian. Unfortunately the Lithuanian mentality is too traditional to ever make the necessary adjustments in the language to make it easier for foreigners to learn it.
So now that the summer course is almost over, it's also time to talk about what I will do after the course ends. As some of you may know, it was my goal for 2012 to visit at least 10 new countries in this year. So far I am at 9 new countries and that's why I am not going straight back home after the course ends. My original plan was to go to Belarus, as this country should be very interesting for me to see. Unfortunately you do need visa to go to Belarus and you need to apply for this visa at the Belarussian embassy. The nearest embassy is in Vilnius, but due to the fact that it's only open on week days and I have classes every day during the week, it was not possible for me to go there. I got no response to my query if it was possible to leave the forms and the money in the mailbox of the embassy on a Saturday, so I had to think of some other place to go.
That's when I found a cheap flight ticket from Kaunas to Stockholm. I have never been to Sweden before, wanted to go there already some time to visit a friend in Jönköping and since the flight ticket from Lithuania back to Amsterdam was quite expensive this was the ideal opportunity to go to Sweden. Accomodation there is really expensive though: the cheapest available hostel in Stockholm charges around 30 euros per night just for a bed in a shared room. At the moment I'm still looking for some other accomodation option, but it's difficult as I am not the only tourist that wants to visit Stockholm in August. So we will see how it goes.
So now that the summer course is almost over, it's also time to talk about what I will do after the course ends. As some of you may know, it was my goal for 2012 to visit at least 10 new countries in this year. So far I am at 9 new countries and that's why I am not going straight back home after the course ends. My original plan was to go to Belarus, as this country should be very interesting for me to see. Unfortunately you do need visa to go to Belarus and you need to apply for this visa at the Belarussian embassy. The nearest embassy is in Vilnius, but due to the fact that it's only open on week days and I have classes every day during the week, it was not possible for me to go there. I got no response to my query if it was possible to leave the forms and the money in the mailbox of the embassy on a Saturday, so I had to think of some other place to go.
That's when I found a cheap flight ticket from Kaunas to Stockholm. I have never been to Sweden before, wanted to go there already some time to visit a friend in Jönköping and since the flight ticket from Lithuania back to Amsterdam was quite expensive this was the ideal opportunity to go to Sweden. Accomodation there is really expensive though: the cheapest available hostel in Stockholm charges around 30 euros per night just for a bed in a shared room. At the moment I'm still looking for some other accomodation option, but it's difficult as I am not the only tourist that wants to visit Stockholm in August. So we will see how it goes.
I am really looking forward to visiting Sweden though, as it will be my first trip ever to the real Scandinavia. Moreover, it feels great to know that I achieved my goal to visit those 10 new countries in 2012 in just 9 months.
PS. For those of you who are able to read in German (or know how to use Google Translate), I still have a link to an amazing blog post by the most adventurous traveller that I know. Stefan, whom I met in a hostel in Istanbul, is making a travel over land from Germany to India and at the moment he is in Central Asia, where apparently he got bored from travelling just to the standard tourist destinations. Click here to read the story about his trip to Lake Aidarkul in Uzbekistan and to be amazed by his courage, desire for adventure and writing skills.
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