Bernhard Ecklbauer

There are only three weeks left of our Erasmus semester! As we recently passed an exam we have only one subject left at KTU (Virtual Reality – the SlendAR project). We already planned how we will end things here afterwards, so this is the plan:

From January 20 – January 28 we will have a trip with the following stops:

• Riga
• Tallinn
• Helsinki
• Kopenhagen
• Malmö

Afterwards we will only put our stuff into the car – sleep a little and go to

• Warsaw

on 29th.

On January 31st we will finally return to Austria! So see you soon!

Our story begins in Ansfelden, where I left home well prepared (refreshing nap in the evening and a few coffees afterwards) to pick up Lara from Enns and drive all the way to Herrnbaumgarten (near the border to Czech Republic). There we had to put the stuff of five people AND five people into my car (a VW Polo Classic) – we made it, but there was no space left afterwards

My trip was lasting 3 1/2 hours already, the one from Bernd, Michi and Kevin just started. Suprisingly, there weren’t any difficulties, the track was clear and weather was fine for driving – nobody has seen that coming! After I drove almost 1.000 kilometers Lara continued the driving. There was the general assumption that I won’t tell anybody to drive although I would be wasted when we arrive… I wasn’t tired and still concentrated, but relaxing and looking around instead of concentrate on driving was reeeaaaly refreshing – not to mention taking off the shoes… at least for me

After 16 hours, 1.300 kilometers and crossing 3 country-borders we finally arrived at our flat. There was a nice dinner, Bernd proved himself as a very good Kaunas tourist guide, a looong new year’s eve and on January 2nd we packed our stuff and moved to Vilnius, where even Bernd and I actually have been tourists again. We took a guided trip to Trakai (first capital of Lithuania with an amazing castle), discovered oldtown and also had a guided tour through Vilnius.

Although the weather hasn’t been fine at all it was a great week with great people! I think we all had lots of fun and I’m really looking forward to returning home!

My car isn't really big, but nobody complained - good boys

Finally the border Poland-Lithuania

First dinner in Lithuania for half of us - including a cliche-vodka

A wine cellar in Kaunas - Funny thing: there isn't any Lithuanian Wine at all

Lara was Justis' buddy when he was in Hagenberg and they met randomly on new year's eve - what a coincidence

Oldtown in Kaunas

In front of Trakai castle

Our guide was simply too gentle^^

No chance for an escape...

Inside Trakai Castle

Just a beer in a pizza restaurant...

One of the many churches in Vilnius - this one we even saw from inside, but I don't want to bore you

The fountain at the oldtown square in Vilnius in winter - nice idea

Schwere Zeiten sind es, in denen wir den Advent und generell die Vorweihnachtszeit ohne unsere Freunde und Familien daheim genießen müssen. Wie immer bei den schönen Dingen des Lebens geben wir aber auch hier unser Bestes! Wir lassen natürlich keine Advent-Tradition aus und ich stecke auch ständig den lieben Bernd mit meiner Weihnachtsliebe an – ob er will oder nicht! Viel Freude beim Nachlesen unseres ADVENTures

Adventkalender
Kindisch oder nicht war bei mir noch nie die Frage! Ich habe mir einen Adventkalender mit Schokolade gekauft und Bernd hat auch einen bekommen. Die Türchen 20 bis 24 habe ich gleich als erstes verabschiedet – denn die brauche ich nicht, da wir ja am 19. Dezember heim fliegen

Wichtiger vorweihnachtlicher Einkauf

Einer für mich

Und einer für Bernd

Adventkranz
Dass wir einen Adventkranz brauchen, wussten wir schon Anfang November. Wie er dann aussehen würde, wussten wir da noch nicht. Mit viel Liebe und gewohnter Kreativität habe ich uns einen schicken Adventkranz gebastelt. Die Flaschen sind allesamt von der Marke “Švyturys”, was übersetzt “Leuchtturm” heißt – auch nicht unpassend.
Dass wir an den Advent-Sonntagen brav singen versteht sich wohl von selbst!

Mein erster selbstgebastelter Adventkranz - erster Advent

2. Advent

3. Advent, 1 Uhr morgens und "das erste Mal" für unsere Freundinnen aus der Türkei

3. Advent - es gibt aber auch viel zu wenige Fotos von Maxime (Frankreich) und Christian (Deutschland) - unseren Mitbewohnern

...und von uns kann es sowieso nicht genug Fotos geben

Weihnachtsbaum der Universität
Da wir fast jeden Tag an der Uni vorbeigehen ist uns natürlich auch der Weihnachtsbaum dort aufgefallen. Tannenbaum heißt auf litauisch übrigens “Egle”.

Die Ankunft

Das Einweihungsfest der Beleuchtung des Weihnachtsbaumes der Universität hat leider nur sehr kurz gedauert und war daher eher unspektakulär.

Weihnachtsgetränke
Manche Dinge gibt es hier in Litauen, die sind einfach etwas anders. Ein Weizenbier bekommt man hier beispielsweise mit Zitrone. Ähnlich ist es auch mit den weihnachtlichen Getränken:

Bock - serviert mit einer Orangenscheibe. Geschmacklich jedoch sehr gut!

Glüchwein gibt's mit Zitronenscheibe (das passt noch ganz gut) und Strohhalm...

Die gute Tat
Am 12. Dezember waren viele Leute ganz deppad wegen diesem 12/12/12. Das finde ich etwas lächerlich und rein vom Datum her ist 20.12.2012 sowieso cooler
Wie dem auch sei – wir haben den Tag für eine gute Tat genutzt und sind gemeinsam mit Studenten des Erasmus Student Networks zu einer Anstalt mit Kindern mit speziellen Bedürfnissen gefahren und haben dort etwas für Weihnachtsstimmung gesorgt. Wir haben mit den Kindern gemalt und danach gab es ein kurzes Programm – sowohl von unserer Seite als auch von den Kindern. Wir bezeichnen diese Menschen zwar als arm – bedenkt man aber wie groß deren Freude über noch so “unwichtige” Kleinigkeiten ist, müssen wir eher uns selbst als die “Armen” sehen…

Ein Inder im Deutschland-Leiberl Er meinte "das ist eine lange Geschichte"

Die Kunstwerke wurden gesammelt aufgehängt

Vorweihnachtliche Geschenke =)
Obgleich es mir weder vor, während, noch nach Weihnachten um Geschenke geht, werde ich natürlich gerne beschenkt Die Freude teilen und andere beschenken macht aber mindestens genausoviel Spaß!

Ein Nikolo für Bernd

schokoladige Familiengrüße <3

In der Vorweihnachtszeit von einem Moslem beschenkt zu werden hat doch was. Das Glas stammt selbstverständlich NICHT aus einem Lokal......

Farewell Party
Die letzte vom ESN organisierte Party hatte ein kleines Abschiedsprogramm und das “ESN Diary” für uns bereit.

Gemeinsam mit Kestutis, der zwar nicht unser Mentor war, uns aber mehr weitergeholfen hat als unser eigentlicher Mentor. (Mentor hier ist wie Buddy in Hagenberg)

Diverses

Mutige Tauben...

Weihnachtskuh!

Ich wünsche noch eine schöne Weihnachtszeit!

Best Christmas-Song Play Now | Play in Popup | Direct Link

Our trip to Russia was pretty cool. St.Petersburg is really beautiful on the inside, but on our way to go there (we went by bus) we also saw enough places where you don’t want to live. We knew the blocked buildings already from Lithuania – but in SPb they are higher and much more of them on less space. Living there must give you that You-are-one-of-5-million-feeling…

Some quick facts you may not just find on Wikipedia:
St.Petersburg is known as the center of cultural Russia
The first museum of the country was a museum of curiosities (in SPb)
SPb is the “beer city” of Russia (Moscow is the “vodka city”).

Puschkin once said “I was here drank wine and beer”

Russian Visum - 4 days, EUR 80,--

Border - Russia

Border - Narva (Estonia)

Having fun in Peter & Paul's Cathedral - or how I like to call it: the Cathedral of Death

Our hotel - I showed this picture to the taxi driver after going out and we arrived there safely

Euro vs Litas vs Rubel

I asked the waiter for somthing I can only get in St.Petersburg: Some extended version of Chicken Kiev (forgot the name) - really good

Mollie's - St.Petersburg's oldest Pub

Me with a typical russian guy

"Beschleunigungsstreifen" hahaha - Joke by: Bernd

Giebelkreuz-Mafia in Russia

Museum of arts "Hermitage" former palace, a building with ~1400 windows...

Hermitage: Oldschool Facebook - Joke by: Izabela

Hermitage: It reminded me a bit of the first Resident Evil game - a golden version of the mansion...

Hermitage: Badass

Hermitage: A painting by some guy called "Leonardo DaVinci"

Hermitage: These masks remind me of Dragon Ball....

Just another russian souvenir shop in

Metro station from outside

A Metro coin - the ticket for a ride I'm sorry for the bad picture. And I'm even more sorry for myself that I didn't buy another coin as a souvenir :'-(

A metro stop. If you see just the underground of St.Petersburg, you could think that Russia is rich...

Glass adornment on the columns

Colonel Sanders?

Good old times

=)

"Why is that guy naked and you can see his balls?" - "Because it's the same for the horse" - by Berni & Bernd

May I point your attention to the proportion of this man's body/head...

So you have GPS? Really? Hmm... they don't have E-Mail^^

I learned about it in driving school, but I had to travel to St.Petersburg to see it the first time for real.

Oh yes and I bought such a russian military hat =)

Another funny thing is that I ate at KFC and Subway in St.Petersburg, and for both chains it was my first time

We are overduty… to show our flat to all of you
The flat we rent is nothing special, it’s an old Sovjet building (but thank god with new windows) where lots of things are built in a way and are in a condition we wouldn’t stand in a austrian flat. But it’s good enough for four students to live in for less than five months. And more important: It’s better to live here than in the dormitory

Bernd and I moved in together with Christian from Germany and two weeks later Maxime from France joined us.

As it is always the most fun – let the pictures speak:

Arrival

We had to change a bunch of things, but first of all: Preparation is everything!

Kitchen including a few things our hirer "borrowed" us (Really nice guy, by the way)

The other half of the kitchen - the fridge was in another room the time we moved in...

Our former living room that became Maxime's room

Christian's room. He didn't get the matrace on the bed(s) - also, he gave the second part of the bed to Maxime as he bought a new one for himself.

the other half of Christian's room

Bernd's room, he didn't get the table, but the best bed due to what I call an allergy advantage

My room - the smallest one. But after folding out the couch and putting a matrace over it I had a place to sleep and I got the best desk. Also, it's MY room, so it has to be the greatest one

You need some ideas when three people are washing their clothes the first time since three weeks...

So that was a first tour through our flat. If you wonder why we didn’t wash our clothes for three weeks – the washing machines weren’t delivered to the dormitory yet. Planning, organizing and preparing aren’t the big strengths of Lithuanians…

So let’s take a look how it developed until today:

We improved the kitchen by putting food and stuff in it hahaha. We put the fridge in there and Bernd and I took the cupboards for our rooms as we didn't need them in the kitchen.

Bernd needed a new desk, so we splitted the one in the living room.

I had to make my small room cosy and I wanted to put the "grey" out of it...

..so, again, I started to put the pictures from home on the wall..

..and this time I had enough space to use ALL of them

Also, I started to build a "motivation wall" at my exit using the postcards I got from home and I planned to also put special things I find or get in Lithuania onto it

And it developed well! The sum of all these "small things" really lighten up every day!