Monday June 22nd 2009

Louise and I (Shirley) returned home on Monday evening via the Amtrak from New York City after a good six days in Vilnius. We walked a lot of miles and got lost a few times. On the Sunday before we left we decided to go back to the church where we had worshipped with the group. We walked way out of our way, and discovered that the church was only a very short distance from the hostel where we were staying. The hostel was a very good one--fairly new. We had the use of the kitchen and a computer,. We visited the KGB museum. We hadn't realized how recently Lithuania had been forcefully under Russia's control. At the coffee hour after church we visited with several couples who had been in Vilnius about ten years ago doing essentially the same thing we had done at the college. The woman said that it had been such a frightening experience with armed Russian soldiers every where that she thought at the time that she would never want to go to Lithuania again and that it was very different for this trip. Louise said at the end of the trip that she could now conduct a tour of Vilnius, but not me!! We saw lots of sights and bought a few more items--not much amber though.