Trip to Vilnius

Last week there was a special event for us volunteers. Visiting the capital for the first time.
Together with Polish exchange students we arrived in Vilnius on Wednesday. The groups of students should take the time there for doing some polls about the relationship between Lithuanian an Polish people and they got the chance to meet students from another country.
Wednesday, our first day, we went on a short sight seeing tour with the whole group. We visited St. Anne's Church, one of the most beautiful and famous buildings in Vilnius. The church is surrounded by many legends. The most popular story is that Napoleon upon seeing St. Anne's Church, said that he would like to place it in the palm of his hand and move it to Paris.
Then we saw the Town Hall Square. It's the traditional center of trade and events in the city.
An also interesting story was told about the President's Palace. All visitors and foreigners piss in front of the building. Nobody really knows why....
The last station of the tour and maybe the most popular was the Cathedral square. There are 3 important buildings at this square. The Cathedral itself, the bell tower and the rebuild palest. It was rebuild as a symbol for the existence and independence of Lithuania.
Another point of the exchange program was cleaning graffiti in the town. We went to kalnu parkas and students could help cleaning.
On Thursday all volunteers took the change to discover Vilnius on our own. We saw the Gate of Dawn, a part of the old city wall, and looked around shopping centers for example. In the afternoon we were invited to an EVS presentation.
On Friday the students already left Vilnius again. We stayed for the weekend at other volunteers flat. The weekend was really fun. We met the whole volunteer community from Vilnius. It is very huge. We also had a great time with friends from Siauliai who came for the weekend.
Another cultural aspect was the visit of KGB museum on Saturday. It was very interesting for me to learn about Lithuanian history and the pressure of the national security agency of the USSR. In Germany we do not learn that much about Sowietunion and History of Baltic states. We were really lucky to have Evaldas a history teacher from school with us because he could tell us everything about it.
All in all I really like Vilnius especially thy old town is beautiful. For me it has a Mediterranean flair what I did not expect. I also enjoyed that Vilnius has some shops and places, Siauliai does not have. "Double coffee" and "Guesto" for example. A cafe with the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted and a restaurant full of wonderful pan cakes ;)
In addition I can say that Vilnius is a international city and I like that very much. We met many foreigners in cafes or bars and when you move through the streets you can hear a lot of English speaking people.
As a conclusion I liked the trip and I think we will visit the capital more often in the next months.