Icy Dunk

Wow, so much has happened since I last posted so I am not sure exactly where to begin. First of all to be perfectly honest, though I loved my new Study Abroad (SA) friends and was enjoying being in Lithuania I was not really feeling like myself. As you all know I am normally really outgoing, talkative and loud at times, but that was not be the first few days here. I was kind of quiet and did not have a lot to say. I was really annoyed because I did not know what was wrong with me or why I was not my typical self. It is not like I was not enjoying myself or was miserable I just felt kind of off which is a pretty sucky feeling when you're across an ocean with a bunch of people you just met. There were times when I thought, "well this was fun! I'd be fine with going back now" but then I would stop and think that no it really would not be fine it would suck and I'd be wicked sad that I copped out. Then, things took a turn...


....FOR THE BETTER!!

Things have been looking way up these last 2 days. I feel like I am becoming me again which is baller! I went to drop something off and was talking to Emas who is one of our SA leaders (he’s is freaking hilarious and so much fun!!) and he said that was perfectly normal. He reminded me that I’ve only been here a week so I’m totally fine! It’s feels so good though! Some said it was culture shock and that may very well have been the case. I remember feeling the same but to a way lesser extreme when I first got to Chicago. I still don’t have any roommates yet which is kind of a sad story, but the housing director assured me that I would have some soon!

Well I’m sure that a lot of you are curious about my current weather situation. It is cold here to say the least. To be honest it’s not that much colder than the last few days in Boston except that we spent the first 5 days of our time here doing a ton of walking. Which normally I stay inside or run to the car and drive places so I feel a lot more of the cold here. Even for the people from this area they said it was very cold for this time of year and that it is normally a lot warmer which gives me hope that it won’t be this cold all the time.

The SAs and I have done a lot since being here! Some of us were hanging out in a lounge earlier and talking about how it feels like we’ve been here forever yet we have not even been on campus for a week yet. Well thinking back to before classes started feels like ages ago. We spent the first few days in the capital. One of the best parts of our time there was getting to go to a really old church and have a tour down in the catacombs. It was kind of creepy because some of the tombs still had remains in them, but at the same time it was actually pretty exciting!

One the way to go to the school we stopped at a castle in Traikai. It was beautiful and huge! We decided that it would be a fun place to play hide and seek in but did not think the owners would really appreciate it! We still enjoyed ourselves and walked around and got to see some of what was actually in the castle at the time!

One of the most exciting parts of the trip was definitely the polar swim! First off we took a ferry out to this huge island. We went to a sauna that is right on the beach. Unlike my dear friend Cas, the temperature here is not exactly, “yay, let’s run and jump in the water weather” but for some reason they decided it would be a fun and cultural experience and most of us went right along with it! So we went into the sauna and got really hot and toasty until our bodies were hot and we were dripping with sweat then we ran out (through the snow and sand that was frozen solid) into the Baltic Sea and then dunked down so we were covered with water. We then attempted to run back into the large room but it was more like a slow jog because our bodies were so cold. Because we are such brilliant and crazy cool kids most of us decided to do this two times and a few brave people (not me) went for a third dunk. Though it was kind of crazy, it was tons of fun and definitely a once in a lifetime experience!


Well thanks for reading this far! I hope you are enjoying my life updates :)

Up next:
Food
Language
Blackouts
Classes
Roomies-hopefully

Much love
~Chrissy