Vilnius, Lithuania: days three & four

Sorry for the delay, I've been a little busy planning to make my grand departure from Finland. I had to go to the Posti and buy some boxes and packing supplies a couple days ago, and on Friday I went to Helsinki for the day.

Here are some more photos and stories from my trip to Lithuania.

On the third day we walked around the city some more, and visited some of the more eccentric tourist attractions in Vilnius, such as the Frank Zappa monument.



I think I was trying to point to Frank in this picture, but I missed him. Um...Frank Zappa is number one?

The statue isn't very impressive, it's kind of like Frank Zappa's head on a stick, but the story behind it is really funny.

Afterwards we went to the Uzupis Republic, which is an area in Vilnius that has declared itself an independent nation, but is really more of an artists' district.

One of the best things in Uzupis is the republic's constitution, which is available in several languages and posted to a wall in the district on metal plates. Here are some of the best clauses from the Uzupis constitution:

3. Everyone has the right to die, but this is not an obligation.
12. A dog has the right to be a dog.
16. Everyone has the right to be happy.
17. Everyone has the right to be unhappy.
20. No one has the right to violence.
26. Everyone has the right to celebrate or not celebrate their birthday.
27. Everyone shall remember their name.

You can see a picture of the whole constitution here.

Here are some photos of some other interesting things that I saw in Uzupis.

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of memory when I was in Uzupis, so I missed taking photos of the murals, but luckily Kristen and Leila got some great shots which they're letting me share.







I did get a photo of the Uzupis Angel though. Before there was a statue of an angel they had a statue of an egg as a place holder, which was later auctioned.








Later we walked around the city, had some carbalicious food, and I took some photos of the various beautiful churches throughout Vilnius.










The next day we flew back to Tallinn, which was an adventure all by itself. The stop for the bus to the airport is not marked at all, and we had the hardest time in the world trying to find it. We had to ask about 5 people to finally get there, and by the time we got to the airport we only had 40 minutes before our flight left. It was pretty intense. Riding buses in Lithuania is also really different because you have to buy the ticket from a news stand and then punch it on the bus. In practice a lot of people don't punch their tickets and reuse them later. I didn't want to worry about getting a fine though, so I decided to be a good citizen and punch my tickets.