Tomas sent me a link to this poster advertising Vilnius European Capital of Culture 2009 at a bus stop in London. It impressed me that they are making some attempts to reach out to the British audience and it the first piece of marketing I've seen aimed at us. Great!
Thanks to Jo'nas for letting me use the photo.
Created: 2008-06-21 10:29, Tags: Capital of Culture, England, Lithuania, Vilnius, Comments: 0
Today I received an e-mail from the Ambassador Programme for Vilnius European Capital of Culture 2009 offering me a 10% discount for flights with FlyLAL (Lithuanian Airlines). It's a nice offer despite it being purely an advertising campaign for the airline, but not very practical at all. I decided to let the organisers know how I felt about it. I replied to the e-mail I received to the address info@culturelive.lt and it bounced back. Later I tried the address given on the official website (info@vilnius2009.lt) and it bounced back again. It doesn't give a good impression of the event at all. Anyway, here's what I wrote to them:
Dear all
I just want to raise a small point about the little piece of advertising you sent me.
I live in the North of England close to Manchester and Liverpool airport. Flylal will be beginning a Manchester-Vilnius route (via Amsterdam) next year. These tickets cost £400 (£360 when I get the discount). Extremely expensive and out of the question for the type of people you want to attract to Vilnius European Capital of Culture. Moreover, the route via Amsterdam is simply inconvenient.
My proposal to you is to advertise convenient and affordable ways to get to Vilnius from the North of England and Scotland. Such a route would be Liverpool-Kaunas which I regularly take with Ryanair. However, as I discussed in my blog, people have trouble pin pointing Vilnius on a map nevermind Kaunas! Plus, transport connections between Vilnius and Kaunas are not great from the airport.
I hope you can understand where I'm coming from on this. I'm simply very enthusiatic about Lithuania and Vilnius and want the year of culture to be as successful as possible.
Regards
Anna Ward
Created: 2008-05-27 17:19, Tags: Capital of Culture, Lithuania, Vilnius, Comments: 3
If Lithuania were a chocolate what would it taste like? Well, a chocolatier has actually come up with the answer. A box of chocolates called Eurodream has been created with 25 different chocolates each being inspired by a European country. So what inspired the Lithuanian chocolate? Vodka? Pork? Potatoes? Berries? Tomas' mum has some great strawberries from her garden they could use. They actually went for honey. Great Britain (under the usual umbrella term England) apparently tastes like tea. I think some of the connections are slightly dubious though. Luxembourg apparently tastes like peaches...
Created: 2008-05-11 11:04, Tags: food, Lithuania, Comments: 0
Give you a clue:
It's not there... :)
A nice promotional poster for Vilnius European Capital of Culture 2009. I'm giving you some little appetizers and then going for the hard sell in later posts...
Translation: "The world doesn't know about Vilnius. Tell them!"
Created: 2008-04-08 18:43, Tags: Capital of Culture, design, Lithuania, Comments: 0
It's not as grand as it sounds, but I've become an ambassador for Vilnius Capital of Culture 2009. This is thanks to Asta who suggested I should sign up and encourage people to visit Vilnius and Lithuania in 2009. I'm going to dedicate some posts in the coming weeks to doing just that, but I can't guarentee that anyone who reads them will decide to pack their bags and travel to a mysterious country at the other end of Europe...
The problem with my target audience is that they barely know where Lithuania is. One of my collegues thought it was possibly a part of Russia, but it could have been on the moon for all she cared. My first priority is letting people know that Lithuania is a small, yet perfectly formed country with an amazing history and it's own language and culture.
If I get anyone even slightly interested, then I have one other small problem. There are no direct flights from the north of England to Vilnius. The closest you are going to get is flying from Liverpool (Capital of Culture 2008) to Kaunas with Ryanair. Don't get me wrong, Kaunas is a lovely city, but a. even more unheard of than Vilnius and b. a bit of a nightmare to get to Vilnius from the airport.
Here's what you can expect from Kaunas:
"...10.00am Visit a museum celebrating the history of Lithuanian pharmacies. The curator looks slightly shocked to see anybody and regards me with what can only be described as suspicion. He takes me around and tells me about the history of Lithuanian pharmacies. I am extrapolating this, though, as he doesn't speak English.
11.00am Visit a museum celebrating the role of the devil in Lithuanian folklore. Set over three floors, there are more than 2,000 statues of Satan in his various guises. Learn that the devil created alcohol from she-goats' urine.
12.30pm Lunch. I sit at a table outside a restaurant and have cepelinai - translation: Zeppelin - a Lithuanian peasant dish that consists of a rugby ball of potato dough stuffed with meat. It is designed to keep out the cold during the harsh winters. It is not necessarily the best choice when it is 32 degrees. As it is today..."
Read the rest of the article here.
Created: 2008-04-06 16:29, Tags: Capital of Culture, Lithuania, travel, Comments: 1
I can't believe it! HEL LOOKS is exhibiting in Vilnius from 25th January until 20th February. Asta (my Lithuanian friend/penpal) and I were discussing how cool this would be in August last year. She said she wanted to persuade the creators of HEL LOOKS to come over to Vilnius and exhibit their photos. I really want to know if they came of their own accord or whether she had a hand in it. Well, either way, I'm pleased because she will be happy. I'm a little bit disappointed though because I won't get to see it. The next surprise I'm waiting for is for Asta to start her VIL LOOKS :)
Also some other great news: Alina Orlova has released her first album. Go here for a sample. I can't really tell you anything more about her music. My words won't be able to describe her talent well enough.
I'm still fighting my one woman battle against the Lithuanian language. Taking it one step at a time. Came across a Lithuanian scientific, literary and cultural journal called Lituanus and this article about participles. Scary!! If you want to find out about Lithuania in more detail then they have a comprehensive back catalogue of articles covering all sorts of weird and wonderful topics.
Created: 2008-01-28 17:53, Tags: art, fashion, Lithuania, Lithuanian, music, Vilnius, Comments: 0
Three things are required for a satisfying meal at Tomas' house: plenty of potatoes, meat and healthy doses of cheese/smetana/mayonaise. The following recipe is easy to make, totally comforting on a cold winter's night and combines all three vital ingredients. Again, I'm stealing the recipe from Tomas' mum, but she's a good cook and you should all know about it :) I don't really have a name for the dish. We either call it the "potato thing" or "meat thing" depending on the ratio of meat to potato.
Anyways, here's what you'll be needing:
about 5 large potatoes, thinly sliced
about 4 pork steaks (cuts taken from the blade or cuts with plenty of fat on them)
2 onions
cheese, any variety that melts well
plenty of thin mayonaise (of course Lithuanian mayonaise is the best!)
salt
pepper
herbs to taste
And here's what you have to do:
Get one baking tray and cover the base with foil. Peel and thinly slice the potatoes and place them flat on the baking tray so you create a layer of potatoes. Season well with salt and pepper. Next, take the meat and place it on top of the potatoes. Season the meat well and add herbs if you wish. Layer onion segments on the meat. Then comes the mayonaise and lots of it. Pile it up on top of the meat. Then the cheese. Do you see? It's all about the layers. Cover the whole thing with foil and put in a hot oven for 45-60 minutes until the meat is cooked. Now you're ready to serve. If you want, you can also add perhaps peppers/mushrooms/carrots/vegetable item into the layering process, but I would say that the simplest version of the recipe is the best. Skanaus!
Created: 2007-10-10 19:26, Tags: Lithuania, recipe, Comments: 0
I first ate these perfect pancakes with bacon and eggs at my boyfriend's family's datcha near Vilnius. Cook this recipe as a quick snack or for a Sunday morning breakfast. It's so tasty, filling and easy to make.
So, let's start with the ingredients:
for the pancakes:
3 cups of flour
1 egg
2-3 cups of water (enough so the batter is smooth and runny; you can also use a bit of milk instead of water)
pinch of salt
tablespoon of oil (so the pancakes don't stick to the pan)
Making the pancakes is very simple. Put the flour in a mixing bowl, add the egg and then gradually stir in the water (it's best to use a whisk for this) until there are no lumps left and it has the consistency of soup, i.e. relatively thin. Finally, add the salt and the oil and give it a last mix. You need a fairly good non-stick frying pan or it can get a bit messy. Get the pan really hot and add oil if necessary. You're ready to make the pancakes!
for the filling:
as many eggs as you want, perhaps 3 or 4
lots of streaky bacon (the fattier the better :) )
salt and pepper to taste
Whisk the eggs in a bowl and add the salt and pepper. Get another frying pan hot and add the bacon. When the bacon has slightly browned add the eggs and stir until the eggs have cooked. It should look a bit like this:
Once the pancakes and the egg mixture are ready, you can eat! Take a pancake and fill it with the mix. Guten Appetit!
Created: 2007-09-27 16:37, Tags: lithuania, recipe, Comments: 2
About three years ago I came across an interesting website called postcardx. It's simply a collection of addresses of people who like to send post to total strangers. The whole thing is a lovely idea. You can search for an address and send something nice to a person you are probably never going to meet. You can add your own address and wait for your postbox to fill up with exciting letters from all over the world. It is a basic concept that works. As the name of the website suggests, most people like to send postcards. In the past I've received postcards from Canada, America and the UK. People also send more imaginative packages filled with dried leaves, tea bags, stickers, maps and so on. The whole concept makes me believe that it is still perhaps possible for people to be generous, altruistic and to be happy making other people happy.
Lots of people on postcardx are also looking for long term penpals. Having a penpal is a wonderful and rewarding experience. The fact that someone makes the effort to write a thoughtful letter about their life, put it in an envelope, seal it, go to the post office, post it makes you feel good. There seems to be a certain satisfaction from keeping a friendship going by post. It's also a great way of gaining an insight into a totally different way of life or perhaps learning a new language. My longest friendship started in March 1997 with a girl from Estonia. Amazingly, we are still in touch and continue writing as much as we can. As we've grown up the content of the letters has gradually changed: from stories about school friends and hobbies, to our first boyfriends and first jobs and now to our careers, university life and living away from home.
I've already exchanged a number of letters with a girl from Lithuania who found my address on postcardx. By some stoke of luck we were actually able to meet up this summer because I was going to Lithuania for my holidays. It may seem a bit strange to meet someone you only know through letters, but if you take the plunge you can find out about new ideas and see things from different perspectives.
Created: 2007-09-13 21:12, Tags: friends, life, lithuania, Comments: 2
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