How do I make my own gin?

The top few hits when you put that question to google are websites that explain how to make gin flavored vodka. What the fuck? What the fuck, I say. I don't understand why anybody would ever want to do that. That's like adding liquid smoke to ketchup and calling it barbeque sauce. You gotta be a special kind of dunce to get a kick out of that. If you're going to make "your own" gin, be a man and ferment it yourself.

Have Diarrhea, Will Travel

Or, ‎"From each according to his ability to give a shit"

Or, ‎"Dos and Don'ts of a Trip to China"

• Don't drink the water, even from water coolers, even at classy hotels: they fill them up from the hose, I saw them at it, and I spent my last four days there running to the john
• Do get the Chinese medicine when you get diarrhea; it won't cure you, but it's so cheap, you'd be stupid not to buy it!
• Don't bother bringing booze: their local ~90 proof liquor is cheaper than western brand name bottled water, and if you like, it comes in gallon jugs.
• Do BYOB if you don't like liquorice, that's what they flavor their stuff with.
• Don't expect anybody to speak (or admit to speaking) much English, even in four star hotels.
• Do make sure taxi drivers turn on the meter, unless you like having incoherent bilingual arguments
• Don't expect anybody to care outside of the markets: the only place anybody cares what you have to say is the place they get your cash direct; hotels, restaurants, shops, all the places where employees get paid by someone other than you will have the worst customer service ever

Incidentally, I was in China summer of 2011. I just found this draft lying around my blog post draft box now. 

Riese Mimosa

One part white wine

One part 7 Up

One part red cabbage juice

More Success than Not (though it was close)

This weekend we threw our first warm weather party of the year. Things quicky got, not exactly out of control, but you might say the control was sub par. This was in large part due to the arrival of Donatas and Giedre first. Donatas had some very tasty moon shine, man it was good.

• Success: drinking tasty moonshine.

I mean, this was so good I couldn't believe some farmer made it in the woods. It was easily better than cheap whiskey, which is what it tasted most similar to. However, this led to us going through it pretty quickly, which led to lowered hand-eye coordination and time sense for both of us. That was particular detrimental to our Beirut game because partners were chosen randomly and Donatas and I ended up together.

• Unsuccess: losing the first 2 games of Beirut.

First Gvidas and Linas beat us, finishing with two bounced balls which both made it when we had exactly four cups left. Why didn't we block them? I tried, and I almost got one, but I was distracted by Donatas's absence! I realized at the last moment that I have to block both and ended up knocking in the one I almost blocked and letting the other one bounce in too. Where was he? Ten feet away doing something.

While we were getting the grill going my special lady came over and said something, and I replied with a really hilarious remark, a perfectly cued and timed "that's what she said" style remark.

• Success: making a hilarious a joke.

It was so funny that Linas, Paulius, and I then talked about how none of us could believe I came up with it so rapidly, instantly really. It was like I was born to make that joke even though I didin't know it. What was that joke, exactly?

• Unsuccess: forgetting all the funny jokes you made last night.

I talked about it with Linas the next day, neither of us could remember.

Then came the meat. I'd prepared chicken wings and a pork loin, which I was precooking in the oven. I wasn't confident that it'd cook through on the grill. We got everything going and put on my wings, and the sausages, burgers, and two steaks that Linas and Paulius had brought. All that stuff took up the whole grill, so the pork loin had to wait. But when it came off it was delicious.

• Success: eating delicious barbequed food.

I told the men to get some more embers going for the pork loin. When I went inside I found that it was already completely cooked.

• Unsuccess x 2: losing track of time and burning too much wood.

I pretended this wasn't true, though, and I put it on the grill for a couple mintes. Then, Voilà , it's done! We ate all the food with my homemade barbeque sauces.

• Success x 2: making delicious barbeque sauces, plus my spicy whiskey one was better than the non-spicy brandy one I made fore my special lady.

Everybody loves a good sauce, right? Spice rules! Whiskey beats brandy every time!

Then Donatas and I took on Egle and Gvidas for another round of Beirut. Egle is one of the best players around, so they should have beat us for sure if Gvidas and Linas had beaten us. But no, we prevailed! I don't think I sunk all ten cups by myself, but I did sink the first six at least.

• Success: redeeming yourself at the Beirut table.

However, Donatas was so happy he gave me a high five that I can still feel on my hand four days later.

• Unsuccess: hurting your Beirut partner.

Then it was time to mellow out. Because women love to have their girl-time, the men decided to leave them be and went out to the beer barrel down the street for a drink. We are aware that ladies need time in person to talk about their ovulations and shopping plans, and we don't mind accommodating them.

• Success x 3: drinking and winning at cards while accommodating your special lady

Apparently, we may have overestimated the amount of girl-time that could be spent productively. Actually, what is more likely is that we underestimated how long we spent out. But, really, what is most likely is they my special lady, Asta, Giedre, and Egle overestimated how long we spent out and convinced each other we must have done it because we're inconsiderate—which you know is the opposite of the truth if you've been paying any attention at all. It was a classic example of groupthink, unfortunately not an atypical result of girl-time.

• Unsuccess: upsetting your special lady.

Sunday we still had a couple guests over, so we figured the best way to get through the dry pork loin was with sandwiches. I baked two loaves of beer bread with left over beer and 24 onion mustard rolls.

• Success: baking delicious food.

Four adults, one child, and one toddler managed to eat all the rolls and one of the loaves of bread in one day. It was a fun day.

• Successes: bearing mention too, we fired up the sauna and had a good time in there, went swimming both days, and got rather toasty in the sun on Sunday.

Sunday is my daughter's favorite day (because it's so sunny, unlike Windsday).

Misadventure to the Beer Store

Stupid bus.

I stayed late at work Friday, till after six. I was supposed to meet somebody, but plans changed, so I went to catch the 6:15 #50 bus, which was lucky because it's the only bus I can take and it only runs every 45 or so.

I was out there by 6:10, because the Stupid #50 Bus has a propensity for earliness. Technically the bus schedule should be read +/- 3 minutes, but the #50 has no regard for punctuality, or the lives ruined by leaving bus stops without the people they should be carrying. At 6:25 I gave up waiting.

Instead of waiting a half hour for the next bus, I decided to hike to the beer store--make the most of my time, do something productive. It's not that far from work, fifteen minutes in the snow, but I wouldn't normally go after work because I'm always in a rush to get home. The beer store is a place that sells micro-brewed beer from the tap--it's the only Lithuanian beer I'll buy besides Gubernijos, and it's very good but also cheap: great combo!

I slip on the ice a few times on the way, without falling but with some strain on my left quadricep. The beer store is in a large shopping complex including a mall surrounded by other smaller buildings each with one or more shops or service business.

I'd never come from that direction so I wasn't sure if I was at the right place--there was no beer store. I called my special lady to ask, because the one time we'd been to this location together she was driving. I'm just not finding it, she thought. But no, asking around got me the truth: the beer store has moved about 80 meters to a different location. Where is it, exactly? Nobody can tell me. The information booth in the mall is closed. But I've come too far now to quit, so I just keep wandering around in the dark asking people if they know.

My special lady gave me the administrative phone number from the beer store website, which is supposed to operate 24/7. No answer. I talked to Auriukas, who lives close to there, but he just new that they'd moved not far and "on the same side." Hmm.

Finally I went into a farmers marker. There were a just a few vendors left. I went up to a booth with a woman and her son and asked them. "Yes," she said, "they're new location is right over there," she pointed, "but they haven't opened yet, they're still just moving in." Ugh. When the woman offered me some kvass instead I felt too defeated to say no. Then she offered me some bacon, and I ate two pieces before realizing that I'm a vegetarian this month. Oops. I felt bad for not living up to Ed and Moacir better--but, really, wouldn't you be caught off guard if somebody randomly offered you some bacon in that situation?! It's only my second active day of vegetarianism.

After that I walk to the closest bus stop and am pleased that the #50 bus is about to come. Five minutes later I give up waiting for it yet again. Stupid bus.

Thanks Time

As always we celebrated Thanksgiving on the Saturday following the holiday. That week I gave all of my students articles to read about the objectivist perspective on it.

We decided to do a smaller, more family oriented celebration this year, which we soon realized was a mistake when we couldn't invite everyone we wanted to. But everything was delicious:

• 16 lb. Turkey, freshly slaughtered and kefir marinated
• Gravy
• Cream of Pumpkin Soup
• Potato Dinner Rolls from my McCall's cookbook
• Roasted Carrots with Whiskey Glaze
• Sausage Stuffing
• Guacamole and fresh vegetables
• Potato and Bacon Salad
• Sauerkraut Rye Bread
• Fresh Pumpkin Pie 1 normal, 1 with whiskey mixed in
• Fresh Pumpkin Cake

The pumpkin cake was unplanned. I made two pies, but that only used up about two thirds of the batter! To use up the rest of the batter without a pie crust to pour it into I mixed in some flour and baking power, tossed in some walnuts, and baked it. It turned out really well, and it stayed moist for a whole week as I took a piece to work with my lunch each day.

The turkey was succulent. I'll be marinating it this way from now on.

The stuffing was the best part of the meal, as always. Well, maybe the gravy was better, but when combined they were unstoppable.

After dinner we played Oh Hell a couple times, then Octopus, then Tūkstantis, then we hit the sauna and the pool. The pool was frozen, so we went polar bear style. I'm not sure how it happened, but after jumping into the hole in the ice I had some scrapes on my legs. Very fun night!

Joke of the Month

Sitting around playing the English-Lithuanian version of Lexico this weekend with Egle and Ed. It's a good game, lot's of funny words and expressiuons come up, which prompted Ed to say "Pirštas be nago, du cibuliai kabo: kas aš esu?" ("Finger, no nail, two onions hanging: what am I?")

First some funny guesses avoiding the obvious answer: I said it was an elephant's trunk, and Egle said it was banana with onions attached, I think. Then I came up with my own joke: "Keturi pirštai be nago, du cibuliai kabo: kas aš esu?"("Four fingers, no nail, two onions hanging: what am I?")

Ed guessed, Calamari Starfish! but that wasn't the answer. No more guesses? Anybody else want to guess? Scroll down for the answer.


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Keturi pirštai be nago, du cibuliai kabo: kas aš esu? Dr. Zoidberg!

Article of the Day

In Steven Greenhut: We're increasingly ruled by rules, Greenhut gives several examples of things in America banned by the government. This reminded me of an argument I had with Gedas, because Lithuania has the same problem: "It's a lot easier...for authorities to target law-abiding citizens...than it is to target the real bad guys."

The result? I have to have people bring me ammonia from America in the form of After Bite. This stuff costs like two bucks, it's just plain ammonia, but I can't get it. Housewives in Lithuania can't use it as a cleaning agent. Why? Because somebody drank it once and died. So fuck it, this multi-use, convenient product will not be available for anybody.

How about Krupnikas, the Lithuanian spiced honey liqueur? Nope, can't have that in Lithuania. Well, you can have the shitty factory version from Maxima which is disgusting and gross. But can you make your own, delicious Krupnikas? No, brewing this traditional Lithuanian liqueur is restricted to emigres. This form of patriotism is restricted to Lithuanians abroad. Why? Because some bums drank too much grain alcohol and died once. Good luck finding it for sale now; as in Greenhut's examples, getting it now is part of the underworld economy.

Thanks Be To Good Times

Thanksgiving was a tremendous success this year. The preparation and cooking lasted several days as usual, but for the first time we had so much fun the festivities lasted into the night, the next day, and the next night too, almost until midnight: a thirty hour Thanksgiving!

The menu included:
Perfect Turkey
Gravy made from Awesome Turkey Giblet Stock
Sausage Stuffing
Awesome Sausage, Apple and Cranberry Stuffing
Sweet Potato Casserole I
Stir Fried Broccoli
Cheese Garlic Biscuits II
Fetaki Mushroom Noodle Casserole*
Roasted Carrots with Whiskey Glaze
Cranberry Sauce
Chutney (Ed's delicious home made chutney)
Wild Mushroom Sauce
Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Muffins
Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Graham Cracker Crust

*One item that had to be scrapped was the Zucchini Alfredo. The zucchini was over ripe and did not tenderize while cooking. Thank God I tasted it before pouring it over the fantastic noodles that special lady brought me back from Italy. I redid the sauce as a fetaki mushroom sauce.

And the morning after I made beer bread with the left overs.

Aidas won the food eating competition as usual, but may have overeaten. He and Kristina had to leave more than 24 hours earlier than the others without much drinking to blame.

The first evening we hit the sauna, the man cave, and played a beirut tournament. After several rounds of play while Gintaras and I were still in the sauna we decided we needed some breweries to rehydrate. We beat my special lady and Linas, then we beat Ed and Donatas, and no challengers arose: Eglė and Giedrė either pussed or were too drunk. We won! Luckily the games were close enough that we got to quench our thirst anyway. And just in case we didn't, back to the man cave!

Next day we did the sauna again after being party to the shampoo effect. We had a terrific afternoon playing Alias and Cranium, but then made the mistake of playing Žodžių Bokštas (Up-Words). That took forever; towards the end it was high time to say labanaktis! I was really glad they stayed because it's nearly impossible to get a game of Cranium going, it's only the second time I've been able to play it in Lietuva since getting it for Christmas. You need four people with a decent knowledge of American pop culture, and it always seems more appropriate to play something like Beirut during the party proper. The stragglers left on the day after the party turned out to be perfect cranium players.

A good time was had by all!

Allow me to introduce myself: I'm a mathematician.

Gedas was visiting Vilnius to register the birth of his second child. We went out for beers with Auriukas and Bronius. After a few beers somebody asked, for no reason in particular, "what's the sum of the internal angles of a hexagon?" The question wasn't addressed to anybody in particular but sort of as a rhetorical question, such as "Who is John Galt?" or maybe sort of as a general challenge. Irregardless of the meaning of the question, which was lost somewhere in a number of beers already drunk, I piped in with "720."

Nobody was expecting an answer, at least not one instantly. If the point of the question was a challenge than it was assumed that if would be a difficult challenge requiring four heads to be put together. But that's not how it went down. I just answered it and three surprised faces turned to me and two of them proceeded to call me a fool while the other demonstrated on paper that, in deed, I was right.

As the beer flow continued and the pipe smoking began, a new question was quickly put forth, two questions really: why is it 720º, and what is the formula for the internal angles of a polygon? I couldn't answer either. I just knew! Gedas was especially insistent that the meaning behind the knowledge is more important than the knowledge itself--why oh why is it 720º??? I didn't know how I knew it.

I asked the bartender for some paper. We spent the next 45 minutes or so working out the internal angles of all polygons up to an octagon, trying to work out the formula, and drinking several more beers. By the end of this period, which everybody else in the bar spent chatting about sports and women, or else shopping and men, the rest of my company gave up. I couldn't give up, though, I knew I was so close. Finally five minutes later I got it: 180(n-2) where n is the number of angles, happiest moment of my life excluding love life. Hooray!

Naglas

It's good to be Naglas. What is Naglumas? I say it means excessivly active selfishness that may or may not be harmful to others: harmful as in cutting in line; harmless as in what I do. However, it's slang, and in this country the dictionary is too stuck up to define slang words. I've emailed somebody at the language control board to get an official verdict on what the proper word to use is instead, but he hasn't written back yet.

Saturday morning I went to pick up my external hard drive from the computer shop; I'd have to leave it there after serious mechanical failure left it a corpse. They'd told me the warrently was still valid, so I could get a new (blank) one or they could fix it for money. Fix it I said, wtf, I've got tons of information on there! When I went to pick it up, they'd allegedly fixed it and salvaged twenty gigabytes of the data (maybe 20%, but I told them that was 10%). I had agreed to a 200 lit price when I gave it to them, but what the hell, that was for the data, not a small part of the data. They explained that to check 320 gb of hard drive takes the same amount of time regarless of how much can be restored. I don't know anything about it, so what could I do but agree? Then at the last moment I asked if he could at least give me a pedagogue discount--I do keep an expired ITIC card in my wallet. I was going to say a 10% pedagogue discount, but good thing I didn't: he dropped the price by 25%.

Satruday evening I went to meet a couple buddies for a few brewskies, and we ended up going to Memelis. They had karioke going on and I saw somebody of there getting beers. I wasn't exactly sure what the deal was, because the singing was so bad that I spent at least haldf the fime we were there outside smoking my pipe jto get away from it. When one buddy signed us up for Yellow Submarine I asked if we'd get free beer.

"Will we get free beers?"
"No."
"I demand free beers!"
"I can't get you free beers unless I buy them for you myself."
"Perfect, so you'll buy us some beers if we sing?"
"Well no!"
"Well there's no way I'm singing then."

We were already on the list though and my friend didn't like the idea of getting on stage and not singing until we got some free beer, so I agreed to sing. In the middle of the song when there's no singing for a moment I yelled into the mic "We want free beer!" And then when the song was over I yelled "We're still waiting for free beer!" Well, I, the guy who was yelling for what he wanted all the time, ended up getting a free beer; my friend who just wanted to sing got nothing. Then he signed us up to sing New York, New York.* Who sings such a slow song at a bar? We sucked. It was way better when the next guys did Knockin on Heavan's Door.

*There was so little audience participation during the song that at the end of it I yelled "Klaipeda!" Apparently, naming the city you're in on stage does not always get you any applause.

Rum Tasting

I've had the Stroh bottle sincemy trip to Austria, and I've been drinking the Captain Silver and Gold rum for quite a while. The Stroh, at 160 proof, is a very good rum, though it doesn't quite match the fifteen year aged caribean rum Aidas served me a few weeks ago. It's obviously better then the latter two, though they are totally a bargain and easily worth the price for mixed drinks. The Old Monk Rum is a new one. As long as I had four rums total, including a brand new one, I thought I might as well have a Rum tasting. I was assisted by noone.



The results of the tasting are in: Stroh remains #1, followed by Old Monk Rum, Captain Gold, and Captain Silver. However, the Old Monk isn't twice as good as Captain Gold, though it does cost twice as much. I probably won't buy it again, though I'll enjoy having a variety in the cabinet.

Honor

I like doing things in honor of things. If not earlier, it may have begun with this dish, or I guess with this booze. This weekend, in honor of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, we watched Pirates of the Carribean. Whenever my special lady isn't around for dinner, my special baby and I always make something awsome to help ease and honor our longing, like pizza or buffalo wings. 

How do you say Kosher in Muslim?

Yesterday I took five guests to Neringa, first stop: Hill of Witches. We had been working together for a few days but no dinners, no chances to chill out together. So I had brough with me a bottle of Green 999s, which is a knock off of Jagermeister. There are several points along the trail though the forest when a drink is in order, and after the second shot they asked if it has chocolate in it, and if not, what makes it so sweet. "No, it's not chocolate, it has..." I was about to say blood. The blood of a ram, or steer, or elk, or something. It's just a myth but maybe if would make them not want to drink it, cause don't one or all of those animals have cloven hooves? Are those animals not kosher for Muslims just like Jews, or what's the deal with that? I didn't have time to figure that out, so I just said "sugar" (the truth anyway). 

Helping out Georgia

Because we're all Georgians, my special lady and I decided to do our part to support Georgia by buying their wine. I was hoping to review it now, but we accidentally bought two bottles of white. I only drink white with poultry or fish, not for the hell of it, so I can't do that. What I can tell you is I had a very good Chilean merlot, 2006, that was quite tasty. It's best quality was being free of the taste of vinigar, something I can't say about the previous few wines we uncorked over the past few weeks.

Wedding Week

On August 9, 2008, Aidas Peg married Kristina Stick-Peg (that's her married name, they weren't cousins-in-law or anything). The wedding included five events that I attended, and anybody who knows Amerikos Lietuviai knows why I was out of the loop that week.

Tuesday night: Planning party for the bachelors party (way to start the week with an all night party so we'd be ready for tomorrows all day party). Moacir and Augis and I started off the night at Užupio Kavinė. We decided to get t-shirts made, make Aidas do funny things, and do lots of full extentions, which was a first for me, but I decided this would be as good at time as any to learn a new way to drink beer. (Honestly, at first I wasn't even sure if they were serious when at the end of each sentence they added "and then we pour beer all over ourselves!")

More people joined our group, and then we moved on to Ed's place and Bruce Lee. After a round of shots of something there, I quietly took my leave for a walk to the new bridge to save a few lits on a cab ride, which is a stupid habit of mine. Why stupid? Well this time, for instance, I witnessed a gypsy roughing up a gipsy girl, and almost got my ass kicked yelling at him to stop (I'd had enough drinks to assume I would not be the victor of that fight, but I had not had too many drink to run away when he came after me). I called the police, but when they arrived the girl denied any mistreatment. I know I didn't imagine it, though, because a bunch of people were watching from their balconies.

Wednesday noon: bachelor party. I was late, maybe an hour, because I had to get the tshirts made on the way. This is the front of all of them. They all had blank backs except for Aido, which had lewd suggestions for what he's probably into on his last night premarriage. The idea was to get his shirt on him without him seeing it. Moacir was certain he could give the shirt to Aidas in a way he wouldn't see it, despite my doubts. Guess how many seconds it took him to see it...zero.

One guess as to whose profile that is!

The full extentions ranged from pilies gatve to the barbakanas, the Old Defensive Wall of Vilnius. We asked many passers-by to photograph us pouring beer all over ourselves, which was amazing!

I gave a speech, under duress, to Aidas at a bar I've never been to and don't remember where it was.

We ate hambergers at Hamburgeriu Pasaulis, on Vokiečių, which were very good, especially after you pour hotsauce all over your wife beater.

After that I took my leave, took a cab home and entertained my special lady and Eglė Lazdauskaitė with my lucid tales of manly antics.

Friday afternoon: I get a call from Aidas. He's in distress: "Dude, we're having trouble getting Rezginelė together; I was hoping, if it's possible, that you could come by at seven o'clock and help us work through it." Of course I can, no problem, and on top of that I'll bring a dvd movie of the dance and I'll even get the instructions written up! (Thanks to my sepcial lady for finding the dvd and my folks for scanning and emailing me the istructions)

We watched the dvd three times, then went out to dance. This was the moment I realized exactly what Aidas meant when he said help us work through it: "please dance it with us." That was the bad news. Then we walked through it three times and called it a night. We were not great, but the guy I was holding juostas with, in particular, was having a very tough time remembering which left is the right left...

Saturday morning: first day of the wedding; first we sped to Gariunai to try to get great wedding presents for the two youths. Unfortunately, we could not find what we were looking for, so after wasting an hour and being a few minutes late for the service, we ended up giving them cash anyway. Well, I think that's best anyway.

It was a nice ceremony with an enthusiastic priest, though we had a bit of trouble understanding the point of his homily. It started out with an interesting bit about how, really, it should be the young couple giving the homily, for various reasons that I found convincing enough; but then he didn't invite them to give the homily afterall. They read nice passages, and there was one tourist walking around in a Waldo shirt, so I got a point for that.

Then everybody went to get his stuff, and since we already had ours, we waited for the limos, which were for the dancers and wedding party (mostely overlap). This was exciting, because we'd never riden in limos. Unfortunately, the limo company screwed us: instead of two limos, each 12 seaters, they sent two limos with 12 seats total. So the dancers who weren't also wedding party got bumped to the bus. Dissappointing at first, but when the bus got going and we remembered how cramped people in the limos looked (still 18 people, I think, in 12 seats), we decided it was for the best! Good times drinking beer on the bus!

The bus/limos took us to an amazing estate, Taujenu Dvaras. It had a huge mansion, ponds and forest and fountains, and plenty of refreshments, and tons of food. The food and drink just kept coming all night, up till maybe 2:30 when my special lady and I went to sleep for good, or maybe till even later.

Sunday 5:30 a.m.: The cock outside started his wake up call for all. Now, that might have been possible to sleep through, if he hadn't woken up the rabid dog, who then barked nonstop for the rest of the morning. He barked so much, during the fitful sleep that followed I dreamt that I threw half a watermellow out the window onto his head, and he finally shut up. But then his master came over and started yelling up at me through the window, so he got the other half right on his noggin! Nice dreams.

At 9:30 began the second half of the wedding, with the band marching through the dorm blowing their horns and beating their drums, knocking on everyone's doors. Of course, nobody was sleeping anymore, at least on our side of the building, so the musicians merely interupted people giving their wives 10-second frenchers.

Breakfast was great, especially the delicious Kibinai! More music, and several ceremonial things, the musicians making people do things, with Lokio Godmother, Gita Kupčinskienė, translating everything into English, and doing some of the things herself in both languages. My favorite was the bit where Kristina gives up a wreath of rūta (rue), symbolizing her youth, and Gita put it in a little treasure box for Aidas, because now her youth is behind her and belongs to him.

The festivities went on hiatus for about a third of the wedding guests at 10:45, including the groom from time to time, with the beginning of the Lithuania-Argentina Opympic basketball game. For the rest of the day, after Lithuania won by four points including a 2.1 seconds to go 3 pointer, all the speaches included a mention of the victory as the second thing we're celebrating today.

Some of the best fun was singing a bunch of folk songs after that. Kristina's father came by several times during the singing, as he had been all day from the moment we walked over from the dorm, to fill shot a shot glass and not leave you until it's gone. Augis did a full extention...with wine!

I got stung by two hornets, on my right ring finger and on my neck. Nobody believed me, because there weren't any marks; the marks showed up the next day, and bothered mefor a week. Word to the wise: watch out for those damn hornets!

Two busses were waiting to take us back to Vilnius. We got on the wrong one if we wanted to go back early...but we got on the right one if we wanted more food and booze. I took over Mr. Stanevičiaus role by walking up and down the bus for 90 mintues pouring everybody drinks. More songs, good times!

Klaipeda Sea Orgy Festival

Well! Dave Stira showed up on Friday for the Festical. Testicle. I mean, Festival. We had broccoli chicken alfredo, a shot of Portuguese schnapps, made some drink with gin and bitters and soda water that Stira suggested. Not particularly good, had to add sprite to it on on the way to town. Walked around the festival, and it was just like i said it was: durham fair with booze everywhere. A bit of chicken and french fries and dunes through the night. And then the left overs from dinner. Some beers too.

Saturday we went for a 25 mile bike ride to Juodkrane and back. Stira was on the coast for the first time and he's leaving soon, so I took him via the scenic route to the Hill of Witches. Redbull Vodka. Then back home for some beers and giant meatball sandwiches, which were so good I'd punch most people in the fast to get another one right now! Then rum and cokes and out to town for more festival, Stira desperately needed a light colored festival t-shirt for his old man's birthday present. We found one, but he didn't buy it, cause 30 lits seemed like too much (drunk move!). We argued politics into the night with more beer. We got pretty hungry but nobody would feed us at 2 a.m., so we went home and made giant cheeseburgers.

Banana bread for breakfast and then back to town Sunday to get the t-shirt, which is no longer available in while, only black, and only in XXL, and even that's only at the last t-shirt stand we can find. Chicken wraps. No beer for me, I'm driving this day. A walk through the sculpture park for more pictures.

Also, the whole time we played Waldo, spotting people dressed in red and white stripes, owing each other a beer for each score. Plenty of fun!

OH MY GOD I FOUND IT!

Oh my God I found it! I found it, I found it, I found it! Remember when I forgot this great site I found? Well, I found it again, Hallelujah!!!

Turns out I can make over a hundred cocktails without leaving the house. And get this, I'm only missing one ingredient for almost a thousand.

Labanaktis.

UPDATE! I'm the King of Poland! I give it an 8 for almost making me fall flat on my ass.

UPDATE! I'm heading east with Russian Funk! I give it a four for not being tasty, and for being big and so now I have to drink it anyway: waste not want not.

UPDATE! Now I'm taking a bried cultural break, cause I got up to the Body Shot and coulnd't fresist licking my special lady, so it's a twelve.

UPDATE! Now I'm tback to cultural! I drank the Mexican H'ors d'oeuvre, 9 for making me make a fighting-the-spiciness face! It's giving me a case of the hiccups, but I've learned to overcome that with easy.

UPDATE! The Nazi Taco reminds me of the October Fiesta Darius, Shaun and I threw at BU, using my sunglasses as a spoon for cake and then wearing them. :)

UPDATE! I wanted to finish up with a Bloody Russian, but then to my everlasting chagrin I happend to be all out of tomato juice. So instead I just made a White Russian for myself an a Screaming Orgasm II for my special lady.

Now labanaktis for reals.

p.s. throughout the whole evening, I listened to the same song on repeat forever, he stranglers by golden brown from snatch, at least 100 times. my special lady is so tired of it...

Dos and don’ts of another trip to Portugal

Do, when they give you a cup with your can of beer on the plane, do use it, rather than accidentally tear a hair out of your moustache with the can tab. Ouch.

Don’t skip the “bretzels” in the Frankfurt airport; they’re a delicious rip off of giant pretzels.

Do throw up when you see the obese woman shoving her way through the buffet line mowing (sp?) all the food on her plate in between each dish.

Don’t go to a city called Coimbra, where everyone’s a tense turd and nothing good can ever happen.

Do be very patient with the wine “expert” at the nice restaurant who insists there is no such thing as dry Portuguese wine.

Don’t give the unhelpful colleagues the bottle of 999 you brought them as a gift.

Do mix it with red bull and sprite instead, a delicious cocktail I invented.

Do, if you happen to go to that town despite my warning, eat at Eurotropica, a delicious pizzeria.

Don’t go to Eurotropica without a translator, and don’t sit in the retarded waiter’s section (I asked for a certain pizza to be made with pepperoni, and he said, “you mean instead of cheese?” and when the pizzas came he’d had them added to the wrong pizza)

Do, if the water is giving you a rash on you legs, just use the bidet and sponge down your armpits.

Don’t skip the sauna and Jacuzzi.

Do get all you work done as quickly as possible.

Don’t leave your key card in your room when you leave

Do bring crocs, you’ll be fine in them.

Don’t bring sandals, because it’ll be way too cold. –Aurelija

Do, when getting directions in Coimbra, go the opposite way they tell you. –Aurelija

New Cocktail Discovered

I call this The Random Lady. I invented it because of a tragedy. I forgot how to get to a wonderful site I found. You checked off on a long long list everything you have to make cocktails, including alcohol, mixers, spices, fruits and vegetables. Then it gives you a list of cocktails you can make with those things. It was super duper. Now, with little on hand far as mixers, I'm forced to make things up. Luckily I'm awesome at it. Here's what I call the Random Lady:

1 shot brandy
1 shot light rum
1 shot amaretto
1/2 shot
blue curacao
2 shots soda water
2 shots orange juice
dash of lemon juice

She loved it.