Natalie Downe

I learnt a lot about the Lithuanian culture and customs today. Simon is presenting tomorrow so he stayed at home working on his slides while I stretched my wings to the outskirts of the city and the amazingly large shopping mall there.

I met Rita about lunchtime and she showed me how to flag down one of the private buses. There are three types of bus in Vilnius, the normal buses (which are trolley buses, a bit like trams but with no tracks) funded by the council are very cheap though on Sundays run very rarely indeed. Then there are the private buses, companies that decide to start a bus service for a profit. The Private buses that look like normal buses run regular timetables and stop at the bus stops, there are also private buses that look like little white 16 seater minibuses which run preset routes but do not stop at the bus stops unless flagged. These are the most expensive but run more often on Sundays, and at 3LT which roughly translates to 60p isn’t that pricey at all. The number 62 facing uphill on Kalvariju street will take you to the Akropolis shopping center.

If you have ever been to a large shopping center in France you will be able to picture the basic idea behind the Akropolis. There is one very large super market inside which opens out onto covered corridors filled with shops and stalls, the one here is about 10 to 15 times the size of the one in Morlet in northern France. We spent some time wandering round the clothes shops where I learnt that Lithuanian women’s sizes are really rather different and their largest size seamed to be an equivalent to a 8-10 in the UK.

Also in this 2 story shopping center was a 13 screen cinema, a bowling alley and a decent sized ice rink, we watched the latter over a lunch of Scorpion fish at ‘Pizza Jazz’.

Shopping centers are a relatively new phenomena in Lithuania apparently because up until very recently, 1990 in fact, it was a Soviet occupied country. It is quite strange to think that people like Rita who is the same age as me, grew up in a country with such a lot of turmoil in recent history. In 2004 Lithuania joined the EU and NATO. Today there are definite signs that the city of Vilnius is in preparation for 2009 when it will become the European city of culture, coinciding with the country’s 1000th anniversary.

One of the reasons I like shopping in foreign countries is to understand the culture, for me nowhere is this more evident than in the groceries available at the supermarket.

For instance, the picture above is of a ‘Sakotis‘ (pronounced shakotehs) there were such a lot of different types available, Rita explained that this is because it is a cake that Lithuanians are proud of, it is a National dish. Grandmothers make it in the countryside, it is very traditional to have with coffee or at weddings and special events. It consists mainly of flour egg and vanilla and is sometimes topped with chocolate. The two different colours you can get relate to whether the whole egg was used, if just the white of the egg is added to the mixture the cake is more crispy. I can personally vouch for the tastiness of the egg-yolk based cake. The wonderful spikeyness is achieved with a revolving horizontal spit in a special oven that lets the mixture drip.

Amongst the other things I enjoy about supermarkets abroad are the vegetables and fruit, looking at what is unusual and what they have like us but bigger / smaller. E.g. huge aubergines and tiny tiny oranges the size of grapes, though I think they were a different breed. Looking at what is imported too is also often revealing, we found Russian caviar and vodka which considering our proximity is possibly not surprising. Beer is more prevalent than wine by a large degree because of the climate so there are a number of imported wines, though I did try some quite nice coastal Lithuanian sparkling white wine at dinner this evening.

Lithuanians are proud of their meet and cheese, and rightly so, there is a lot of good meat and cheese. I don’t think I have ever seen so much salami in one place! The main forms of cheese are quark based which are creamy and medium textured or a harder yellower holy cheese that is quite tasty, a lot of variations with herbs and paprika can also be found. Chocolate covered soft mild cheeses, as with most eastern European countries are also well loved here.

Rita also taught me some handy Lithuanian phrases today which is great, now I don’t feel quite so rude when dealing with shop assistants or waitresses! I have found in the past that all you really need to get by is a smile and a bit of intuition (or imagination) but the ability to say ‘I don’t understand‘, ‘thank you‘ or ‘I’m sorry I trod on your foot‘ makes things much more polite

I would definitely recommend a trip to the supermarket in a foreign country if you get a chance, it is a great way to learn about a culture and to cheaply try some of the local cakes and cuisine.