22.9.08

nemokėsim!

This morning as I left my house I was greeted
by a large mob of student protestors waving
little flags embellished with the phrase "nomokesiu!"
which in Lithuanian means "i won't pay!"


So basically these students were demanding
state-provided free education. It disgusted me.
These students think that they are being cool
and politically active with their cute signs,
loud techno music, and by demanding the government
to take money from everyone to pay for their education.

Since when has the idea that one must pay for what
they use disappeared? One of the essentials in the
marketplace is that if something is worth it to you,
then you will be willing to spend the money to have it.
That determines its value.

Now-a-days, when people want something they
often think, "hmm, maybe I can get the government to
pay for this for me instead" so they work to get it nationalized
or government provided. They'd rather give up
their freedom and the control of their money in order
to not pay for things at the door.

What will make them realise what they are doing?

21.9.08

autumn solstice!

Tonight is the autumn solstice, when the day is as long as the night.
This weekend in Vilnius there was a festival for street performances.

Tonight my friends and I came out of my house and heard some music,
so we decided to follow the music. This led us to the bridge.
You can see all the people lined on the bridge with their umbrellas.


On the banks of the river Neris were candles lit in the shapes
of pagan symbols and people dancing with rods on fire (like samoans ^__^).


Then we walked in another direction and heard more music,
so we followed that and were led to a DJ in the middle of a park.
Then soon there were some people in strange costumes
who came and started dancing.



After they left, the DJ was still there so we continued dancing
on our own in the slight rain.



It was a delightful sunday evening. My last night in the Vilnius.... at least for now.

20.9.08

man aštuoniolika!

yes that's right, I just had my golden birthday :)
this was my first birthday away from home, parents, and my childhood friends.
nonetheless i enjoyed it!

i got a bouquet of the longest stemmed red roses that
i have ever seen in my life. though something about the ones
i got last year made me a tad more pleased. but that was for different reasons ^__^


i also hosted a party at my flat, which was jolly good fun
and with delicious pupus thanks to trained chef jurgis :)
you can see that people instantly dived for the food:


i love my draugai (friends), lithuania is definitely my second home now.
i'm feeling rather sad about leaving, which is quite surprising
seeing that i was excited when leaving hawaii. luckily though
i'm just a hop, skip, and a jump away from vilnius in the UK
so I should be back sometime soon.


my friends were even so thoughtful as to prepare me
for the harsh winter that i will be introduced to this year for
the first time; with a dash of lithuanian pride to protect me:

polish camp!

so this is a rather belated entry, but i felt that
it still needed to be mentioned.

anyway, i had my final liberty camp of the year
in Ponikiew, Poland.
this camp was quite different from those prior
for a few reasons. the main difference was that
almost all of the campers were libertarians or
at least close to it. this varied immensely from
lithuania where maybe half at most were libertarians
and georgia where absolutely none were at the start.

the gender balances in the camps all were completely
different as well. at the lithuanian one there were about
30 girls to 5 boys. in georgia it was roughly even (though
like last year no females from azerbaijan. hmm) while at
this polish camp there were about 20 males to 5 females.
i really wonder how that all came about. i enjoyed each
combination nonetheless :)


well, this camp was quite intellectual, particularly given
the level of alcohol intake each night. it was kind of
amazing to me how much some people could drink.
if you are in poland though, i do recommend their honey vodka
it's rather nice :)