Back from my spring break and have lots to talk about. I'm going to put in a couple of headings first to guide my writing - each heading represents the route taken on each of those days.

1. Stanford - San Francisco - London (26th March)

Took the shuttle van to the airport early morning. The van arrived 10 mins early, which caught me by surprise. Had to rush out of the house, grabbing my bags (luckily, i was almost packed). A foreshadowing of the week.
A non-event otherwise, arriving in SFO early to check-in. Got a window seat (reason for this was that the seat config on the plane was 2-5-2. The window seat was the least cramped in my opinion. Plus i get to see the stunning views. The plane was flying northeastwards, crossing california, over the Sierras, Lake Tahoe, into Nevada, then into Wyoming and Montana. Up into the Rockies and the Canadian prairies. Up somewhere into the ice packs of Northern Canada, where the view was stunning. Everything was white, ice solid. Completely forgot that i should be looking out for the Northern lights, since we were flying over North Canada. And then we crossed over Greenland, skipped over Iceland and Ireland before descending into London Heathrow. Great views all round.

2. London - Oxford (27th March)

Got into Oxford without a glitch. Had lunch at a french place with WJ: cheap food. Did some napping (i think the whole trip had been plagued by uncountable time zone changes, that my clock is so fed-up that it stopped working). 9 hours difference between SF and London because UK had jumped over to daylight savings but US hadn't. So yes, 9 hrs switch (worse than Singapore-London or Singapore-SF). But wasn't really bogged down by jet lag, thankfully. Slept pretty normally.

3. Oxford - London - Vilnius - Warsaw - London (28th March)

Got out early to catch the coach to Gatwick airport for the BA flight to Vilnius, Lithuania. Along the flight, the pilot hinted that the weather in Vilnius was BAD. Dense fog. Hmm, and yes. We failed to land the first time. The runway was invisible as the plane was descending and he had to pull out of the descent sharply. Bah. We tried again. No luck. We pulled out of the descent again. It was rather alarming to hear the engine rev up all of a sudden to gain height. But really, there wasn't anything visible even from the windows.
People on the flight were either lithuanians returning home for the holidays OR business travellers. Of course, the sporadic few independent travellers. My seat neighbour was a lawyer from Jersey (that's the UK Channel Islands) had to present court documents in Riga, Latvia that day. So it was all very amusing.. with our flight stuck in midair. In the end, we flew to Warsaw, Poland, about 30mins away. Gah, people were not pleased. When we landed in Warsaw, people wanted to get off, and continue their journey back on land. SO, the whole business of offloading passengers and bags had to happen, while the stayers were shipped back to London. Sitting on the tarmac in Warsaw - sunny - my only glimpse of Warsaw.
Off we went, the return leg to London. Loads of free booze were handed out!! HAHA... BA was really nice about this, even though it was out of their control. Bad dense fog with snow. They just kept on handing out the wines. HAHA...
Got back in London - and they gave us the option of staying overnight at Hilton and fly out on the flight next morning. Hmm, decisions. Took it. Coz i really didn't feel up to taking the coach back to Oxford again and can my holiday. SO, free dinner and breakfast at the Hilton that night, plus free room. Another free flight back out to Vilnius the next morning.
Oh yes, and did i mention the fire alarm went off in Gatwick. We had to evacuate the terminal.

4. London - Vilnius (29th March)

This time round, we made it. Snow-covered ground. Urban decay. Problems at customs. The guy demanded travel insurance. I had no such thing. SO, had to end up paying 14 litas (around 3 pounds) for one. Heck, at least that was cheap enough. Took the public bus to the city, but got on the wrong direction. Ended up at some ulu terminal and the locals were STARING. I mean, fair enough, i was the only Chinese in miles. MILES. I probably saw less than 5 ASIANS during my 3 days in Vilnius. Figured out the same bus would go back to the city. Also figured out how to buy a ticket from the driver. The things you learn by mimicking and observing. No speech necessary. Just gestures. HAHA... i mean, i couldn't speak Lithuanian. Plus i was having trouble deciphering between whether someone was speaking Russian or Lithuanian coz there's a sizeable Russian-speaking minority there. So it meant that i didn't know if i should say Спасибо or ačiu to someone. All very amusing. This happened on my cab ride from the city back to the airport (reckon that another bus ride wouldn't be a good idea). I assumed my cab driver spoke Lithuanian, so i said Labas (good day in Lithuanian). He didn't say anything. Ooops. Then as i listened to the radio he was listening to, i recognised Russian words. OK. He's Russian-speaking. SO, i tried out Russian. And he chuckled in surprise. The taxi meter jumps really quick though. 0.08 litas per second. SCARY. 2.40-2.48-2.56 boom boom and all of a sudden after 1 minute, it's 5 litas. HAHA... but it wasn't that expensive at the end. Just that the meter jumps really quickly in small increments. They really should change it. Psychologically scary to see it jump so often. Quicker than the second hand on your watch.
Back to Vilnius. I got into town. Checked in. And then decided to walk around. Hardly any tourists around. HARDLY. No one was taking photos. No one was walking around with maps. No one was foreign. JUST locals getting along with their lives. So, invoking sound travel rules: i didn't walk around with a map. Nor whip out my camera. I just agar agar knew what were the main roads and then just walk around. It's quite nice actually, coz you end up seeing things you never planned on seeing. Because you took a circuitous route. E.g. i emerged at a vantage point (from where the whole city can be seen) on my way to Uzupis. I never got to Uzupis. Took the wrong way. But i got to see something else. Whatever. Some gains and some losses.
Saw a couple of great churches. I still love the atmospheric Russian Orthodox Churches. Although my favourite Orthodox church so far has to be the one in Helsinki. Went to the State Genocide museum which used to be a KGB prison. Very haunting place with the prison cells and torture chambers. Plus it's in the basement - damp and dark. And remember, no tourists. So there was only a handful of us walking in the chambers.
On to food. Had 2 Lithuanian dishes. Samogitian Duck Soup (shredded duck in a creamy soup made of pearl barley, millet and boleuse). Can't remember the exact ingredients. And also i had cepelinai - a very lithuanian meal involving stuffed potatoes with meat. They were HUGE. Shaped like zepellins (those hydrogen-filled balloons), raw potatoes are passed through mashes and then mixed with eggs. They are then shaped into zepellins and stuffed with minced meat and boiled. The end product is actually very yummy. Has an interesting texture, reminiscent of some kind of steamed kueh, but it's not sweet, but savoury. It's very filling though.