Flying between Poland and Lithuania is as easy as driving – no sense of crossing a border. In fact, it was so easy, it was a little worrying.  I showed my passport to check my bags and get a boarding pass. I couldn’t check in on line. At check in, I also got a seat assignment – seats aren’t assigned on these flights until that point.  Security was, for those of us used to a couple of check points on the way to putting baggage on the belt, a little different. No id check, just put bags on – no TSA Pre, so computers come out of bags.

Plane left on time and landed easily in Vilnius – I hadn’t flown in to Lithuanian before, so this was my first glimpse of the airport. This time, my bags arrived with no fuss, and I exited to find Lina waiting – so glad to see her and Gabriel, who would be driving us around for a few days.

Next stop, car pickup.  The quirk here is that the person whose credit card is being used must also be the driver, so Gabriel and I can both drive the car. I probably won’t but it’s always good to have a backup driver.

Not exactly a short drive, but not very long either, and we were in Kaunas, which some readers might recognize as Kovno.  Our snappy little orange car was promptly named Cinnamon.  We checked into the same hotel we stayed at last year, down the street from the Kaunas archives.  Over the next couple of days, since the archives are closed on the weekend, we’ll be driving to various towns and looking for things for clients whose families were from there. 

We had dinner, as planned down the street from the hotel, at the ever elegant and creative Uoksas, which we had eaten at last year.  After dinner we took a walk in search of ice cream for me – Lina and Gabriel had already had dessert. We were surprised that the construction that was disrupting foot traffic all along the street was not only still going on but was even more extensive.  I wonder how the shops survive.