There are many things when one travels that could be disturbing or nerve wracking. I can’t imagine how our ancestors coped with this, traveling in steerage, carrying all they owned on their backs. I need multiple suitcases even for short trips and I’m not taking pots and pans or 99% of my possessions. Today, our travel stresses might (mine do) come in the form of over-thinking how much time is between flights and imagining the miles I have to traverse to get across an entire airport for the connecting flight, lost suitcases, I even imagine my suitcase breaking and all my clothes strewn across the runway or the baggage claim area. Unless I’m going home or to some place I travel frequently, I worry about getting a cab, getting through customs, having some odd thing happen at passport check, maybe even losing my passport. Did any of these things ever happen to me? Never.

Today though something did happen that let me know how distracted I can get when trying to pay attention to multiple conversations. I left my credit card on the table. I was folding a receipt, someone spoke to me, then another person. The receipts got folded and put away. The card stayed on the table. Thankfully, I was not in transit, and had another card with me. I discovered the lost card when I went to pay for dinner. It took a few very sweaty minutes for me to remember where I used it last and what must have happened.

In case any readers missed this, I’m in Lithuania and I don’t speak Lithuanian. Most people speak English and everyone has been very kind. I have noticed a disconnect between what I am trying to convey and what the non-native speaker gets from my words. They don’t match up always. So, I did the sensible thing. I texted Lina and asked her to see if she could call the restaurant at which we had lunch to see if I left my card there. Unfortunately, the same thing happened as it did when she phoned for a reservation – the phone rang a lot of times, but no one answered. Lina and Gabriel offered to meet me there. I was really grateful, since I didn’t know if the words I would use to inquire about my card would be easily understood. It went so smoothly. They met me at the restaurant, we stood on line for a few minutes (it’s a popular dinner spot) and then the staff person understood immediately what Lina was asking, beckoned for us to follow, and handed me the card. No questions asked, no i.d. required, just handed me the card. We stopped at the mini-market next door and purchased a stress reliever – chocolate. Works every time!

Before that, the day was going so smoothly. We started the day at the Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum and immersed ourselves in Litvak history and culture for the next several hours.

Seeing the remnants of the city when it was teeming with Jewish culture, learning, and just life, was very moving. I had an opportunity to describe in more detail some of the items the guide was showing us, explaining what was in a Torah scroll, even reading some of the words from the column that the scroll was open to. We looked at art, and some clips from a movie. As soon as the movie started, I knew exactly what it was – the Yiddish film The Dybbuk filmed in Poland in 1937 and based on a place written by S. An-sky. That movie is a favorite of mine – I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it. The acting is exaggerated deliberately, there is a wonderful play on words based on the characters. When I watch/read it I try to follow the subtitles but listen to the spoken Yiddish. Much of the dialogue is in a sing-song type voice. If you don’t know the film, it’s certainly worth getting a copy. I think Ergo Media in NJ may still have it in their online store. Now that I’m writing this, I realize that so many of the streets I;m walking on in Vilnius, like the one below could have been a street in that movie!

Today for dinner I walked back to St. Anne’s and over the nearby bridge to Užupis, a place that I’ve found fascinating in previous visits. It’s a charming, bohemian, artsy kid of place. I wanted to go to the cemetery (I’m a genealogist, isn’t that how we spend our free time) but was hungry and stopped for pizza which was a good thing since the missing credit card was noticed when I went to pay for the pizza. So, I guess all’s well that ends well, and the cemetery will have to wait until I come back next time.