blogging from Lithuania

Today a fellow international student from Spain told me about a Lithuanian blog post. This blog post was about signs how to notice that you stayed too long in Lithuania. And unbelievable for Lithuanians but true, it was humorous. Even more unbelievable: fun of their own country. It was in Lithuanian but some Lithuanians translated it for her:

You stayed in Lithuania too long, when

• you are really surprised when people smile at you,
• you know the sun only from stories and take an umbrella everywhere no matter if currently raining,
• you think tall beautiful women with long hair wearing very very short skirts are normal,
• beer is no alcohol to you (not surprising for a German) ,
• you begin to swear in Russian (as Lithuanians do),
• you are used to drunk people in the crowded busses at every time of day.

Lithuania, I love you…

Indiana Jones = Indiana Džounsas

Let´s try this for German language: Inndiejänna Tschohns.

This is a photo of a Lithuanian cinema booklet. Though, the US-American movies in Lithuania are shown in original language with Lithuanian subtitles. This is quiet good for me, movies originally in English are destroyed too often by German speakers in German cinemas and tv.

Tomorrow is International Women´s Day. The Lithuanians are very friendly and generous people to their friends. They use to give little presents to each other for many occasions. So, in our cross-cutural marketing lecture the Lithuanians gave me poor German instructions for giving flowers as a present in a correct way. Well, why should I give flowers? Becuase tomorrow it will be normal to give tulips to your female friends. Tulips are not only given to girlfriends but to all female friends you have and you meet this day.

But never forget about the eastern European culture: flowers are always given in UNeven amounts. So three, five or seven tulips are correct, the Lithuanian girls told me with a serious voice but smirking face. Never give four, six or eight. The girls from other eastern European countries noded in agreement and were happy to give a foreign boy such absolutely important advice.

So, happy Women´s Day.

My tutors and I at coffee inn.

I have two tutors. Sima and Ramune, both students at the International Business School at Vilnius University. For Lithuanian students it is normal to work, despite studying. So Ramune works at a conference center and she has to coordinate a lot of conference participants. Karolis is a friend of the two girls and studying at the same school. He works at a hotel and sometimes has strange working times, for he has to work in shifts. Sometimes it is hard for them and for Germans students unknown to manage a full time job and their studies. But they are studying at a private school and it has to be paid somehow…

Sima has a scholarship and if she performs well and receives good marks her scholarship is prolongued and she does not have to pay for her studies. There are too few systems in Germany, which consider the performance of the students. Here, the best students get discounts for their studying fees and the ones not so good have to pay the full amount. A good motivation we Germans are not used to.

You can see me and my tutors eating cheese cake at coffee inn. There are all kinds of restaurants, bars, pubs and clubs in Vilnius. At this time we went to the one with really good cheese cake. Sima had to leave to UK the next day, so we said goodbye to her with little presents. She is doing an internship in London in a company for project management. Good luck, Sima.