Never Have I Ever

When you mingle with other cultures, it's not un-common to teach each other new games, new dances, and introduce each other to new food. Last week we introduced the Portuguese and Maryna (Ukrainian) the game "Never Have I Ever". If you do not know this game, you are not American. Look it up! Anyway, now they are mesmerized and obsessed with the game. Any time we are sitting on the porch looking for a game to play, it some how ends up being "Never Have I Ever". At this point we pretty much know everything about each other, and the Americans are pretty sick of it. So I thought I would start this post with my own list of never have I ever...

1. Never have I ever seen such picky eaters. The Portuguese that are in my lunch group are by far the pickiest people I have met. We walked into our restaurant this afternoon and about 5 people walk up to the waiter and start demanding their special orders. First of all, the school is paying so you cannot order anything. Next, the restaurant has already prepared the meal so we are not ordering our own. And third, stop being rude!
2. Never have I ever rode a Segway...until yesterday! Yeah they are quite a bit more difficult to ride than I imagined. They are controlled by leaning forward to go, back to stop, and further back to go backwards. Then the problem comes with going fast, uphill, or downhill. Doing any of these three causes the Segway to lean so far back, it feels like it will kick you off. Anson's and my feet were flexed back the whole time so by the end of the hour ride our feet were numb. We drove all over Vilnius and even made it to the modern side with the "sky scrapers". We got a few good looks from people, almost crashed, and got good enough to do donuts! So much fun.
3. Never have I ever known so many ways to say Cheers! Two nights ago when the Lithuanians took us to dinner, my table started learning all the ways to say cheers in different languages. I now know Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, and of course English. I have them written on a coaster from the restaurant.
4. Never have I ever had a group of men, let alone Portuguese men cook for me. Last night the Portuguese made us dinner. Basically I can describe it as rice with a strogenoff over it. It was delicious, but sticking with the Portuguese way, we didn't eat until 10:30 at night. In their culture, they eat around 10 and finish around 12 so if they go out at night they don't arrive at the club until 3am...Americans are in bed by then.
5. Never have I ever been this tired for this long. Being abroad has made me want to try every new thing I can and since there is only so much time in the day I have not slept much. Yesterday I took a nap at 8pm and slept for about an hour. After the Portuguese dinner, Jeff escorted us girls to the town hall since our Hostel's Internet refuses to work! I had a group presentation this morning and I was up until 2am working on it. It is all worth it to me because I have seen so much and I have had a great time with good people. But I think my family is right when they say I will be sleeping for two days when I get home.

Those are just a few of my first and I know the list will keep growing. This weekend we are going to Palanga, by the sea. The weather is forecasted to be rainy and mildly cool. But I am hoping their weather men are just as wrong as Colorado's. I was hoping for a Baltic tan this weekend.

Speak soon!