Thursday, August 25 ~ Travel Day to Klaipeda

Our first bus stop was the Rumsiskes Open-Air Museum. The wooden buildings were brought here from other locations in Lithuania. The windmills are moveable when the wind direction changes. We passed some Lowland Horses which were strong war horses. We entered a house that would have belonged to a family just above middle class. We then drove to the next group of houses which were upper class. The richer people could afford carved dining chairs and a separate building for baking bread. Next we got to spend a little time in an example of a village. Linda and I walked through the school house then the church. When we were trying to see the harmonia (which looks like a small organ) from the main floor, a woman who works there invited us upstairs to the roped off balcony.) That was very nice of her to do that.

 

We then drive to a wooded area where we met 86-year-old Irena Spakaliskiene who was the inspiration for the book, BETWEEN SHADES OF GREY. When she was a child, her family was sent to Siberia. She survived all the hardship there. In 1947 she was sent to Lithuania to study fishing techniques. When she arrived, they had lost her registration, so she couldn’t study. Anyone who had been a prisoner in Siberia was looked down upon, so she burned her papers. She worked 12-hour days and still she could not afford bread, so she ate dog food.

She was accepted into medical school, but she couldn’t work and go to school. She faked her life story and said she was a child of two alcoholic parents who both died. She said she was an orphan, which she actually was. She has been honored by her country, received an expensive watch, and has met the president of Lithuania. She showed us a cabin with examples of some of the things she had in Siberia. We also saw a box car with maps and pictures. She is quite the agile and fit lady. She is a widow, and she even has great-grandchildren.

We stopped for lunch during our 4-5 hour drive and had dinner at a local restaurant after we arrived at out hotel in Kaunus, Lithuania’s oldest and second largest city.