It's "New Circus Weekend" in Vilnius, with various circus acts from Belgium, Finland, France and Spain performing at venues all over town, with some performances free of charge. My daughter and I on Thursday evening caught a free acrobatic performance on Thursday at Arts Printing House by Joan Català. From the booklet that was handed out prior to the start of the performance:
Choreography of the show is...filled with traditional Catalan culture elements, for example - building of a human pyramid called "anxaneta". For that the performer takes a huge wooden log, ropes and...a few audience members. An audience will get to watch a very dangerous-looking climb to the top of the log, held by four men from the audience.
Fortunately I wasn't one of the four asked to take part. A good time was had by all present:
On Saturday I was able to convince my she-who-likes-to-stay-at-home spouse to join us for a walk in the woods. The place was the "cognitive track" of the Varnikai Botanical-Zoological Preserve, located off the road between Vilnius and Trakai. Lithuania is in the midst of the annual mushroom-picking season, so the forest was filled with families foraging for fungi:
A few that have gotten away...for now. Or are they the poisonous kind?
Notice the chair placed by the water
On Saturday evening on Gedimino Prospektas and what looked like a TV commercial shoot taking place, with extras sitting in parked cars:
Shu-E had a toothache and didn't feel like going out to eat on Saturday, so Amber and I had a dinner date for two. My daughter chose Renè, a local Belgian favorite, where she drew on the paper tablecloth (an encouraged activity) and ordered a pot of mussels. I debated having rabbit or venison, before finally deciding on Bambi:
There was an almost-full orange moon looming over the city on Saturday night, but even with a tripod, my camera made the orb look more like a sun than a satellite:
On Sunday afternoon I went out for a bike ride, with my intended destination being LITEXPO (Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Center), located about eight kilometers from our apartment. LITEXPO was playing host this weekend to "Now Japan", but I decided to give it a pass as my Japanophilia (ugh, that sounds bad) doesn't extend to anime アニメ, manga 漫画, J-POP, maid cafès メイド喫茶, cosplay コスプレ or any of the other kitsch things that seem to appeal to so many younger Japanophiles. I made it as far as the TV tower before deciding to head back home:
The problem was that my phone GPS kept directing me to go along busy highways that lacked both bike lanes and sidewalks, so it took a lot of head-scratching and riding around aimlessly before I was finally able to find a safe route back. Not to mention a few dead ends, like this "bridge" that my GPS wanted to me to use to cross the Neris:
I was able to find a more pedestrian-friendly bridge further along the river, but the final obstacle was a huge traffic circle. Cyclists and pedestrians have to use a series of tunnels to navigate the roundabout. The view from inside - like being in the eye of a hurricane (and note the road passing through the middle):
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