Been there.  Done that.  Ordered the t-shirt I saw in Vilnius but didn’t pick up while there.

Whew!  What a journey.  So happy to see my Daniel again.  Mom and her puppies were all happy to be reunited, too.

Traveling for 24 hours straight is not real fun.  KUN-AMS-FRA-AUS in our case.  I’m still jetlagged and keep waking up with a headache.  I think it’s from hunger, as though my stomach is still in Lithuania and telling me, “Hey, asshole.  You just skipped breakfast and lunch.”

The Lithuania-Russia border to Kaliningrad on the south end of the Curonian Spit.  We did not cross.  And no one else seemed interested, either.

After a lovely several days in Vilnius, mom and I traded the stinky Astra in for a zippy little VW Golf and headed west to the port town of Klaipėda.  I’m told this formerly German (Prussian) town was a very active naval base and shipyard during WWII.  It’s also the gateway to the Curonian Spit, a long strip of sand dunes in the Baltic Sea.  It looks to be quite the family summer vacation spot, with lots of kiddos enjoying the beach and the seriously chilly water.  An apartment rental in one of the town’s newer high rises afforded lovely sunrise/sunset views of the area, and if I’d had more days, I would have loved to have biked the entire length of the spit (well, at least the Lithuanian side).

In other genealogical adventures, we met some Mardosai in Lithuania who may be more distant cousins to my great-grandfather but whose lineage we could not directly trace to our own.  Regardless, they were all super nice and inviting, and we are glad to have met them.

Our expert guide to all things local, Irma Žvinakienė (below, far left), took us to meet Saulius Mardosa (center) and his family who live in the nearby town of Krokialaukis.

Saulius’ daughter is a PhD student in biology in Kaunas and was back for the weekend to visit her parents.  Saulius and his wife showed us some family photos and his old Soviet navy uniform: he spent several years under the polar ice in nuclear submarines, hopefully coming up for air once or twice.

I spotted Saulius’ uncle Jonas (John in Lithuanian) on my random google.lt searches for Mardosai in Lithuania about a month ago, and I immediately thought that he resembled my grandfather.  Saulius’ wife commented on the resemblance, too, so it’s not just me, and it’s not just the hairline, I think, though they definitely share that.

Professor Mardosa and his daughter were about as warm and nice as can be, spending their Sunday evening giving us an expert walking tour of old Vilnius.  He hails from the village of Angininkai, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Verebiejai, and his grandfather was from Verebiejai, so I figure we must be in the realm of 3rd or 4th cousins or so.  My great-grandfather Anthony worked as a tailor, and so did some of his people.  No one seems to know or remember the generation who proceeded Anthony, so unless we dig up some church birth records from the era, that may be the end of our understanding.

Jonas is a Professor of Ethnography at a Vilnius university studying Lithuanian folk customs and traditions.  Trained under the Soviet system, he has had to make the head-spinning transition to an independent and very capitalist Lithuania today.  I could tell that the touristic, consumer parts of contemporary Vilnius were not at all to his liking, but his eyes lit up when showing us Vilnius’ grand old orthodox churches and telling us their folk history, such as the “three sinners” (heresy, I believe), whose resting place is celebrated at the church up the street from our hotel.  If he were American, he would probably be a hippy, I think.  Jonas did confess some nostalgia for the Soviet days, when he said all seemed to be employed and things were not as expensive as they are today.  It does appear that many younger Lithuanians are choosing to venture outside the country for employment, including our cousin Vytautas, who drives trucks all the way in northern Norway said he was looking at two more years of being away from his family.

Thanks again to all the Mardosai of indeterminate relation who made us feel welcome.  We appreciate getting to know you a little.