On tour to Warszawa

Some pics from the visit of Europa League final match between Dnipro and Sevilla in Warszawa.

May, 25th.

Today I was conducting a monitoring of botanical variety of Platelai Dvaro park. I was taking pictures of plants and landscapes for the month report.

Ranger inspection and birds monitoring in ZNP

On the 12th of May we inspected the northern part of the national park, monitored some bird species including red shelduck (tadorna ferruginea), gray crane (grus communis) and yellowbeaked hooper (cygnus cygnus). Also, installed  near the animals underground tunnels infrared night surveillance camera, which the next night caught raccoon dog (nyctereutes procyonoides)

22nd of May in Plokstine

Today Zemaitija National park organized environmental competition among pupils of three gymnasiums - Plateliai, Barstyciai and Zemaiciu Kalvarija. Getting to know the nature and in process of learning new facts about environment children had to complete different tasks during the quest, they exercised in relay, walked on slackline, took part in blind trust game.

May, 20th.

Today we were monitoring Šeirės tourist path by bicycles. We found more than 10 damages of the park equipment, made pictures and report about it.

Kaunas 14-17.05

On Thursday we went to Kaunas for taking part in the Plants Day at Kaunas Botanical garden. But, of course, that was just the official reason, because the event itself took place just on one day, the rest of time we were enjoying the city. Straight after arriving I went to play basketball with other volunteers, after I visited football match of Lithuanian league Stumbras vs Trakai. These days they have also street music days, so there were lots of bands and musicians playing live in the streets during all 3 days. On Friday we went to the Plants day, that started with demonstration in Kaunas old town. Then we went to the botanical garden where spend the rest of the day, exploring the territories and the greenhouses, learning how to use microscope and finding out about edible wild plants. On Saturday Kaunas was full of tourists, in the evening during the museum night we went to the museums of musical instruments, museum of sports and circus museum.

Slackline

Today we were setting up slackline in the forest and practiced with it.

Ripka.

Ranger's inspection.

Today we joined national park ranger during his inspection of the territories. We went to watch birds on a swamps and lakes. Using binocular we saw some rare species of ducks and the grey crane, wild rabbits and roes. On the lake near Žemaičių Kalvarija one of the fishermen had strange illegal fishing license, so the ranger had to take from the fisherman written explanations. After the work I played football and ripka with the locals.

Тут ми маємо діло з тією самою різницею, що відвічно існує між дурним і мудрим. Мудрий завжди ловить себе на останньому кроці перед безглуздістю; отже, він робить зусилля уникнути безглуздості, що на нього чатує, і в цьому зусиллі полягає розум. Дурний, натомість, не підозріває себе самого; він має себе за надзвичайно кмітливу людину, і звідси той завидний спокій, з яким дурень усідається й влаштовується в своїй власній глупоті. Мов тих комах, що їх годі видобути з дупла, де вони живуть, так само нема як зрушити дурного з його дурноти, вивести його дещо поза його сліпоту і примусити його сконтрастувати свій звичайно тупий зір з іншими чіткішими формами бачення.

Хосе Ортеґа і Ґассет "Бунт мас".

May 6-7.

Yesterday we were cooking our national dishes at school, today I was working in the Cold War museum.

Neringa

Neringa is an administrative part of Lithuania that consist of some villages and locates on the Curonian Spit (Kuršiu Nerijos). Today I visited this place with my Park direction. We saw the Baltic sea, Juodkrantė, Preila and beautiful resort town of Nida. Desert sands, pine forests, sea fogs is all about Kuršiu. We visited old summerhouse of Thomas Mann and house-museum of Lithuanian painter and artist Eduardas Jonusas.

April-May weekend.

Crazy weekend has started on Thursday afternoon, when me and Jose went to Plungė, met there Juanma and caught a train, Spaniards were going to Vilnius and I just went off at Šiauliai, from where I hitchhiked to Kurtuvėnai, where met other volunteers - Alex, Simina, Svetlana, Hannes and Toufik. The place in Kurtuvėnai is perfect for volunteers. They live in a big house in the park in front of the church. We've made a campfire with barbeque until 3 o'clock in the night. 

The next morning all of us hitchhiked to Šiauliai, from where part of the people went to the seaside. I stayed and waited for Olesia. Finally, we met and started to hitchhike in Rīga direction at about 15 o'clock.

The first our driver was unexpectedly from Hongkong. Than we were picked up by Lithuanian woman, she met  us near Joniškis, where we really stuck. No one was stopping for 2 hours. One local woman, who was riding her bicycle, paid attention to our Ukrainian flag. She explained, that we don't have too much chances to catch a car from this nowhere place. So, she invited us to spend a night at her house in case we won't succeed. But fortunately, immediately a car stopped and we met Vincent. Yes, he is Chinese, Xiu Ki, but Vincent is his European name. Vincent was heading to Riga, but he wanted also to visit Pilsrundale, so we decided to join him. Actually, we had no choice. Vincent was travelling by a rent car, he came from Germany, where he lives now. Pilsrundale is a big palace surrounded by the huge garden and park. We really made friends with Vincent and after getting to Riga we went for a short ride with him to the old town. We had dinner at pizza restaurant and celebrated his birthday. The next day was all about walking in the city centre. The old town was good, but these fucking russian tourists and russian speaking locals makes bad impression, comparing to Lithuania. At first we were thinking to go back home by hitchhiking, but after Riga exhaustion we went to the bus station. Surprisingly, there we met Maria and Alexandre, who were also waiting for their bus. I took my bus to Plungė and hitchhiked from there to Plateliai.

Vincent and Olesia

Pilsrundale

and Riga