Culture & Immersion

How to be Lithuanian: Eat, Smoke, Drink & Play

God knows why you chose to take up this mission, learning how to be Lithuanian. But you’ve already committed yourself by reading this far. Nope, no going back… It’s your duty now, might as well throw away your Miller Lights, doobies and Mickey Dee’s, ‘cuz we do it different. We have black bread, basically non-alcoholic beverages made from black bread and lots of potatoes, so grab your hoe and shovel, we’re getting Lithuanian! Lithuania is a big farm with two very large farm cities (the capital Vilnius, and Kaunas) and some farm ports, and yea… the rest is legit farmland. To put Lithuania’s…

Continue reading
Culture & Immersion, Travel

The Immersed Lifestyle

Tourist, Traveler, Digital Nomad, marooned, me? Am I truly any one of these? I’ve had some time to try to figure out life since quitting my startup last January, floating around trying Ayahuasca in the jungle, Acid in the city and flying down mountain tops. I’ve left many people with a confused impression of what exactly I am, some sort of ______ (fill in the blank). To be truthful I don’t know which I am but I’ve realized I’m a disciple of the immersed lifestyle. What is the Immersed Lifestyle? It’s a lifestyle that is none of the above… Not exactly at least. I’m…

Continue reading
Travel

Nida Lithuania and why you Must Go there

Nida Lithuania. Besides being the name of a pretty Lithuanian girl, she’s a lot more than that. Say that to any Lithuanian, or that you’re going there and you’ll be the envy of their eye. Not only is it the village in which my grandfather, Viktoras Miliunas, wrote his novels, it’s a part of my childhood. She’s a gem that won’t let you down when you visit her… Nida used to belong to Prussia since it was captured by the Teutonic knights around the mid 1200’s. Eventually after the second world war she was assigned to Lithuania. With that said Nida Lithuania has a look…

Continue reading
Language

Recall Better Using Porn Stars and Dictators

A giant explosion goes off outside and Joseph Stalin runs into the living room and sees Elvis petting a Llama that lives there and shouts “You two! What jus’ happened?” Sound ridiculous? How does this help me recall better? That’s the point. In that one sentence, that’s part of a much bigger story that takes place in my Soviet style apartment block, I managed to tie in the Estonian words elama (to live) and juhtus (happened) into a memorable visual that I can use to learn words. I’ve only started this method a week ago and right from the get-go I was surprised to…

Continue reading
Language

Unique Sounds in Languages – Try Pronouncing

In my drunk stupor last night I wound up in a conversation with a person from the Czech Republic talking about unique sounds in languages which lead me to trill my R’s while making the sound like a rapid river pumping water. It got me thinking, as an American we have a very limited vocal palate. Need an example?     Without further ado, here’s some unique sounds in languages other than yours and mine that I either spent a while sounding like a moron attempting, or I gave up on…   Ř ř  (Czech) This is a letter that’s unique to…

Continue reading
Culture & Immersion

How to Jazz in Kaunas

If you like jazz and you can handle a lot of it, then this post is for you. Hell, this entire weekend is for you, just get your butt over here. It all starts here in the town hall of Lithuania’s second largest city, Kaunas. Every year towards the end of April. [huge_it_maps id=”10″] It’s Thursday, the opening day for Kaunas Jazz, and you know what that means? Of course you do, jazz takes over the city! It’s hard not to walk into any cafe or Restaurant and not see these posters or flyers hanging about. What started as a festival…

Continue reading
Travel

Medellin Bucket List – Top 10 Activities

Whether you’re in it for the cocaine and hookers or the nature, fruit and pollution, Medellin has it all! Though I won’t tell you where the best prostitutes are, my Medellin bucket list is a slightly more Disney’fied Medellin bucket list with the best places to check out while you’re here. With that said I present… Parque ARVI Whether you decide to go up via the cable cars at the Acevedo metro station or take the Santa Elena bus up the hill, you’re bound for beauty! If you decide to go up via the cable cars, one option is to walk all the way towards Santa…

Continue reading
Culture & Immersion, Language, Travel

The Gua’s of Colombia

Guayabo, guayaba, guanabana-bana-bana… If you’re learning Spanish in Colombia, chances are you’re going to get into the rabbit hole of words that are about as similar to one another as a peach is to a nectarine. That’s what the gua’s of Colombian Spanish are to me. I’m partially writing this to help wrap my own head around this. With that being said, here are the gua’s.

Continue reading
Miscellaneoes

How you Spot Gringo – a Colombian Handguide

How you spot Gringo, you ask? Gringos can be persons difficult to spot. For example, you just go about your usual day in valley of Colombian and loud persons come being loud and yelling. They no speak same language you but you understand them say word “Fuck” much times. Must be… Gringos. There are other clues gringo’s give to help identify self. Many Gringos disguise self and do not say “Fuck” every other word. How I know if he gringo then? Well I tells you! Here are tips on what to look at to know if he gringo. Servicio Gringo always have servicio his whole life and now he come here…

Continue reading