Getting to Lithuania

Getting to the Airport

The circles got shorter and tighter as January16 and flight to Europe approached. A few minor tasks needed attention, such as: arrange a major bath/en-suite renovation, automobile repairs, deal with frivolous litigation and assist in placing cryptomining facilities at wellsites. Have to have things to do to stay on green side of the grass..

We were up by six AM on the 16th to try and finally get our shit together, even after trying to get this done in advance over the last few days. Last minute packing, cat wrangling, litter box cleaning, bird feeding... so much to do to prepare!

On way to airport I stopped to autograph legal paper. The defendants lawyer is looking for maximum fees and is dragging the process into appeal before even starting. We picked up my truck from repair shop, dropped off Elaine's Subaru for maintenance and backtracked to Gillian/Rob's place. The by then angry and upset cat, resting in its own pee, was mercifully released. Rob kindly chauffeured us to the airport in Gillian's most excellent car, a little after noon we were on the airport sidewalk.

 

The Calgary Airport

Into the terminal and an uneventful check-in. It was good to watch the bags fade away down the belt. Security was closed near our gate and had to attend at the one a long walk away to the east. All good! The grumpy stone faced gentleman at the inlet to security was the norm, but the delightful lady at the security egress was a pleasure. Elaine drew the short straw and had to have her laptop swabbed. After that important task, we had a wonderful 5 minute chat with a Transport Canada person that was funny, articulate and witty. Interacting with a security representative that was pleasant had never happened before. Might be a good omen.

John Crosbie in the 1960's

We found the Aspire lounge and entered to enjoy the delights of a high end airport facility. The TV was on and showing clips from John Crosbie's funeral. Harper, Clark and Mulroney were seen with turdeau pretending to care that John Crosbie had taken the dirt sleep and was on his way to being a good man underground.

I have much respect for John, who famously told Joey Smallwood to fuck himself on resignation from Newfoundland cabinet in 1968, no doubt Joyce approved. I had to look away from the TV, was too much dwelling on the living. Oh wait, did I mention this was an Aspire Lounge? Good lighting, comfy seats, crappy food, nasty beer, the best thing was the bowl of potato chips ("food"we had not eaten in a long time). More uninspired than inspired, they should aspire to be lot a better, a way, way lot better. Had to leave before we finished the entire bowl of chips and asked for more, easy to reverse 6 weeks of effort in a few minutes. Like health care, nothing is free and Aspire emphasizes this in spades. Don't waste your time at Aspire, spend a few bucks, buy a real beer at Chili's, maybe some food also, you will be happier.

The Flights

KLM pod seating

We had booked travel on KLM flight KL0678 direct to Amsterdam, a 2 hour layover prior to  connecting there with Air Baltic flight BT610 direct to Vilnius. KLM flight was a very pleasant experience, Elaine managed 5 hour sleep, I managed to consume 5 Heinikens (only 250ml version)!

A quick trip through customs at Schiphol and only a subltle eye role from border guard when we reported our final destination as Vilnius.There was no time for the excellent KLM lounge. It took most of the 2 hours to traverse the airport to get to the Air Baltic gate.

Baltic wind turbine facility

Air Baltic also a decent flight, we were the only occupants of the 3 rows in the business class cabin. Other than having only 2 seats out of 3 used per row and being first off the plane there is little value in business class on short flights, however it didn't cost any additional, got what we paid for.



The flight from Amsterdam to Vilnius is very direct, less than 2 hours across Netherlands/Germany and the Baltic Sea. Good weather most of the way, interesting wind turbine installation in centre of Baltic Sea.

Vilnius Airport Arrival Terminal

We arrived at Vilnius in fog at about 13:30 local time. Bags arrived quickly, no customs, nothing to declare. We are on the ground in Lithuania!

The arrival terminal at the airport is an architectural marvel inside and out, constructed between 1949 and 1954 in the Soviet era. The terminal building has much character inside and out.

We obtained a Labas SIM card for our phone at a convenience store kiosk in the terminal, 8GB and 150 minutes for €2.40, in canada it would be over 10x that cost, as observed numerous times its expensive to be canadian .
 
 The young lady who sold it to us was very helpful in navigating the process to activate. Several returns to get translation of texts sent were needed, however, in less than 10 minutes we had a connection to Bite phone mobile system and were set. A previously reserved rental car was obtained, turns out we get an automatic RAV4 supplied vs the manual Auris requested, but all good.

We left the elegant Kaunas arrival terminal and incompetently made our way the one block to the rental garage. Wrong side of street, had to sneak under barriers to get to the sidewalk... not a lot of traffic, but still some risk....will do better next time. The compact manual shift Auris wagon had morphed into a somewhat larger RAV4 located in the garage. Numerous photos and videos of the machine are taken in case a bun fight arises with the rental company.

Vilnius Airport Arrival Terminal

The online playbook(and there are many pages)for the Vilnius Airport Car Rentals is that many of the operators scam the clients by invoicing their credit cards for thousands of Euros of damage costs weeks and months after the rental date. I chose to go with National as have used numerous times in past in North America without incident. Panek, Green Motion and a few others have been accused by numerous posters of running a scam where they top up their low quoted rates with phantom damage claims. I had this chat with the National representative, who of course said National would never do that.(National interestingly, along with Alamo, is owned by Enterprise, seems the sister brands don't' "pick you up" even at 1km (and Enterprise in my personal experience limits it to 1km, at least in Big Pine Ca. True story). The representative did note he had heard of another company that may be scamming clients but not National....

RAV4

As with anything, if the price seems to good too be true, it probably is and is likely a scam (like free medical care). You could be forced to spend hours/months struggling with the rental company, insurance agents etc. if you want to avoid unreasonable "extra" charges. All in the rental was very affordable, just under €300 for 15 days.... at €20/day($30CAD), seems low?, other companies were offering similar for under €10/day? What can go wrong?

Onto the rental apartment.