Let the penultimate AcTrav BEGIN!

Academic travel: Take 1 professor and 19 Franklin students. Add x cities that aren't Lugano (often in countries that aren't Switzerland, sometimes on continents that aren't Europe) Multiply by 2 weeks. Repeat 2 times per year for 4 years.
As has been mentioned, this is my last year at Franklin thus making this my second to last AcTrav. For  11 days I, along with 18 of my peers and our fearless leader, Professor Cordon, will be exploring the Baltic countries (and Finland...Which only sort of counts...) and looking at the idea of cultures in transition.
Today (which is technically yesterday as I'm editing/posting this...Day one and I'm already a day behind...) was a long day of traveling.
We departed Lugano at 4:30 AM after the one of the most stressful re-packs of my young travel-life (I won't burden you with the details, but it involves broken suitcase zippers, incorrect clocks, and frantically running down the street, shoes untied, suitcase half-open, passport between teeth, trying not to miss the bus) Off to a great start, eh? Well, I figure at that point it's all uphill.
So, bus to Milan, flight to Vienna, flight to Lithuania (on which they served Almdudler, an Austrian ginger-ale/lemonade soda, which was super exciting)

Approaching Lithuania in our glorious beast of a flying machine.

And then *KAPOW!* we were there! (well, ok, there was another bus ride first, but *KAPOW!* just had so much more oomph to it...)
Arriving in Vilnius, we checked in to the hotel (a former Carmelite monastery architecturally linked to St. Theresa's Church and the Gates of Dawn) and set out to explore...and try not to get too lost before dinner.
Dinner was traditional Lithuanian fare. I opted to try the national dish (always a good plan, by my estimation) cepelinai, which are potato dumplings filled with meatofsomesort which are boiled and served somthered in buttery/sour creamy goodness and bacon...

Honestly one of the most filling things I've ever put in my stomach.

 After walking off the potato-meat food-baby that was living in my stomach and averting a disastrous food coma, Jessie, Heather, Justin, and I decided to sample the nightlife. We tried out a pub near the hotel and, of course, Justin swiftly made friends with a pack of locals who fancied his beard, were confused by his shorts, and wanted to talk sports. Needless to say, hilarity ensued the likes of which are all too bizarre to even be synthesized into coherent words.

Justin and his new best friend.

I leave you with Justin's new best friend's parting words to him: "Next time I see you, I will slap your face. Then, party will begin."

I've got a good feeling about this travel...