Once again we’re staying in an Airbnb without any light-blocking shades, in a place where the sun goes down at 11pm and comes up at 4am. Is it that it’s so dark for so long that when the light comes, the people here are gluttons for it? Millie did okay, considering, but was up at 7am after a late night.

We had a good quick breakfast at a nearby coffee shop and then walked on to the Bernadine Gardens. It rained all morning and when we got to the park it was the perfect post-rain, sun emerging weather. Everything smelled wet and green.

We played at the playground for a while. I imagine most kids Millie’s age climb and play. Her playground style is to come up with elaborate pretend scenes and then cast us into very specific roles. Today she was running a restaurant and kept needing to go to the market, but when she was at the market I wasn’t allowed to be at the restaurant so I had to keep leaving and returning. It’s cute and exhausting.

Eventually we dragged her away and crossed the river to the republic of Užupis, which is the artist district of Vilnius, complete with its own constitution.

She stayed engaged “looking for art” which wasn’t hard to do because there was stuff everywhere.

Mostly though, she was looking for ice cream because today is Ice Cream Friday. We stopped at a cafe on the river and they brought her a giant bowl. And two beers for us because we should get treats too.

We hadn’t planned to stay out past breakfast, but we just kept walking and moving on to the next thing. So finding ourselves in perfect weather with our treats felt extra special. We looked down and saw that there was a swing above the river. Nick forded it with Millie and they spent a while swinging. The old Lithuanian ladies sitting next to us were very impressed.

We walked back to our Airbnb to shower and get changed, and had a late lunch of delicious pizza. We then walked on to our next destination: Lukiškės Prison.

Us: we really need to find more kid-friendly activities for Millie. Also us: let’s take a 4-year-old on a 2-hour guided tour of a Soviet prison.

In retrospect, it was not our wisest decision. At the start of the tour, the guide asked us if we were okay with some swearing and some imagery of boobs. Because we are soooooo cool, we said yes to both. The part she didn’t warn us about was all the detailed stories about the murderers who were housed in the prison, including a mother who drowned her two young sons in the nearby river we had just taken Millie into.

Silver lining… Millie was well-behaved and asked lots of questions. She asked what the prisoners ate, who the youngest people were, what they wore, if they got vaccines, etc. Everyone on the tour was very charmed by her and probably judging us.

At the end they took our mugshots.

We walked home again, breaking our record for most steps in a day. 17k! Millie did great. We have a new strategy with her whining: after acknowledging it once, we disassociate and ignore. So if she says “I want ice cream” I say “okay if we see a place we can get some”. Then when she says it again 100 more times, we just ignore. It has helped things not escalate to all out screaming and she always eventually gives up. I hope it continues to work and that we continue to have the patience for it.

So far I love Lithuania. The people are friendly, the food has been great, the city of Vilnius is extremely walkable, and there’s bits of art everywhere. Being here in the springtime rather than the depths of winter probably helps.