[insert your life here]

Oh friends, It's been so long and I still owe everyone the "biweekly" letter from lietuva. Fire me because it's still not coming out for a few days. There is so much happening here. We're past the "get to know me" stage and moving into the "we must hang out and cook food together!" The temperature is slightly less bone chillingly cold so the streets are calling my name for exploring purposes.

It's so fun to just walk around and see what remnants of past years are still lying about (like abandoned amusement parks! pictures to come). Many abandoned buildings are being explored and some avoided for the smell overpowering within. There are so many useless buildings around that would've been taken down by the State government years ago to make more room for fast food restaurants or a new Target, but here they're still standing and exist as part of the every day back drop for people. For foreigners they're an eye sore or a dream come true to explore. Oh it's -so- fun!

Tonight, Adrianne's roommate, JoAnna (Yo-anna is the pronunciation) invited us over to her apartment for a sleepover with nachos (oh I love nachos!!!). I have to make myself hungry really quick. Esther made Charlotte and I a killer pot of potato soup (I cut up the onions in a random fashion to make it more interesting!) and I made some cheesy garlic bread and we enjoyed dinner by candle light. It was enchanting.

Happy Belated St.Valentine's day, my friends. I got a nice surprise from jamesmoes when I returned from my saturday morning endeavors (the market is so entertaining: I need to get a picture of the bra-ma's). I stopped by the laundry room to chat with Adrianne for a few minutes and after two she stopped the conversation and said, "leah! go to your room!" I knew either she was planning something with Esther or there was something special waiting, and indeed there was! On my desk I found a dozen roses (7 red, 3 pink, 2 white: someone needs to explain the significance of this to me.) and a message to check my computer. I wake it from its sleep and there on my desktop is james! and a message saying to check my e-mail. So I checked... and there was nothing from him, BUT there was an e-mail from Amanda which was made me happy too! I received the e-mail from James around 2345 (hey, that's neat! 2-3-4-5! What a rad time!) with a nice little Valentine message in it. And I got a little teary eyed. His devious valentine scheme worked a lot better than my own! I tried calling him about 14 times and didn't get through till this morning and then I only got answering machines! haha. That's how it goes, eh? yeah!

Ok, it's off to JoAnna's! enjoy the day!! I will write again soon.

Falling snow is beautiful. Remember that.