Traveling to a new place can always be overwhelming. You are thrown into a new culture with hardly any background and have to adjust to new food, a different language, a new setting, and new people. One of the beautiful things about an intercultural experience is that everyone is experiencing the same things and therefore we can lean on each other when times are difficult. No one in our group had been to Lithuania before or experienced Baltic culture. When we left the United States on May 10th, a good majority of us did not know each other super well, but navigating a new place has required us to work together. We have collaborated when we get on the wrong bus and end up on the opposite side of town, or try to understand the menu at a Lithuanian restaurant. I’m sure that all of us have said, “Sorry, I don’t speak Lithuanian” or, “Do you speak English?” more times than we can count. During our time in Klaipeda, we have been staying at LCC International University and living with other college students who are also taking summer courses. Our roommates are from places such as Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus, Albania, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Pakistan. Even though we are thrown into Lithuanian culture, it has been a unique experience to interact with other students from so many cultures. In our living situations, most of us are with one other EMU student and two LCC students. There are also 7 LCC students who are taking our classes with us so it has been a good opportunity to get to know them and hear their stories and perspectives. I have never traveled outside of the United States so it has been easy for me to only see the world through my American perspective but these short weeks of being here have shown me that there are many important things that I have been neglecting. My daily issues seem trivial and I am humbled by the challenges that people from this area of the world have been through in recent history. While most of us probably wouldn’t have envisioned spending six weeks of our summer in a dorm, it has been a great learning experience to interact with people from other cultures and understand the world from a new perspective.
– Megan Miller
One of the coolest things about our intercultural is all of the new places we’re getting to see. We’re on our 9-day trip throughout Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia right now, but first I want to focus on where we’ve been spending our first few weeks. LCC is in Klaipeda, which is the third largest city in Lithuania. Most days after class we walk into the old part of the city, where there are lots of cafes or restaurants that we’ve gotten to try. Old Town is a really neat area to explore, and it’s fairly easy to navigate, although it was intimidating at first. Luckily, almost all of the people I’ve interacted with have been able to speak at least a little bit of English, so simple things like ordering food have not been a problem. The old part of town goes along the riverbank, and several students in the group have enjoyed meals by the water. We’re almost exactly halfway done, and have a lot of fun places left to see!
-Daisy Buller
While in Lithuania, our group has had the opportunity to try many different dishes that we can’t typically find back home in the United States. Potatoes are very common here, and I don’t think it is a stretch to say that the group has managed to eat what is likely dozens of potatoes already in the two short weeks that we have spent here in Lithuania. Potato pancakes stuffed with pork remain one of our favorite local dishes, known as bulvinai blynai in the Lithuanian language. Another local dish that many students tried is called šaltibarščių sriuba. Rising senior Lizzy Kirkton said about this dish, “I was looking forward to trying beet soup here because it is so popular here and it was definitely worth it. It was good and… [was] more of a dill dip for the hot potatoes that came on the side.” Overall, it has been very fun trying all of the different foods here, and we are all looking forward to trying even more dishes in all of the Baltic countries as the trip continues!
– Abby Kaufman
For our first few weeks of classes, we would have a lecture from Jerry from 9:00 AM -12:15 PM in an LCC classroom. Including the students at LCC we have 24 people in our class. Our lectures consist of learning about photography, religion, and the history of Lithuania, mainly focusing on the Holocaust and Soviet occupation. The majority of us had never used a camera aside from our phones before, so the last few weeks have definitely been a learning experience. In addition, many of the US students had no prior knowledge of the impact that the Holocaust and Soviet occupation had on Lithuania and Eastern Europe as a whole, due to traditional US history education. One of the most important things we have learned is that, by percentage, Lithuania lost the second most of its Jewish population with over 200 mass killing sites across the country. The first few weeks of classes served as a crash course on our intercultural focus in order to prepare us for our 9-day trip, so we have learned many new skills and knowledge that have broadened our worldview already.
-Lizzy Kirkton
