With New Eyes

While some of my spring "weekend tripping" was of the impulse buy variety and I am beginning to think that I might be overcompensating for the absence of business travel in my life, ahem, just a tiny bit, the weekend in Vilnius was booked on Christmas Eve. I got my Mum (pictured above) a voucher for a weekend in any European city of her choice for Christmas and since she is as eager as I am when it comes to travelling, we went ahead and booked a few hours later. Like mother, like daughter., I suppose. She picked Vilnius as she had never been there and a friend, who stopped there en route to Finland last year told her she really loved it. Unlike Mum, I know the city (centre) quite well, having been there on quite a few business trips back in the days at the Firm. I always really liked Vilnius, the town, but job-wise, I much preferred to spend my time in Sofia and ultimately struck a deal with my manager asking if I could put the focus of my activities on Bulgaria, rather than the Baltics. Although, objectively, Vilnius is way more attractive than Sofia, I just felt more comfortable there as far as local colleagues and clients were concerned. The Baltic people I met seemed of the "glass half empty" variety whereas the Bulgarians definitely were team "glass half full" and everything seemed to be more fun and lighthearted there.

Vilnius, however, is not at fault there and so it was a rather novel experience for me, this time. I had booked the fanciest hotel in town and the weather Gods had mercy on us (probably having decided we had our fair share of winter and wet feet in Bukarest), and got to see the city through the eyes of a tourist. My mother really loved it, too, and we both agreed that the pace was decidedly slower and more laid-back than in Vienna. If we had been on a busy schedule, the not exactly speedy service in restaurants and the decidedly "Communist customer service attitude" in some shops might have bothered us, but as we weren't we just went with the flow and had a great time. We thoroughly enjoyed our 48 hours in town, strolling around at our own pace, ticking off the main sights and discovering some interesting details. I decided that next year, I'll treat Mum to a weekend in Tallinn, a city I know less well than Vilnius and am curious to revisit.