blackbird fly

my first attempts to work with 120mm film and my pentacon. Too bad it's left in Lithuania, would love to try another film. Someday.

Life is okay. My whole body aches from yesterday's volleyball session - apparently the coach thinks that for 20 mins of the game we need to exercise for over 1.5 hours. Uf. But I liked it though. Not sure if we're starting social services tomorrow or not, but then on Friday I have my creative activity - photography - with a new teacher. Don't know how is it going to go, might change if appears to be too boring. So far none of the photography courses I tried to attend had any impact or were at least a bit interesting. Meh.

I still have the continuous feeling of the lack of feedback from people. But then it makes me close myself up and reach for my own dreams more. At least today I feel good about applying to the universities I chose. Really want to do something unpredictable, not sure if anything is going to happen, but if yes, I'll let you guys know, hihi.

And I enjoy my room in college immensely.

Indian style necklace

one of the last accessories I made when I was in Lithuania, or maybe the last one. Indian style necklace with 3 tassels. The colours are so me.

Anyways, life is ok here. I was really depressed about certain things yesterday and the day before, but then again realised, that it gets easier if you talk to someone. I was lucky enough to have at least a few people who listened to me. School is also fine, my effort doesn't really pay off, so I guess I have to try harder. I also started drawing in my sketchbook more often...I need it for uni applications and I thought I'm gonna have to force myself - but it comes pretty smoothly. I might bike to Monfalcone today to get films for my camera. One of the first years and I are gonna try to get the stuff for developing and printing photographs from film in the darkroom, I'm overexcited to try it out. What else...well Lithuania won bronze in Basketball Championship - we're such a small country, but we're 3rd in the world, I'm so proud about that.

The long weekend is slowly approaching, but I guess I'll stay in Duino. I've been travelling too much recently. Ok, gotta run to History class.

wanted to crop all the mess around, but decided to be honest:)

Japan: Nagoya and Hanabi

Another post about my trip to Japan this summer. As you already read a bit in previous posts from Fujinomiya and Yokohama, I travelled around staying at my friends' and couchsurfers' places. And so I arrived to Nagoya to meet my first couchsurfing host Yoko. She appeared to be a very sweet woman with an amazing kid and very funny husband and I enjoyed their company A LOT. So Yoko picked me up in the station (keep in mind that after the Fujinomya incident I was pro in using shinkansen, lol), we dropped my bag in their cute flat, went for lunch and around the city, afterwards they took me to the firework festival called Hanabi.

I was fascinated already in the metro seeing amazing yukatas and all the couples wearing traditional and matching clothes, but then when we got to the place, I was speechless - I've never seen so many patterns and colours, such perfect or sometimes a bit overdone make-up, the hair, people walking around happily...what was also funny, is that everyone loved me taking pictures of them, they would stop, smile, talk to me, pose, etc. Nobody ever said anything or gazed angrily - nothing! Pure joy for a photographer.

People waiting for the fireworks.

Afterwards there was a parade with again, lots of smiles and people being happy about performing. Ah, Japan.

That's how many people were around.

My host Yoko and her baby Hiiro.

And of course we went to see the fireworks. I didn't take pictures of them since I was watching attentively. We didn't wait for the end since it would have been hard to catch a taxi after it's all over and Hiiro was tired, so the main boom happened when we were already heading home in the taxi (Japanese taxi are so hi-tech o.o ). Yoko kept saying sorry that we couldn't see the main firework since it was behind the bridge, but I found it fun. It still looks cool, doesn't it?

As we got back and put Hiiro to sleep, we sat down and talked for a while. It was really nice to get to know them, also very interesting to see how a young family lives. Yoko's husband showed me some cool Japanese musicians and actually I got to meet many people during my trip just because I knew that music from him. I stayed in Nagoya only for one day and the following morning when I went to see the Nagoya castle.

on my way

These bamboo "spoons" are made for the people to wash their hands before entering to the shrines and temples.

Nagoya castle. It was soooo hot and the castle was huge, but I liked it so much. Anyways, that's a post with lots of pictures even though I was in Nagoya only for a day, but then I went to Kyoto. 3 days in an amazing ancient city coming up in the next post.

Alive!

yes yes yes, here I am, safe and sound writing from cold Italy after disappearing for a while without any explanation. Lots of things happened recently, but lemme just put everything in order - it's messed up even in my head.

Anyways, so let's start from the time when I was still in Lithuania. I did an amazing photoshoot with amazing people on Friday right before leaving - it was so much fun and the results seem to look satisfying too. Well since I've been travelling, I'm still working on the pictures, but you're gonna eventually see them someday. Then Saturday was basically packing, Sunday I left for Italy. We managed to meet a Lithuanian guy in Riga airport who was going to Japan to study there for a year. Really random, but I took that as a sign that was sent to me just to give some inspiration. It did make me happy indeed.

It was by all means awesome meeting all the co-years again. I have a room with my friend Tereza in the residence we wanted (Lucchese), it's very cozy and we've already decorated it - I'll show pictures at some point later. Then the first year students arrived and I can only say that this year is gonna be super fun and awesome. The people in my residence are amazing, we've already become friends and what is pretty surprising, my silent and empty residence from last year became so vibrant and full of music and laughter - love it to pieces.

I left my juggling balls in college for the summer, happy to juggle again.

On Wednesday I had to leave though, this time for the CRS (Camp Rising Sun) reunion in Germany. I went to Bremen first because of Ryanair weird flight schedule and spent a night at one UWCer's room in Jacobs university. Bremen is a nice city and the university has amazing campus as well. The funny thing was that while I was waiting for the UWCer to arrive, I was sitting in this common room and heard a familiar language. Sneaked into another room and got to know a few Lithuanian students who study in Jacobs uni. They were, btw, setting up the huge screen for watching a basketball game (Lithuania-France) and after 10 minutes I was already watching it with a bunch of Lithuanian students who were all so surprised to have a random new Lithuanian visiting the uni. So much fun! And we won, haha.

Then in the morning I left for Berlin. Got to the place and the reunion started. Hard to describe everything, but actually in the beginning I felt so lonely and just wanted to get back to college, whereas the very last night I didn't sleep at all, we were singing and talking non-stop. I guess it's not that easy to start where we left off 3 years ago, but it does work if you have the connection. It was lovely to see everyone.

Now I'm back to Italy, rested a bit since travelling was really tiring and had the first day of school today. It was nice, since I started doing yoga after a long break. Upcoming days might be busy since there's so much to do for school, getting to know people, uni and college stuff plus portfolio and (sometimes) sleep.

I've put some pictures from Germany here, mostly from our voyage on a boat around Berlin. A city with a lot of history.