We spent four days in Kaunas, Lithuania and all we saw was our campground and a mall. And we don’t regret a thing.

We drove a few hours from Latvia into Lithuania and ended the last day of September in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city. We found a campground online but they never answered the phone so we just drove there, arriving in the dark to a field devoted to Covid-19 testing. Ugh. Luckily, someone working there gave us the address of another campground (that online had stated was “temporarily closed”). We didn’t have much hope but we also didn’t have any other options, so we drove over there. We arrived to a dark parking lot with a locked gate but a phone number posted on the fence. We called and the. man who answered was so nice! He told us where to get the keys and we proceeded to have an entire campground to ourselves for four nights.

On Thursday we started the day with school, then I went for a run, and then the girls and I headed to a children’s museum they had seen advertised. It turns out the museum was in this amazing mall that we were all enamoured with. We played, had a delicious dinner and shopped for some treats, including the girls’ favorite sugar cereal that they usually only get on trips to the US or in very thoughtful packages from my sister and family. Everyone finished that day happy and tired!

Then Friday we did school, played some tennis (the girls are hooked) and had planned on heading into the old town for dinner. But Steffen’s phone calls ended up taking longer than expected, so we switched gears and had a movie night in the camper. The girls chose a German movie, so Steffen joined them and I relaxed in the “other room” with my Reese’s (another find at the mall!), a beer and my book. A nice Friday for all!

On Saturday we toyed with the idea of going into town and sightseeing but the girls really, really, really wanted to go back to the museum. On a long trip like this, you have to balance sightseeing with relaxing, pushing to see everything with honouring the kids’ wishes. So we went back to the mall and ended up spending pretty much the whole day! First, lunch at the same restaurant, then a couple of hours at the museum, followed by a visit to the petting zoo, a round of pool, a trip around the mall on the train and finally stocking up on more treats.

A little Lucky Charms dessert to end out the day!

Then we packed up Sunday morning and headed to our seventh country: Poland! Where things got turned upside down about 12 hours in….