Vilnius

Vilnius has, among other things, a Frank Zappa statue.  Not on cathedral square or anything, but it was only about twelve steps out of my way so I went to take a look.  No informative plaque or anything, just his head and his name.  And a guy loitering around who looked a lot like Frank Zappa.

"Great," I thought as he came over.  "I'm the silly tourist who came to take a picture of a statue and he's the sketchy local who loiters around the statue hitting up tourists for money."

But he didn't hit me up for money.  He barely even knew what he was doing there, as far as I could tell -- some Polish students roped him into their art project or something.  He didn't know why Vilnius has a Frank Zappa statue, and he apologized for the weather.  I think the real Frank Zappa would have approved.

Vilnius also has a nice art museum and pretty churches and nice architecture, and the food is adequte and hearty and potato-y and not that different from the food of Estonia or Latvia.  What Vilnius really has going for it, though, is that they play decent music here.  I heard indy rock; I heard the Stones; I heard stuff I didn't recognize and didn't hate.  And most of all, I didn't hear a single slow jazz cover.  Hallelujah.

I've heard a lot of music here, because there's not really enough to do here to occupy three days.  Now that the music's stopped sucking, though, spending hours in bars and cafes every day feels pretty ok.