2016-12-04

Christmas tree wars

A month before Christmas  in Lithuania is a "real" battlefield. Luckily not a really real one - the field of competition is full of Christmas trees. So, it's fair to say that's a fir wood of competition! Christmas toys, garlands and lights are our cannon balls and bullets. Yes, the war is fictional, otherwise even with Christmas toys, garlands and toys much damage can be done. But it is very real in the newspapers and online portals, filled with titles "which Christmas tree is the best this year?" and alike.
It's true that we Lithuanians like to compare ourselves to the neighbors - the closer the better. And the rivals in this competition are our cities and towns. Thanks to this every-year competition, the centers of towns turn into little commercial markets selling expensive stuff and alluring with their smells of waffles, cookies and mulled wine. So, yes - our hearts of towns had turned into something you can find in every western Europe city during Christmas period. Nothing original, but not entirely true. The competition between two main cities is so tough, that they start preparing for next Christmas at the beginning of the year. Yes, brainstorming ideas, evaluating the budget and doing the hard work. Could you imagine a work, where your main duty was to decorate a Christmas tree? No, I don't think it's a fully and well paid position, rather they run on a good will and great ideas than on a good salary, but in any case - the task is exciting. And yes, our nice looking Christmas trees are not made from a single fir tree. It's rather dozens of smaller fir branches put on a carcass, but it still can be made to look like a real tree. Well, in one of Lithuanian cities in the past Christmas trees were being made from other stuff, like plastic cups and bags and bottles and the things alike, that combined together still had a shape of Christmas tree. In the past years it uses more and more fir trees(unfortunately) and is more natural(and looks more like a Christmas tree in Western Europe capitals), but still has some interesting elements. Some toys can be activated through internet and change lightning color or start rotating. This year there is a merry-go-round below the tree carcass - it was made specially for this occasion. This tree is located in the old town square of Kaunas. (To get a visual understanding of what I'm talking about, you can check out the trees from the other years at this page: https://kaunoeglute.lt/)
It's main rival is located in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. It has always been more traditional-western-Europe-commercial type of Christmas tree(because of a bigger budget). But still with a typical look it managed to achieve something beautiful this year as well. Well, maybe the right word would be - inspiring - the light bulb lines from the tree are going into all directions and forming like a roof - but the light garlands are very evenly distributed and it makes a feeling of being in some magical places. Well, symmetry always works great on people! The best way to experience Vilnius's Christmas tree is to get under this roof and at a time when it is less crowded.
And I hear that other towns are becoming more inventive and brave every year, so, hopefully this Christmas tree competition will have more than two strong competitors this year.

2016-11-18

Continuing about BuildStuff

When you make a mistake, what you try to make? To admit it or to cover it up?
So, I've been wrong about one thing. In my previous post, I said - there wasn't a darts board on the BuildStuff conference, but I was wrong. There was one, but I couldn't see. So, I guess it's not so bad - even without Foosball or ping pong. But who needs those games when there is a possibility to build your own AI that competes against AIs of other players in hexagonal world, right?! Once you try it - it's hard to stop and you keep improving and improving your strategy... maybe missing a session or two... going late to sleep because researching the algorithms... And here you actually have a chance of winning, nothing like buying a lottery ticket. So, I've been wrong twice. The second wrong thing I told was that two bank companies were taking part in this conference. There was actually three of them! And the AI hexagon world challenge was presented by the third one - no wonder I missed it.
All three days passed in an eye-blink giving sessions better one after other. Companies took out their big guns and drums to entertain the attenders. The evening party featured two bands(one of them with Undefined name(so, geeky!)), everyone was having fun - making it harder to get up and feel concentrated the next day.
The birthday cake was huge decorated like a CPU(probably) and drowned in a sea of cupcakes. To make it easier to choose one, they were decorated with programming languages and framework names.
But the real firework of the conference was a closing keynote given by a musician Jurgis Didžiulis about motivation and stimulus of life, revealed few of his trade secrets and tried to make programmers dance and sing. He admitted that it wasn't that easy after all. And one thing he didn't fail - he made us laugh quite a lot.

2016-11-16

BuildStuffLT again...

So... today is a first day of BuildStufLT 2016 conference for developers that actually build stuff. For me it's a third time in a row. Don't get too jealous,  because last year I went on my own expense.
Whenever I get asked for how many days I'm staying there and give an answer of "3 days" I get the high eyebrows... It's true that the best experience seems to be when you go there for first time, but it doesn't mean that other times are worse - the conference is changing every year and everyone becomes more picky once they have a baseline for comparison. No, first time is not the best. Everyone just tends to idealize it like a first love.
So, what's different this year?
Believe it or not, none of the companies having their lounge space-mini headquarters dasn't brought a single fuss-ball table!!! There are no table tennis,  no darts (probably there never were ones ever). The space itself is themed as a DOS operating system. And there is an old gaming console space containing really old stuff... After opening speech (which had Vilnius mayor as a guest) we got showered in a rain of balloons. This year  everyone can ask questions through sli.do application, and the questions are visible on smaller of screens, one can vote/like them and the questions get answered at the end of the session. There are even two coffee desks this year(there was one last year), at least two bank companies presenting themselves (a big improvement after the last year's one). One can play treasure hunt by scanning QR codes of certain company employee cards'. It's just the day one, and I believe that many tricks will be revealed tomorrow.
But it's not the tricks and games that everyone is coming there for. The speakers, the networking matter much more. But with 5 simultaneous tracks it's impossible to attend them all(good news is that later the recordings of the sessions will be available online) and to choose the best ones based on a short description. So, I will mention only those that stood out the most and the ones I attended.
The opening keynote speech was given by Greg Young himself about long sad story of micro-services which according to him always have been there but only under a different name. So, we are reinventing the wheel every time.
Paul Stack talked about centralized logging without the blood, sweat and tears and bragged about his architectural solution which helped reduce the expenses on infrastructure from $25.000 to ~$140 per month. And he achieved all this by using AWS Lambda, Kinesis and Elasticsearch.
I was impressed by Hadi Hariri's capability to explain the main features(and how to use it for DSLs) of Kotlin(a new statically typed language) in a clear and concise manner. I even got inspired to try it out myself. That's no surprise at all, because I like trying out new things, but some presentations can make you refrain from trying the stuff out...
Next followed Alberto Brandolini's session on a serious issue of learning. A serious issue targeted with funny jokes and pink goggles. According to him, our brain is wired so, that we end up learning anyway - so, if the work we do is boring, we end up learning other stuff. And according to him, nobody should feel bad about that. He cited many quotes of Dan North and I thought "I should look him up online later".
What I should have done instead is looked at the session schedule more carefully - as the closing keynote of the day was given by the Dan North himself. What he did talk about was the important topic of decision making. Of course, the scope of decisions was narrowed down to IT dilemmas(a big disappointment that expected some insights of complicated human's life): automated vs. manual build, automated vs. manual tests, test-driven vs. test-after vs. test-first, spike vs. stabilize, monoliths vs. components, objects vs. functions, synchronous vs. asynchronous, threads vs. event loop vs. actors vs. CSP(yes, these all are concurrency models), dry vs. decoupled and many others existential questions in developer's life. And to no surprise, the answer which one of those to choose according to Dan North is "it depends". However according to him one shouldn't default to this answer when tackling such situations: Scala vs. Java or spaces vs. tabs. But in general, every decision is a trade off. And when you know what you are trading off, you can make an informed decision.

No, the conference is not worse this year. It's a different one indeed, but what matter the most to me is whether I hear my problems addressed from the stage and get inspired by those speakers. It's a fifth anniversary of a conference this year. In the opening keynote Greg Young challenged us to try imagining a birthday cake for 800 people... So, Greg, how big it will be?

2016-11-07

A bit of Warsaw

After two days spent in Warsaw I can't find any good enough reasons why i wasn't coming there more often. Yes, Polish language is strange, it sounds similar to Russian,  but not similar enough to completely understand it. Reading it is easier(once you figure out those 4 consonants in a row), but the way they transform some letters (i mean, how could somebody write a "ł", ans pronounce it like "v"???). Ok, every language is strange for a foreigner. and it's not a reason to avoid a city so big and so close.
I didn't go to museums or galleries (shame on me), i was busy with dancing and catching up with a sleep. And finding comfortable shoes. so, the things I'm taking with me from Warsaw:
+ i was locked for half an hour in an airbnb apartment i was staying. doesn't really count as a kidnapping - but i had a few weird perspectives in my mind for that moment.
+ caramel store with a live "show" of making those. i 'm not really a a fan of hard candies, but i like how it filled the air with a sweet smell.
- i couldn't find a post office that would work on Sunday - for that reason i couldn't send any paper postcards. i wish they just stell them in kiosks, liks they do in my country.
+ music everywhere - from music box musician to playing Chopin's benches, live tango music in the festival to a coffee shop with a perfect playlist with me. i went there twice, and it always played a music genre or artist i enjoy - tango nuevo, Gregory Porter or salsa.
Yes, I'm definitely coming back for Warsaw.

2016-11-01

Easily sidetracked

How often does it happen to you? You listen to a music in the background, lyrics of the music catches you, you google it up, then suddenly you find out that the lyrics is a soundtrack for a movie(with a decent imdb rating). Then you watch a movie, and discover an action takes place in famous bookstore in Paris. Then you realize that somebody has already told you about that bookstore before and how amazing it is. Then you hit "like" for facebook page of that bookstore. End of story. Not really, just one song, one movie later you are not the same person - you wish there was a bookstore like that in your town. Yes, I'm talking about the "Shakespeare and company".

2016-09-27

Hospitality of Florence

Sometimes my posts do come in non-specific order - it's just because some experiences are brighter and some need more time to process. So, there is a huge gap to cover - from Friday to Sunday.
After milongain Bologna followed a milonga in Florence which was in less cosy place, and the gap between dancing experiences was wider too. But first things first - before going out to dance our feet off, we experienced a real italian hospitality. It was my first couchsurfing experience as a guest too. I guess staying with a person you already know helps a bit. After exploring a Callenzano town (which if not for the cars parked there could fool you into thinking that you experienced time travel and ended up in medieval times), we visited a park with freely roaming rabbits, lots of hungry ducks and one turtle. Then followed a park with a giants statue, an overlook to Florence from a far and a dinner. Which had to be somewhere in a restaurant,  but ended up at hosts home. It had tobe a pasta bought from a shop, but turned out to be a specialy for us homemade pasta with a bottle of fine wine. So, our host is an excellent cook.
The next challenge we had to face - finding a parkingplace next to milonga. It took nearly 10 minutes - not bad for a first timer. And then dancing dancing dancing with live music and some acrobatic moves.



Hello and Good bye Bologna

At this specific moment - my feet are screaming and hurting like they had walked the whole day. Because they did - half day in cersaie fair, half day in Bologna. One thing for sure that half day in city center wasn't even barely close to enough - so, when there isn't enough time, you just walk without looking at the map, finding street musicians, street arcs and buildings older than the previous ones, ordering dinner in my poor italian without asking "parla inglese?".
One thing i know for sure - I must come back to it sooner or later. Of course, better sooner than later.

And yet to make this end of vacation more painful - an early flight with 1 stop awaits me.

One question which bugs me - how italians can sleep with just thin sheet-like blanket?

2016-09-23

Milonga a la Bolognese and other stuff

Transition from Milano to Bologna went smoothly. Transitioning from Bologna to Monzuno - was more interesting. So, me and my friend rented a car - which turned out to have a 1.2l engine! And climbing mountains with it isn't very fun - but I guess I never drove into so steep hills and it's just a matter of time to accustom to a different horizon level.
As I say - our home now is in a deep deep village high in the mountains. With a beautiful view over Apenines and an incredibly starry night, if there are no clouds. So, I guess a little pain with a car is worth it.
But when there are low clouds in the sky - in the mountains you end up in the cloud. It feels like a fog, but you know it's a cloud. It may rain down below, but not in the cloud itself. And it's not very fun to climb a hill or mountain. There is zero visibility - there is no perspective for your goal. It gives you a creepy and mysterious atmosphere. And maybe to experience it for once - is quite ok.
But the other day turned out to be the opposite of the foggy one. The sun was burning as much as 27 degrees. We rode to Rocchetta Matei, which was closed, and then to Pistoia - we took the scenic road, but it allowed us to ride as fast as 60km per hour. Pistoia turns out to be a lovely city, with the population as much as in Kaunas. A compact old town, not too many tourists (or they were hidden somewhere), a bit an army of beggars considering the amount of tourists.

And on our way home - I forgot to check "avoid toll roads" in my google maps and we came home earlier than we would have the other way. I wanted to ride a highway in Italy, but all those toll booths were a bit frustrating. But they say - the best way to learn to swim is to be thrown into a water. The more you are preparing, the harder it gets to find the courage. But it turned out to have some other positive side effect - the plans we had for tonight went more smoothly. We did came home late, but we spent less time on driving and more on dancing in a fresh air.


2016-09-20

Milongano

So, it's my fourth(and last) day in Milano. Me and my friend, we are already sitting in a Lampugno coach station caffe and waiting for our bus in Bologna. I can't say we've seen the city a lot, but that wasn't our goal. However the experience was more that amazing. By some lucky coincidence we ended up at tango nuevo milonga. For both of us it was a biggest milonga ever, but that wasn't the most amazing thing. The Tdj playedbotg old and new music, that was well fitted for the environment and created the unforgettable atmosphere. This amazing atmosphere was created by Tdj Fabrizio Ferranti Auslaender. Although with milonga itself the evening would have been perfect, it was even better. Before milonga we went to a classical music concert in a church Certosa di Garegnano, where we listened to Brahms and Arvo Pärt pieces, performed by Voce degli Archi with Mario Brunello itself. And we had a company of a classical music lover(he told us so much about the piece, musicians), which showed us both the concert and the milonga place.

2016-08-22

Credit to the rain

There aren't many people that could admit they like rain(except for the farmers during the drought). But when it rains so hard that half of your power sockets are not working, internet is down and manholes on the streets has turned jnto little whirlpools, you have to give some credit to it. And driving is full of adrenalin again - you don't know where the potholes are hidden, whether there is a manhole without cover just under your tire. Driving feels like surfing or driving a speed boat, it's just you don't need to save half of your lifetjme for that toy and you can streets instead of rivers. You may hate rain for being wet, cold, but you must love it for turning your boring life into phantasy world.

2016-08-06

Comeback to Nida v.2

I'm sitting in a car on my way home to Kaunas. There is a mild pain in my legs reminding me of 108 kilometers i biked today together with other 4 crazy people. It's not thecraziest distance for me i covered in one day. But it's crazy enough to do so without proper warmup. And my bike was resting this season. But hey - challenges are fun!
So, 56 kilometers from Smiltynė to Nida (through Juodkrantė) and 52 in the opposite direction. We made small stops to rest our backs and a little bit of siteseeing. The highlight of the trip - Naglis Dune - of incredible beauty. Modest and yet stunning th- plastic lines of different shades of sand, grass and flowers framed by Curanian See and Baltic Sea. Yet, it's hard to describe.
The whole Curanian Spit is my favorite part of Lithuania - sure, it lacks greenery, but there are a lot more sunny shades of sand. And there is calmness, sometimes silence. Not the deaf one, but filled with sounds of sea, pines and wind which compared to the sound of cars and other industrial noise is really like a silence.

2016-07-19

Most delicious cloud ever


Clouds can be small and big, scary, frightening or they can look delicious - like a huge ball of cotton candy. Though I've never seen a funny cloud. If you think that I have a thing for clouds - you are right, I do. This is so much like watching a landscape of a sky - fluffy continents and islands floating in a blue ocean of sky. But you never happen to see the same place twice.

2016-07-03

The spell of Nida

Nida - every year i keep coming back there one way or another. All my three visits have always been in the summer, in the very heart of the heat. But when the time to leave comes, the sky opens with the streamy rivers of the rain. Last time i went there by bike just to reach my end of the world( the most western point of Lithuania). This year i commited to a last minute birthday invite. And although reaching it last time was very satisfying(part of it because, i didn't have to bike anymore), this year i had a way better time. Starting from night excursion to Parnidis dune, swiming in the sea and sunbathing, and having a guided tour at day, and finally a very fun birthday party with delicious homemade food.
But the magical atmosphere starts affecting you way before you enter Nida. Yes, the whole Curanian Spit is like that. The calmness, the warmth and beauty of nature starts to cast its spell on you regardless of your means of transportation, duration of your stay. And once you there - there is no escape from it.

2016-05-05

A rainy day in Prague

I know that posts of this trip doesn't come in the right order - some older experiences are yet to be described. It's because not always I was granted with a privilege of Internet or not always I have enough energy left to lay them down on paper( it's how I call this electronic space). So, let me treat you with the freshest experiences.
We are in Prague. Technically it's a second day, but we arrived late in the evening yesterday - so, the only chance to see the city was during our walk from bus station to our hostel. First difference we noticed was that - you have to be very careful when crossing the street. The cars won't usually stop even if you are standing at the edge of sidewalk at the pedestrian crossing. It's not Germany and you have to take responsibility for your own safety.
The w Esther forecast was not promising any good news, but we still head out into the city - got a map at the reception and took a random direction. But the rain wasn't feeling any pity for us - so, we ended up sheltering at various coffee shops, restaurants and shops. The up side is that we tasted some local food, warmed ourselves with tees and spend some money on post cards. One of the most memorable purchases was a dvd film about the trip with a trabant car across during continents. Sounds totally random? Yes, it is and it's not. Well, on our hitchhiking trip from Kaunas to Warsaw we met a Czech guy who told us many interesting and random things. So, he told us about his acquaintance who travelled with a motor bike to China. The story turned sideways into a direction, where we received a valuable information about a documentary(a hit in in Czech Republic) how three of four guys travelled with that old car trabant in different continents. So, when we ended up in a huge book store today, I recalled this story and decided to take my chance. I didn't know the name of the movie, but I asked the store employee about it and it was kind enough to check this out for me. According to his database they had only one copy left, but it didn't take much time for him to find it. Now I can't wait to return home and watch it.
The other highlight of the day was an unexpectedly found Apple museum and because the rain was still washing our clothes, we decided to hide from it. And just like that couple of hours passed by observing all models of Apple computers and reading various information about their appearance and selling records. And we got a free apple!
The hostel we are staying is very nice - located in a very center just five minutes in walking distance from Charles bridge. The staff is very friendly and helpful. And every day there is at least one free walking tour(as many hostels nowadays do).  The one we took started at 8pm and it's topic was "ghost stories of Prague". We didn't meet any ghosts but we were told many creepy stories about who killed what and why(and of course when). It was a very different perspective to look at the city. With an old town as big as Prague's - there are so many dates and numbers and names involved - it's too much to process everything in one go - especially with such little time as ours, but with a tour with twisted topic as this, I hope something stays in our head.

2016-05-03

Berlin - Bastei Weg - Wiesbaden

Sometimes a randomly seen picture can turn into a real view before your eyes. Even if you dismiss the first idea to go there - the people, the events around you weave into a web of coincidences that lead you to that place. That was the case with the Bastei's weg in Rathen near Dresden. A perfect trail for those who love beauty of ancient bridges, deep valleys, steep rocks,  forest paths covered with a carpet of last autumn's leaves.
And the rest of the day did turn out to be quite adventurous as well - ten minutes before our train ride we realized that we need a printed ticket. 3 minutes before it's departure, the ticket was still being printed... And then we ran with huge backpacks on our backs to the train. Luckily we made it. And late in the evening we reached our aunt's home in Wiesbaden.

Warsaw - Berlin - 5 cars in one day!

The second day on the road wasn't so easy as the first one. Warsaw is a way bigger city than Kaunas - you have to choose from many spots and getting to the right one takes time. And although it seems that you have a bigger stream of cars, a lot more of them just drive passed you. So, the second hitchhiking experience wasn't as easy as the first one. Our road was only 100 kilometers longer - so, we felt confident by writing "Berlin" on the cardboard. It appeared to be a mistake that costed us 1.5 hours of waiting for the first car which took us only to Łódź. And in total  - 5 cars to get to Berlin. But we enjoyed riding with polish people. Most of them didn't take any hitchhikers before - and they couldn't explain why they stopped for us. But all the rain, that has fallen that day from the sky, did fall only when we were in a car. Although we arrived late, we made it earlier than we would  have if we had ran out of luck - the last driver did really come out of his way to bring us to train station, and the train has just arrived stopping there only for a minute. A nice german gentleman helped us with buying a ticket on mobile phone - as we didn't have enough time to buy it on ticket machine.
And finally we could comfortly sleep in a sleeping bags on a floor of our ex-coworkers apartment.

2016-04-24

Hitchhiking for the first time

As for first hitchhiking experience, we didn't struggle a lot - about half an hour and we were picked up by a chezch bass player(as his hobby) who happens to have a korean driving license. He filled our time in a car with amazing and unvelievable stories. Could you believe that Mayonaise is a bass guitar brand - the top one in Europe? Or how he got a hold of one.
He told us that he picked us up only because nobody picked him up a year ago.

2016-01-13

Remembering January the 13th

On the 13th of January 25 years ago I do not remember much. I remember that my parents weren't sleeping all night and watching tv broadcast from the secret tv station. I didn't understand much, only that terrible things were happening and it had something to do with our freedom. But I was still terrified, I didn't know if I go to sleep that night, I will wake up in the morning. And that was only from perspective of a child.
In reality people were defending the parliament and press house with their bodies, because life was the only thing they had and were willing to sacrifice to defend the freedom of whole country. A right to speak, to think, to move freely, to know the truth. Lithuania re-declared it's independence on the 11th of March in 1990, but on the 13th of January in 1991 it showed how much it was willing to pay for the freedom. It was a resolution of many more people to stand as one against guns and a price of 14 innocent lives stopping tanks with their bare hands.
It's true I don't remember much from that night. But I know that every freedom that I have now is because of that night.

2016-01-07

green light in action

Keeping promises is a good habit. It also removes this burden from the heart. And frees your mind for other things. So, there is a little bit of my unburdening - my first attempts to shoot the Aurora Borealis. All the other things have been said in the previous post about Northern Lights.




2016-01-02

Millions of hours on a train

So, the train started moving at 9.10pm from Bodø. It stopped at 7.48am in Trondheim. I boarded another train at 8.25am. I ended up at 3pm in Oslo. Can anybody count how many hours it has been on rails? Most of them were spent sleeping in awkward and uncomfortable positions. But I did sleep. First I tried to read Gogol's "Dead Souls" in Russian, but  I felt very sleepy instantly. The same happened on a day train too. Internet was not working, or rather it was working in cafeteria and wc. Well, I was in wagon 8, so, I guess  I was too far away from the source.
As I'm falling asleep at the moment in a hostel at Oslo, all I can say that I finished my day by buying gifts home and walking around in the center with a camera.

2016-01-01

A lazy day of the 1st of January

So, I had very little sleep. As normal. The checkout from hostel was until 11am, and I wanted to have my breakfast. I had meeting today at 12am with a fellow couch surfer, which had kindly replied to my public request. So, he took me to see the same hill we were exploring at night while hunting for northern lights. He let me borrow his gear for walking on ice, so, we could climb the actual hill - Rønvikfjellet - a raven hill. Then we hiked to the three lakes: the lower one, the upper and the black one. Some being fully, some partially covered in ice. While we hiked we were fighting the wind at the same time. Thank god, I had my heavy backpack on, otherwise I could have been thrown from the hill. Well, maybe not really, but it could have been closer. So, I had the opportunity to observe the Bodø from the very top - magnificent view. Then the fellow took me to the beach With a light blue water. They call it Osvika. I liked the sound of that name, partly because it has a shorter name of me in it.
As the rest of the day - sheltering in a living room of hostel, as my train leaves late in the evening, reading a book "Quest for Adventure" by Chris Bonington, looking for inspiration for my next journey.

The Northern Lights. They do exist

Yesterday, was a long day too. I'm getting used to this new regime - sleeping few hours, waking up at 8 or 9, going to sleep at 4 or 5 in the morning. As it was the 31st of December, and sort of everything half closed, there were limited options on activities. So, I've heard of "Nyholmen skandse" - a fortification at the end of small cape and a lighthouse. So, I packed myself in a tent of skiing jacket and trousers, prepared a thermos of hot tea and set out into a walk that appeared to be longer than I have expected it to be. Strong wind was not helping at all. Once I finally reached that place, I found out I can't climb the fort, because there were fireworks being set up for the evening. So, I turned back, buying some sparkling lights on my way. And I was starting to feel hunger.
The grand firework was at 6.25pm. Well, a little bit early for New Year's celebration, but this firework was actually meant for 200 year anniversary of town Bodø. It took as long as five minutes, technically. But watching those different flying colors in the sky, it seemed that it took longer.
It was time to go back to hostel and give up into action, whatever there was going on. Actually, not much. Solo travels were keeping on soloing. Group travels were keeping it in their group. Luckily I noticed a Chinese guy I met a day before has returned from his day trip in Værøy island. So, we had different experiences to share on Lofoten islands, and we kept talking as the midnight was approaching. But we didn't come up with any solid plan where it would be the best place to go watching for fireworks. Obviously, we ended up in the wrong location - next to the church of Bodø. There were stifle firework shooters, but all the other beauty, or so to say serious stuff was blocked by surrounding buildings. On the way there we met a couple from Norway and Thailand(one of them was living in the same hostel too). So, we double-sized our company, and it was way better. The Lady from Thailand was terribly afraid of falling on the ice and the fact that she had not the proper shoes did not help her overcome that fear. After lighting our sparkling firework for kids and observing the other miserable ones, we came back to hostel.
Others were coming back too, and started bragging about observing some shades of Northern Lights. It trigger our lust for adventure and a huger to see one. I actually was already giving up to observe them during this trip. But now altering hearing this news, we were ready in five minutes, heading somewhere into the hills - we wanted to retrace the first journey, but somehow missed it. The journey took longer, or it seemed so. As we were approaching the end of light zone, we started seeing some weird shades and shapes in the sky. Somewhere of them were clouds, but unusual ones. But when we witnessed the green ones, we knew this had to be it. And it was quite intense. I haven't properly trained for shooting Aurora Borealis, so, was still playing with my camera, getting useful tips from my fellow adventurer. Yes, there was it - the Northern Lights in all it's captivating beauty, unpredictable, moving fast. And it really was addictive, observing it, and setting up my camera for the right shot. I even didn't notice that I was kneeling in snow with my jeans totally wet at the knees. I didn't care about that neither about the fact it was 4am in the morning. As always on this trip, the screenshots of proof will come later.