City Festival

Fine and I caught a very good time to arrive here in Panevėžys. Right on the first weekend of our stay in Lithuania there was the city’s anniversary festival. To be exact: It was the 511^th birthday of Panevėžys and the festival for it was a really big deal. For three days there have been loads of people around in the city (later we found out that’s not the usual state) and we had the chance to experience this event during a lovely weather. In fact, the first time it had been warmer here in Lithuania than it was of the summer at home in Austria. 

 

One of the best things about the festival for us probably was the market that’s been set up all around the lake in the centre. It was an amazing view to have all of those small huts next to each other and lots of people strolling around there no matter what time it was. We’ve been there every day and every day we found something new to take a closer look at between all the hand crafted things the people sold there. There also was a lot of food to be sold – meat, cheese, sweets, bread and all – and I really liked how everyone would let you taste their goods to be able to make a decision about buying something of it or not. In general, the people at the market were very friendly.

Another highlight of the festival was the parade taking place on Saturday afternoon. It’s been quite a while since I’ve last seen a parade so I was pretty impressed by it. There’ve been so many groups taking part in it, starting with quite a few people on motorcycles, sports clubs, schools, some people in old timer cars and some history club driving by in an old tank. Also the Youth Day Care Centre that’s located in the same building as our school’s dormitory took part in the parade – along with two of their EVS volunteers, Marie from Austria and Olivia from Germany. All in all the parade was very exciting to watch and although it’s been a pretty long one time flew by very quickly. 

 

Then of course there’d also been the evenings. The main attraction in the evenings were the concerts on the big stage in the city centre. Although none of the acts hit my taste in music it was still interesting to be there. I got a good impression of how big this festival actually is because there had really been a lot of people at the concerts who also enjoyed the music a lot. One evening there was this pop singer guy on stage that people really went crazy about – later we were told he’s one of Lithuania’s most famous music artists, so I guess it was quite a big deal that he was there. A personal highlight for me was the show by Fool’s Garden one evening. Maybe you know “Lemon Tree” – okay, everybody knows “Lemon Tree”, it’s THE song to sing since everybody knows the lyrics. Well, Fool’s Garden is the band that’s responsible for that song and I really found it funny to hear it live. Before I hadn’t even known that the band still exists, or that they’re Germans. You never stop learning.

All in all I really liked the festival. I think it was a good thing to experience at the beginning of our stay, you know, to have all that action around to look at. If you ever come to Lithuania and end up around Panevėžys, you should check the date in the beginning of September and come by the city festival. It’s definitely worth to see.

Viso gero,

Monika