Global Village

October 26

What a calming place! With my culture shock still in full swing, the World Friendship Centre felt like a little North American oasis in the middle of this vast, strange land. Don and Pauline were the volunteer managers here, almost finished their 2 year term. They were a nice chatty couple and made us feel at home.
   Thursday morning at breakfast we met the other people who were staying at the centre with us. A teacher, his girlfriend (?) and two junior highschool students had come from Lithuania with a whole bunch of paper cranes they had made on the 60th anniversary of the bomb. The woman (I think her name was Auguste), had spent several years at university in Japan and was quite fluent. She speaks at least 4 languages. 2 secondary languagues are mandatory in Lithuanian public school. I always feel inadequate around travellers from other countries. Almost everyone I've met can speak at least english on top of their own language.