Lativa and Lithuania

Our holiday (4th of July and Kenny's Birthday) weekend was spent in Latvia and Lithuania. It was a great trip and both countries surprised us with their beauty, friendly, English-speaking (a surpise to us) people, and great food. I can't figure out how Germany can be surrounded by so much amazing food and still only offer bratwurst and cabbage. Riga is a gorgeous town with beautiful beaches nearby. The temperatures were in the high 70's to low 80's, but being so far North, the water is always freezing. We toured the Occupation Museum which took you through the years of Latvia's Soviet, then German, then Soviet again occupation. What a turbulant history the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) have. Saturday we drove down the Lithuania and it's Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and then on to the beach for the boys to dig in the sand. The Hill of Crosses was well worth the drive. The origins of the hill are unknown, but it's estimated that there are over 50,000 crosses there. During the Soviet occupation the hill was bulldozed at least three times, but new crosses would sprout up overnight. In 1993 Pope John Paul II visited and a monument is there to commemerate his visit.
Here are some pictures. I was having problems getting the captions to show up right and if you want to slow it down, click the slide show.