Okay then what is this a photo of?

Well for one it is taken through our lounge window looking through the trees directly across the road.

It is a photo of a new cafe that has just opened up. There isn’t really anything that special about it. It is a little dark at the back, but has lots of sunshine at the front. Its music is commercial, yeah commercial, but good commercial music, a little too loud, but not so bad. The waitress was smiley and friendly, like most was slightly bemused at my Lithuanian and my friend’s English.

So why does it make my blog? Because it has Piazza D’oro coffee. Now I can safely say that the cafe across the road has the best coffee and cappuccino in the city. In the Niles Crane school of coffee (of which I strictly adhere too) there was a little too much froth. But it is Piazza D’oro so it can’t really go wrong. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Before writing this blog I discovered that Piazza D’oro, LavAzza Coffee, Pickwick Tea and Kiwi shoe polish are all Sara Lee products. Boo to the big multinationals. Unconfirmed rumour has it that Sara Lee produces one of the lowest percentages of Free Trade Coffee out of most coffee producers. In fact my research of the Fair Trade UK website doesn’t have them listed as a Fair Trade seller. Even Starbucks and Nestle got a mention there. However it is a little difficult to relax in a cafe over a good coffee in this country, for as yet I do not know of any cafes that support either Fair Trade or the individual bean grower.

Anyhow another interesting picture for you. There are many beautiful traditions in Lithuania and one of them is the painting of real hens’ eggs and giving them away at Easter. Here are the four examples that we were given this year. I don’t really know the process of dying, but I do know that the top left one is dyed with onion skins. Perhaps next Easter someone can teach me. 🙂
And lastly is this photo of the end of my squash season. I have been enjoying burning off excess fat and generally getting healthy over the past three months of weekly squash games. The photo was taken and adapted by my squash partner and I stole it directly from his website. If you click here you may or may not be able to read his blog entry. We are having a four week rest before we hopefully pick up again in the summer. That is me on the left in the mighty Highlanders’ jumper.