Trying to be more cheerful!

We had snow here at the beginning of November but since then it has just been overcast and in the 30's to 40's with occasional rain. I prefer the snow and look forward to its return. It at least lightens things up so they're not so dreary. These pictures were taken when we took our trip to the coast of Lithuania. We walked to a "Chinese" restaurant for dinner and took the first picture just outside the door of the restaurant. We walked by the ship on the way there. We want to take some pictures of the park where we walk every morning and the sidewalk sweepers and dumpsters on the way, since we have mentioned them, but it's just so dark and dreary all day every day! We're not sure if the pictures would come out well. I guess all we can do is try because it doesn't look as if waiting is going to be profitable.
Update: last night I went with Susanne to the "book club" dinner to discuss Elie Wiesel's book, NIGHT. It was held at a little Jewish restaurant. We almost didn't find it. We walked there because James had taken the car to go teach Institute (a religion class for college-aged students for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Besides, it was a fairly warm evening and it wasn't raining. There aren't a lot of street lights here and the buildings are right up close to the narrow streets. We walked down the little side street where the restaurant was supposed to be and nearly gave up just before we finally saw lights through an open window and the name of the place on the wall above it. There were probably 7-8 little tables. They had pushed 2 together for our group of 7, the only patrons for the first hour and a half. We were there starting at 6:30. Besides Susanne and me, there was an English woman (she and her husband have lived here for 3 years and will "leave when they get tired of it"), a Lithuanian woman who seemed about my age (I never did find out how she connected to the group), a Lithuanian woman who runs the library in the American school (her husband is from India and they met in Russia at school), and 2 American women who teach at the school. The discussion went pretty much as one might expect considering the subject of the book. (You could read the book if you are interested and willing to be depressed.) The most interesting part of the evening for me was near the end of our time there when a slightly stooped man with wavy white hair entered and was seated at a table, obviously there for a meal. He sat by himself for awhile then came over to our table and excused himself for interrupting and asked if some of us were Americans. We said that, indeed, some of us were. He spoke quite fluent English but had a hint of an accent. As we found out, he was from America recently but was originally from Germany. He is here in Vilnius because he is a photographer whose pictures are on a month-long exhibition in the "photographer's union gallery" on the main street of the old city. His photographs are of Holocaust survivors. Here we were sitting in a Jewish restaurant in a city that was once known as the Jerusalem of Europe discussing a book written by a Holocaust survivor talking to the only other patron in the place who happened to be from Germany and is a photographer exhibiting pictures of Holocaust survivors. Interesting, don't you think?...................