Yes, the temperature has warmed up and the snow is gone. But it doesn’t really feel like spring to me because nothing is blooming around here. The barren earth and tree branches make me homesick for spring in Seattle. I miss the blossoming cherry trees on the campus of the University of Washington.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Note: After I scheduled this to post today, I heard from a friend that Seattle has gone 42 days without sunshine. That made me feel less homesick. At least we have had sunshine fairly regularly here.
Amanda in Lithuania 
April 15th, 2011 at 12:19 am
There is a small cherry sakura park in Vilnius next to the new Swedbank building (link). It most definitely blooms around april-may. If you’re in the city a couple of weeks from now go check it out. The trees are still very young, planted in 2001 in memory of Chiune Sugihara, who was a consul in Lithuania in 1939-1940. Apparently he helped some jewish families flee the country when the germans came. At least that’s what I was able to make out from reading about it on Wikipedia.
April 15th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Thanks! I didn’t know about the cherry tree park. I will find it so that I can catch the cherry trees in bloom at the end of the month. Yes, Sugihara was the Japanese consul in Kaunas in the 1930s. He saved hundreds of Jews by giving them exit visas to Japan. There is a Sugihara museum in Kaunas and a really interesting documentary film about him.