Vans Team Trip – Lithuania Pt. 1
February 13, 2013 at 21:10
If you are one of our frequent visitors you might have seen us familiarizing ourselves with the Lithuanian scene. We met a great guy last summer in DeuxAlpes and after that we kept the ball rolling. Since Vans was giving us the opportunity to go on a team trip we didn’t hesitate for a second and decided to pay a visit to this unexplored land of the shred. We knew there were quite some possibilities after seeing Tough Kids from the Hate Hard crew but we had no idea. No fucking idea to be frank. Hold on to your couches cause you’re gonna be seeing things in the next few weeks from this Baltic state you had no idea existed.
-
- We wanted to leave on Wednesday morning the 6th of February, it turned out to be the evening after we spent the day at GV headquarters where a whole new park was being prepared for transport to a snowdome in the UK. Here Tim is checking out Ka$h Lemons his fresh meat in the new Method Mag. Cop that if you wanna find out if Kas is joining the MS-13 when it drops!
-
- G lighting a ciggie.
-
- Early morning drive through Poland, the scenery alone was worth the 18 hour drive.
-
- Roadside piss stop for Cees Wille.
-
- Right upon arriving in Vilnius we spotted a bunch of cool sites. When you see this you know your next 2 weeks are gonna be good.
-
- We met up with our Lituanian connection in the person of Vytautas Vaičaitis. We hooked him up with some truly Dutch delicacies while we settled in our new place.
-
- The man with a nice hairdo.
-
- Vytas started showing us around his city while it started to snow a little.
-
- A crazy unfinished building near the Akropolis mall. We searched hours for some lights but it took us hours and we only found one set somewhere in a mall. Very unsuccesfull mission but we got a feel for the area.
-
- That night we went to the homies resort in Vilnius and met up with Panda, Vytas’ brother and a lot of other Lithuanian shredheads.
-
- Cees and G took a few runs but since I have a torn ACL MCL and Tim didn’t bring a board we sat in the lodge and drank some beers and watched old snowboard movies. Good vibe in there.
-
- The next day we got up early to get to work. Vytas took us to one of the more famous rails in the city where Cees and both G got a few tricks. We immediately fell in love with the rawness of the city. Here Cees leans into a frontlip.
-
- Not that much snow but certainly enough to hit a rusty rail somewhere in the backwoods ghetto of Vilnius.
-
- G taking the grinder to one of the rails we hit that day. There was some sketchy metal sticking out which he got rid off.
-
- The dropin was generating a little bit too much speed so we just popped the ramp on the back of the truck. Vytas signing G he is in place.
-
- This guy hooked me up with a ciggie. He just came up to me and started flashing the pack. “No filter very good!” he kept saying. I was down. He continued to offer us some home made herbal tea and when the session was over he showed me his fresh caught bass.
-
- Apparently this means all the lights are 40 percent off. Thanks Vytas for the translation!
-
- Picked up some shit at the hardware store. The girl behind the register was hyped.
-
- G checking out how comfy the fishes get here in the supermarket. This shit wouldn’t fly in the west. They looked miserable. First off I would never consider eating these and second I don’t know why they keep em like this, cruel as fuck.
-
- We scoped some stuff that night and somehow ended up driving through a park where we spotted this giant amphitheater.
-
- You can find this triple down rail right when you drive into Vilnius. There’s rails like these all over, it’s ridiculous. Too bad this one has some weird knobs on it so it was kinda impossible to hit sideways. And the snow situation was meagre at best.
-
- We drove around a sketchy area with garage boxes for miles and got pulled over. They were chill and after checking our documents we were let off. Two minutes later and we got pulled over again. Turned out later when we spoke to Vytas that area is sketchy as fuck.
-
- Saturday morning we woke up to a nice fresh dusting of snow. We are staying in the nice area of town as you can see. This is the view from our bedroom. Hyped for the day we made a smooth breakfast for a few Lytas, the national currency. We bought half a kilo of bacon for 4 Lytas, which corresponds to a bit over a euro. Not too shabby.
-
- Postland man Tim in the reflection zone of the truck. We found a sick doublekink to ledge the night before and decided to hit it. It was in the walkway of a church. Nobody seems to mind here untill this old man came to us and started tripping and spitting on himself. I gave him my phone as to talk to Vytas so he could explain a thing or two. Turned out the man had never seen snowboarders in his life and was scared for our wellbeing. Sweet man with gold teeth, may you be well.
After this it turned out there was a contest from Red Bull in downtown Vilnius. Without knowing what to expect we headed over there before we were gonna pick up Max de Vries, who just turned 14, from the airport. That is up next. Thanks to Vans, Vytas, GV Constructions and the whole nation of Lithuania for welcoming us in their amazing country.
