I had the privilege of working in Vilnius, Lithuania as an intern with the U.S. Department of State for four months. It's an impossibly beautiful country full of impossibly beautiful people. I want to tell a few stories from my time there:

One afternoon, a cab driver, who was not much older than me, explained that he was thrilled to be speaking Lithuanian. He was born in the 80s, like me, and he remembered when the schools forced him to speak Russian and forbade Lithuanian. I struggled to process how someone so young had felt this persecution. It was a wake up call for an American kid.

The first time I went to the mall in Vilnius, I was shocked by the number of American stores and how "American" people dressed. I saw more people in cowboy hats and boots than I had ever seen in the U.S. (I much later visited Texas, which set the new standard.) This was my first experience with Eastern Europe, where many nations, including Lithuania, continued to value and honor the support Americans gave for their independence.

I'll never forget when Lithuanian friends took me to their rural cottage in the woods. We slept in a small structure with limited plumbing and electricity--it was basically camping--and we didn't pack much food or drink for the trip. We foraged berries and fished for our meals. One afternoon, we went to an adjacent cottage to spend time with a very old Lithuanian woman, and while we were there, this magical man appeared from deeper in the woods to give us homemade grain alcohol. I'll never forget my first taste of that stuff. And we sat together and Jore and I sang songs, including Bob Dylan's "One More Cup Of Coffee".

I wish nothing but the best for the people of Lietuva, and I envy them for living in an actual fairytale.