The flight from Prague to Warsaw took 3.4 hours. The goal was to refuel (machine and humans) and then continue on to Lithuania. When we arrived the wind started to pick up. By the time we had refueled and lunch, the cross wind was 25 knots. So we decided to stay overnight after we confirmed the weather predictions fot the next day and that the winds typically are calm in the morning. We checked into a Novotel near the airport, which looked like every other Novotel except for extensive construction sites around it. Then we took the bus to downtown, wandered around and had a nice caviar dinner.

 
   
   
   
   

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Kaunas 2000     

Our flight from Warsaw to Kaunas was 2.8 hours. We flew to Kaunas because it was the first international airport we reached in Lithuania and I liked to stay below 3.5 hours of flying time whenever possible, to have plenty of gasoline left at landing. The town developed at the confluence of two fairly large rivers and is a very interesting mix of old and new. Here is the first time that we talked with locals about changes in the last 10 years. The feedback we got was repeated over and over during our trip. "It is much harder now. Looking and competing for work is difficult. Many people have no work - it did not used to be this hard and this way". Looking around we saw many construction sites for restauration and modernization, especially in downtown areas. We did not meet many foreigners in Kaunas, but it seemed foreign businesses were the main sponsors for the commercial constructions.