Thank you very much. I am very pleased and honored to be with you today. I would also like to extend my warm welcome to Vilnius. It is indeed a charming and special city. How do I recommend you might enjoy the city? Wander the narrow streets of the Old Town and if you see a courtyard, explore it- You might be surprised how far it goes and you never know what you may see! Vilnius has about 100 churches and are worth a visit. Many have been lovingly and beautifully restored. My husband has been with the State Department as a diplomat for over 30 years. Both born in New England, our upbringing in Massachusetts and Connecticut was far removed from the wandering life. Both us moved locally when we were 3 and then except to live at college, did not leave that house until we were married at the tender age of 21. In fact, I knew so little of the life that when John told me at age 19 when we first met, that he wanted to become a Foreign Service officer, I asked, “What’s that??” But after completing a Master’s in International Relations and the numerous tests and screenings of the State Department, he did indeed become a Foreign Service officer. Our first assignment was in Mexico City- a small city at the time that had only about 15 million people and it seemed about that many cars! We actually drove to the city from Washington D.C over a week’s time. John had never been out of the country and I had only ventured to Canada. So you can imagine our excitement was coupled with confusion and downright fear at times. Is that really a truck trying to pass us on a curve on this mountain? Why is an oncoming car flashing his lights at us? We learned over time that the Mexicans drivers have an elaborate system of signals that did indeed allow for passing on curves or getting back into the traveling lane. Even though we began to understand mountainous driving, nothing prepared us for the ring around the City. Just picture drag racing and lots of horns and you get the picture! I can still bring up my feelings of profound relief when we parked the car next to the Embassy! Speaking of cars, we learned a cultural lesson a few days later, thanks to a stranger. At the time we had a VW Rabbit which had the name on the rear end of the car. A note- in English- was left on the car one day advising us to remove the name plate as rabbit in Spanish was considered a foul word. It was a very thoughtful gesture of that stranger to guide us in being culturally sensitive! When I think of Mexico, though, the biggest adjustment was the differences in how time is viewed. I will refer to this concept again and again as it is seen in other countries. Before coming to Mexico, I always thought that the philosophy of manana was exaggerated. Well, let me tell you now that it isn’t! Time is seen as a completely different concept than many (most!) of us see it. It doesn’t matter if you are discussing when a repair job would be done or even when you are hospitalized and asking a nurse for an extra blanket. Guests would often arrive hours after the designated time. Let’s just say the time is fluid and something not to worry about with any preciseness. Over time, one did learn to be more relaxed about time but sometimes it just was too difficult not to be wanting a bit of preciseness. Such as the time soon after we had a baby. Our hot water was fueled by gas tanks on the roof of the apartment building. When we switched from one tank to another, I would call and a new replacement would arrive before we totally ran out of gas. Well, on this occasion, someone had tampered with our tanks and it was not full so we ran out of gas much faster than we normally would. I called the gas company and stated the problem. When the woman taking the call did not appear to see the urgency of the problem, I stated” but this is an emergency as I have a new baby! What did she reply? Senora, there is no such thing as an emergency! Can you imagine something like that happening in let’s say, Germany?? I just mentioned that we had a baby in Mexico. A defining element of a culture is its views towards childbirth. An obstetrician was recommended to me who had had some training in the U.S. He was patient and understanding of all my questions and agreed to my big request. I had learned it was customary for the baby to be whisked away right away after the birth. Being a nurse, I knew the importance of bonding with the baby in the first hour. It was agreed that John and I could hold the baby in the Delivery Room. We had a glorious 10 or 15 minutes with Jenny before she was taken to the nursery because “she was getting cold”. One thing would have kept her longer in the Delivery Room but we decided against it. I t is customary for all girls to immediately have their ears pierced. (As an aside, our not doing this often led strangers to assume Jenny was a boy since she did not have pierced ears!) When we got to the room, we asked to see the baby but were told manana. Well, to keep this short, it was almost 16 hours before I was able to see the baby which was just torture! Another cultural experience was the Mexican’s belief in the existence of spirits in the hallways. Jenny would always arrive in the room with the crib completely covered to protect her from these spirits. The next year passed quickly as new parents while still trying to absorb as much of the culture as possible. Thanks to our Mexican neighbors, Jenny learned to wave bye bye much more readily to saying “adios” to her rather than “bye-bye”. We survived many minor earthquakes and got somewhat proficient in bargaining. After spending the next 4 years in DC and having our second child, Michelle, we set off in the mid-80’s for our next adventure in communist Poland. Once again we had some adjustments to face. We had been advised that our house was most likely bugged and that the police would enter our house at regular intervals when we were away. Since I had an erratic schedule, I was always afraid that I would enter the house when they were there, but it never happened. I suspect there was a look-out person to prevent that from happening. But they did leave us clues to let us know that they had been there, whether it be leaving a balcony door open or leaving an earring in the bathtub. They obviously were watching the house as invariably when I came into the house with my toddler, carriage, bundles, the phone would be ringing, only for the person to hang up when I answered. No personal mail or anything related to our finances was left in the home to maintain as much privacy as possible. Sensitive conversations were done on outside walks. It was not uncommon when talking to someone if you wanted to say something that could possibly be misconstrued, then you would automatically lower your voice to a whisper and then return to normal when you were done with that thought. No one thought a thing of doing that! Life was difficult for the Poles. Meat stores would usually be completely empty except for maybe one string of sausages, except on delivery day when the line would extend around the block. Lines would even form when news was learned about a new book being published. Coffee, chocolates and aspirin were rationed among other items. Fruit in the winter compromised mainly of apples which became mushier as the winter progressed. Vegetables consisted of root vegetables except for the almighty cabbage, that is! I will never forget a dinner right after a shopping trip to Berlin. The beautiful roast beef was practically ignored and guests eagerly went for the salad- lettuce was a very special treat! We were lucky to have a small store, called a commissary, in the Embassy where items were shipped in from the US or Germany. Fruits and vegetables were brought in from the US Army commissary in Berlin every two weeks. But because of the limited amount, we were subjected to rations. How do you explain to a 1 ½ year old who wants a banana like she had for breakfast the three days before that there just weren’t any more and we had to wait 1 ½ weeks for more? One time in the summer, the commissary received the special treat of tangerines but even families were only allowed one tangerine. But I proudly came home with two for my family as someone who was leaving the next day for the States allowed me to use their ration! As diplomats, our travel by car within Poland was restricted. To leave the city limits, we had to ask in writing for permission, including our route, information on the car, who would be in the car, etc three days before the trip. A spontaneous Sunday drive on a beautiful day was just not possible! One week-end near the end of our 3 years, we went to the coast to Gdansk, the home of Lech Walesa and Solidarity. We were followed by unmarked police cars everywhere we went. One night we were going to a neighboring city for dinner in a hotel. We got lost and were concerned that our “friends” following us would think we were playing with them. When we finally did find the hotel, as we were entering, our older daughter asked” Aren’t our friends coming to eat with us too?’’ So the next day on the beach (because our room was bugged), we tried to simply explain what was happening. Not an easy thing to do without scaring her! Going to a restaurant was always an adventure. If someone went to a restaurant you had heard about, getting a recommendation of “not bad” made it a must that you try it out! Often restaurants would have elaborate, multi-page menus making a decision difficult. But you learned quickly to be flexible because often they did not have your selection or would even point out who in the restaurant had received the last serving! On the positive side, concerts, opera, puppet and ballet performances for children and adults were cheap and well done. Beauty was brought into the drabness of every day life through these performances. The Soviets also still allowed the churches to be open and in fact the Catholic Church was an instrumental factor in obtaining independence. I will never forget the visit of Pope John Paul II and people even clamoring up into trees to catch a glimpse of him at the open air Mass. We became very good friends with many Poles although we learned 10 years later that they were often harassed after leaving our home. Neighbors would not acknowledge our greetings (because of fear of reprisal), but did scare a burglar away one late evening and went two streets over to get our gardener to explain to us what had happened. We left with very sad hearts having no idea that we would return seven years later, albeit to a very different country. When we arrived in 1995, Poland had been independent for 6 years and changes were everywhere. Ex-patriots were very instrumental in helping to make those changes. Where the expat community in the 80’s comprised of diplomats and a few missionaries, now in the mid-90’s there was a very large community comprised of individuals from such companies as Proctor and Gamble, ESSO or Citi Bank. The big question was always asked, “Why are you here?” and the answers you would hear would be, “I am here to help them set up their ATM system, I am here to start a Yellow Pages, or I am here to start HBO.” A subway was open and restaurants, high rise office buildings, huge supermarkets (where the workers moved around on roller skates) and shopping malls were rapidly opening. Besides the International Women’s Group that had been in existence for a long time, a new group called the American Friends of Warsaw blossomed offering events for both women and families to get to know Warsaw and Poland better. I had the opportunity to work as a Medical Officer for the Peace Corps which at its peak had over 250 volunteers throughout Poland teaching English, working on environment issues and helping small businesses. It was an exciting and heady time to be in a country that had been held down for so long. We have visited Poland a few times since we left and it has continued to grow and it is now a modern European city while still retaining much of its charm and history. After our four years in Poland, we spent two very pleasant years in Brussels. We loved living in such a small country and being able to easily visit any part of the country on a day trip or even go to another country within hours. I will never forget talking to my Dutch neighbor one day in the mid-afternoon and her excusing herself because she was to meet her husband in Paris for dinner! As many of you know, there is a very active and established American Women’s Club and I enjoyed many of their offerings from French or exercise classes to various outings throughout the country. We have also been fortunate to live for seven years, on two different tours in Germany. Same country but again two very different experiences. In the early 90’s before returning to Poland, we were posted to Bonn, then the capital of Germany. For the first time, we lived on a compound for American Embassy personnel, called the American Ghetto by Germans! Built by the American Corps of Engineers after World War II, Plittersdorf was a small town complete with schools, stores, library, sports center and community center. It was like living in small town USA in the 50’s. My husband was fond of saying that he expected Beaver and Wally to ride down the street any minute. The children had a lot of freedom and walked and biked everywhere. In fact, my older daughter’s school was directly across from our apartment building and on one of the first days of school, she discovered the spot her class would stand during a fire drill was right in front of her bedroom window! I worked full time at the Embassy as one of the Embassy nurses but was still able to attend school events or be there for emergencies because the Embassy was only 10 minutes away. We might have been tucked in little America, we still thoroughly enjoyed Germany. We lived on the banks of the Rhine and we never tired of watching the busy barge traffic. We loved visiting castles and the quaint towns along the Rhine complete with half timbered houses and going to wine festivals. Each year during the first week-end in May, there is a huge event along miles of the Rhine River called Rhinen am Flammen. It was to commemorate the Romans attempting to conquer the area but the citizens deciding that they would rather burn their properties rather than the Romans rule them. Parades of boats went from Koblenz to a little beyond Bonn- a distance of about 30 kms. Towns along the way would have firework displays, castles would appear to be burning and torches would extend along the shores of the river. It would end with a huge firework display in Bonn. It was an unforgettable experience. Of course, one cannot talk about this region and not mention Fasching or the celebration the week before Lent started. It was a time of parades where profuse amounts of candy and other items would be tossed out to the crowd, crazy costumes, wild parties and deep traditions. One of my German colleagues planned how her hair was to be cut for months ahead so it would be just right for her “punk” look during Fasching. Eight years later, we returned to Germany but again to a very different capital and country. Berlin was now the capital of the united country and changes were very evident. Coming into the city, one could see cranes everywhere and the differences between East and West Berlin began to blur. Berlin was and is a vibrant, exciting city. Culture was everywhere whether it be at one of the three opera houses, the world renowned philharmonic, the many art museums and galleries or even a red carpeted World premier of a movie. We actually had dinner with Tom Cruise in Berlin and met the very gracious Will Smith. Where once had been “no mans land “between the two Walls, is now a vibrant, very modern area comprising of high rises and Postdamer Platz- a center filled with restaurants, movie theaters and bars. We visited many high schools and took tough and intelligent questions from the students. We traveled extensively throughout the country and often returned from one trip, re-packed and went off again. We loved going to the Baltic coast and spent many vacation in southern Germany skiing in the Alps. We even had the opportunity to go down a professional bobsled course at terrifying speeds with the only instruction from the driver of what to do if we rolled over! I have to say that is one experience I would not like to repeat but my younger daughter thought it was great! Our daughters, now in university and graduate school loved to come to Berlin and enjoyed the rich nightlife. I have often thought how the timing was perfect for Bonn and the quieter life and then to Berlin with all its excitement when the girls were old enough to enjoy it. I had said before that I would mention the concept of time again. In Germany, we learned the importance of being punctual or punktlich. It meant that you were not early and you were not late, you were on time. I can remember walking around a friend’s neighborhood killing time because I was five minutes early. Quite a contrast to Mexico! We arrived in Lithuania in August of 2006 after being in Berlin for 3 years. I had assumed I would understand Lithuania’s recent past because of our years in communist Poland but I have learned that it was very different to be a satellite country such as Poland and being part of the Soviet Union. In order to understand modern day Lithuania, I feel we should talk a little bit about what it was like here in Soviet occupied Lithuania before Independence in 1990. The KGB watched every step of every citizen. It was known that in university, the KGB had a designated student in every group that would report any student slacking off or doing anything considered questionable. Children starting in first grade were obligated to join groups that would instill the Communist principles. If you did not join, you were subjected to ridicule or being ignored by teachers and classmates alike. Letters to people outside of the Soviet Union were often intercepted. Many churches were closed or used for other purposes in the city. Churches in the villages remained open but people were encouraged not to go. Teachers were forbidden to attend church with the threat of losing their job. Christmas, as a religious holiday was not openly celebrated and Christmas tree or decorations were forbidden before Christmas. They were only allowed to be used before New Year’s which was celebrated. Gatherings were discouraged because perhaps in a group, ideas against communism would be discussed. The person I discussed this period with had a friend whose birthday was on one of the Lithuanian Independence Days- every year when she had a birthday party, she was visited by the KGB who thought she was celebrating the former patriotic holiday. Food was limited unless you were part of the Communist Party and could shop at special clothing or food stores. Vegetables were limited and fruits non- existent in the winter. People would receive through work coupons to buy such items as TVs, vacuum cleaners, furniture, or carpets. There were more people than coupons so people would win the coupons through a lottery and if won, would take them even if they didn’t need the item as someone they knew could use it. Despite this bleak picture, I was assured that people were generally happy. There were cultural events, particularly involving music, dances or excursions to other Soviet countries for both children and adults. The evils of the West were often discussed so people felt they were lucky to be in the Soviet Union. Travel or contact in general outside of the Soviet Union was very severely limited so it was easy to maintain this illusion. But this all dramatically changed with Lithuania once again obtaining its independence in 1990. Lithuania has been a proud member of the European Union and of NATO since 2004. It has been such an honor to be the American Ambassador and First Lady here. Being a relatively small country, we have been fortunate to be able to travel extensively to both the large cities and many of the small towns too. We have enjoyed the Baltic coast and the numerous lake regions. Everywhere, government and private citizens alike are working hard to meet the needs of their community. Freedom is certainly not taken for granted but cherished. We have visited many schools and are always impressed with the students who are the future of the country. My husband urges the students to talk to their teachers and parents about how life used to be before 1990 so they can truly appreciate what they have now. Cultural life is very rich. Music is everywhere whether it be at the Philharmonic, the Ballet and Opera House or in a partially renovated church. Jazz is particularly loved. When talking about modern day Lithuania, you have to mention basketball. Being fans of the sport, we have gone to many a game of both men and women teams and have thoroughly enjoyed watching the skill of the players as well as being part of such an enthusiastic crowd of fans. Our older daughter actually just visited us last week because she wanted to make sure that she too could experience a Lithuanian basketball game and she was not disappointed. In addition to meeting many Lithuanians, we have also been honored to meet many Lithuanian Americans. They range from President Adamkus who spent roughly 50 years of his life in the United States to one who is a former Finance Minister to another who is a major patron of the opera to several dynamic Catholic nuns who have an incredible amount of energy and desire to give back to the country of their roots. Many Lithuanians that left during the war have now returned either full time or part time and some of their children are now full time residents here. The diplomatic community is also very involved in the re-birth of Lithuania. Something I have been very involved with for the past three years is the International Christmas Charity Bazaar sponsored by the International Women’s Association of Vilnius which is held annually in early December. An event of true international cooperation, over 30 countries and Lithuanians work together to raise money for organizations that serve the needs of women, children and the elderly. This past December, despite the worsening economy, we increased our revenue by over 30 % from the previous year and raised over 100,000 Euros. Your selected charity for this conference, The Mother and Child Care Home, was one of our recipients from last year. It has been extremely rewarding for me to lead the effort to decide who would be our charitable recipients. I have met extraordinary dedicated people meeting various needs, whether it be of the high risk child or mother, the severely disabled or the needy elderly. Often it is a very difficult decision but we particularly like to support organizations that have little outside help. Being a part of the European Union has made a tremendous difference for many organizations both financially and for the purposes of exchanging of programs and ideas alike.

For the final time, I will talk about the concept of time. We have talked of the laissez- faire attitude of Mexico and the preciseness of Germany. Well, here you are encouraged to be early. I have learned to be ready at least a half hour before the time we invited our guests and often by that designated time, the event is in full swing! I have noticed that more and more I am also 10 or 15 minutes early for an event. I wonder if that will continue when we return to the States??

This brings my talk to an end. Although at times, I feel that our lives could have been simpler, I feel so blest to have the many and varied experiences that we have had. Our daughters, now young adults, thank us for the opportunities we were able to give them. They are both very tolerant and broad minded women. Each country has taught me something and I hope I am a better person for it. My heart is certainly full of memories of the special people I have met through the years. We love to go back to our former posts and see old friends and visit old haunts. I wish each of you wonderful adventures and special encounters wherever you are in the world!

Thank you very much! You were a wonderful audience!