My dear friend Audra is from Lithuania.
She was born in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, and she lived there until 1996, when she moved to the United States. Now she lives in Chicago, which has been a sister city to Vilnius for three decades. More Lithuanians live in Chicago than anywhere else in the world, outside of Lithuania.
Our sons have been best friends since preschool, so we’ve laughed together at kids’ birthday parties and cried together at kindergarten graduation and talked and texted about everything from mundane carpool plans to our deepest parenting fears. She has introduced me to her Lithuanian beet salad and Voruta black currant wine.
