The Devil’s Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania

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When you travel, the great balance of life presents itself to you. For every yin, there is a yang. For every high, a low. For every Black Sabbath, a Justin Bieber, if you will.

What better way to witness this basic reality than to leave our room in the part of Kaunas, Lithuania chock full of churches and statues of saints, and walk a little further out of town… to the world’s only Devil’s Museum? Mua-ha-haa!

My blood sugars too would prove to be equally varied – excellent all day except for one terrible reading.

The morning

First thing was first; since today was an extra day we’d tacked on, we had to move to a new room in the wonderful Kauno Arkivyskupijos Guest House — now we were on the second floor with a great view over the Old Town square. The sun was just coming in through the large windows, shining off the cobblestones and lending a kind of mystical grandeur to the churches and statues outside. I’ve rarely been in a nicer hostel than this, and it’s affordable too.

Breakfast for the second day in a row was from the Stop N Go café, but in the shop this time instead of in our room. (Masayo is feeling better today.) On the way I checked my morning BG and it was 114. I’ve been on a diabetic roll.

The cups of coffee-to-go I got yesterday from this same café had only been half-filled. Wising up, we ordered large ones today (bigger then we need) so we could have a regular-sized amount of liquid – but this time the cups were filled to the top. Must be some European coffee logic that we rubes don’t get. But we were wired!

It was starting to get drizzly, and we found the Devil’s Museum after getting lost and winding up in a nondescript residential area. Secretly, I enjoy it when this happens — I love seeing places that aren’t touristy, and nothing can give you a more unvarnished, honest look at people than strolling aimlessly down an everyday residential street.

Inside the Devil’s Museum

The Devil’s Museum is based on the collection of a Lithuanian artist from the early 1900s. Countless devil masks and figurines of every description sit in their glass cases, looking confidently impish. A third floor contains various devils from across the world that have been given as gifts to the museum.

The Devil’s Museum is more humorous than darkly Satanic; even the bathrooms have male and female devils on them. I had a lot of fun walking from display to display, trading adversarial but good-natured glances with the playful, behorned red and black fellows.

Around Kaunas in the rain

Back outside, I checked and was 91. In a chilly rain, we took in the Cathedral and walked along the long pedestrian road, which contained numerous shops and even some hardy shoppers.

Lunch was a place called Presto, and it was unexpectedly good. I thought I’d just get a small snack but they had three-egg omelettes with bacon (actual hard bacon pieces, not just ham!) and toast. Who could resist? Not this diabetic. We split a pot of herbal tea. If there’s a better lunch on a rainy day after walking around town in the spirit of The Dark Lord Satan, I don’t know what it is.

Castle between the rivers

Old Town Kaunas is situated on a sort of peninsula created by the convergence of two rivers, the Neris and the Nemunas. (Like us, the Neris had come from Vilnius.) On the triangle of land between them sits Kaunas Castle, a small but stately red brick complex we approached in the wet air of approaching dusk. We paid the admission, and I think we were the only ones there.

Inside the castle are some nice displays on three floors of a tower which you reach via a winding little staircase, but the nicest aspect of Kaunas Castle was its atmosphere. In the cold and musty (but clean) basement are stocks and pillories, old trunks, and alcoves dug into the walls. Being there by ourselves while it was getting dark outside was especially spine-tingling.

After our self-conducted castle tour we went to meet the birds that hang out at the convergence of the Neris and Nemunas — the land makes an actual point, and river birds float in the fast-moving water and then get up and fly around in circles overhead. What a life.

Back in the room my BG was 104; a perfect diabetes day so far, every reading between 70 and 130. Dinner was takeout pizza from a place with an English name, Pizza To Go. I got a beer at a store, and Masayo and I had a pizza picnic in the room, watching a video of Michael Palin from New Europe traveling in Poland which is where we’re headed tomorrow.

After the pizza, thin and manageable though it seemed, my BG was high, 289. Oops. Well, all perfect except for after dinner today. I had some Humalog and my Lantus, then hit the sack for our last night in the wonderful Baltics.

We did nothing yesterday so we could rest up, and it led to an even better day today of exploring Kaunas with a feeling of extra time and an agreeably slow pace. Yin, and yang. The angels around our guesthouse gave way to sly little devils elsewhere in town. Yin, and yang. Yesterday our small coffee cups were half-full and today our big cups were full. Yin, and yang. My blood sugar was excellent all day before a 289 before bed. Yin, and yang.

It was an instructive day in Kaunas, a pretty town infused with personality and its own private grandeur, about the light and shade, the ups and downs, the highs and lows of life.

Have you been in a place that taught you about the yin and yang of life?

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