Vilnius is changing

Whew, got home on Saturday and bought concert tickets just for the next two weeks - it feels like I had to milk the ATMs. Frightening prices they have these days - time I got out my student card; having discovered the benefit of the cheaper 'standing' seats also helps. But the concert halls are still full....

I swear that if you go along Gedimino prospektas, the major shopping street in Vilnius, and have a coffee at each coffee shop along its length, you'll either need to be scraped off the sky (if you had an espresso), or you won't need to eat for a week (if you had a latte). You could of course balance that with a meal at each restaurant on the street, and a drink at each bar.....If you spent a week in Vilnius, you'd never need to leave the street for food or drink, and could possibly eat and drink in a different place each meal. It's obviously becoming a service economy. Not sure that all the businesses are doing all that well, though - some of the shops change hands at a frightening rate.

Some things take longer to change. Having needed a bit of medical investigation recently I put it on my BUPA card and forgot all about it, until I got home. Wow, those charges looked high - the price looked like the Euro version of the Litas price. Inquiry revealed that when the treatment centre deals with BUPA they put a coefficient on the bill. I reckon it's a factor of 3. Nice work if you can get it out of the foreign insurance companies who don't know any better and think that the cost is low ... Another hospital which I need a tiny operation at, and who I asked about the price, has first asked about my citizenship and whether I contribute to the local social insurance system. Though it's private treatment. One rate for the job obviously does not exist. If I pay more, I expect a better service - or should I be looking at this as a form of redistribution of wealth? But already I pay quite enough taxes ...

This is how it was in the Soviet days, when museums and such like charged different entrance fees for locals and for foreigners. Then again, I remember having roof repairs in Scotland and the company asking, before giving me an estimate, whether it was an insurance job....