Lithuania
Cost of Living - 8 Usually you would pay around 300-400 USD a month for a decent 2-3 room apartment. The food prices are cheap compared to the Western European countries, e.g. you can order a pizza for 4-5 USD or a Kebab for 2 USD. Electronic devices are a little bit more expensive compared to UK/Germany(only god knows why).
Recreation - 8 Really depends on what you are looking for. There are a lot of night clubs and bars in the city center. There are several parks which are decent for jogging, the old city is a great place for taking a walk on a nice sunny day. There is an indoor Ski resort only 120 kilometers away from Vilnius, you can find a lot of SPA resorts near the city, big shopping malls etc etc. The girls are very very pretty and it for a foreigner, it is not too hard to get attention from them, def one of the best places to get laid in Europe. When it comes to summer - we have a lot of lakes and the Baltic sea. There are some really nice places to stay at summer, you can basically rent a summer house for the whole summer near the lake shore with awesome nature surrounding you. We have 3 main cities near the seashore,
Palanga is the most popular one, a lot of village people coming there for their summer holidays, Russian music, lots of alcohol, lots of bars. A day in Palanga is pretty straight forward - Wake up, eat some kebab, go sunbathing, get drunk in the evening, dance to Russian music, get in a fight.
Šventoji - another place with village people, though most of them come with their children so it is really calm compared to Palanga.
Nida - def. one of the coolest places to be. No village people, since they can not afford it. A lot of German tourists(it used to be German lands which they visited for their holidays decades ago) are staying there during the summer.
How Scary? - 7 Like all the ex-Soviet countries, Lithuania is not the safest place to be in. Over the years it really became better, though you can still meet some angry chavs that can ask you for a cigarette and beat you up if you are being cocky. There are a few places that you want to avoid walking at night. The police are doing a great job, the only minor issue that it is still easy to bribe them when you are speeding or driving drunk(Might not be an issue for some people). Overall, i would say that it is pretty safe and if you are not looking for problems - you won't get in trouble.
Poker Playing - 8 Playing online is legal. You have to pay 15% taxes for your online winnings, though most of the people don't. There are ways of avoiding the tax, though it is not so big so it is not really an issue to stay legal. There are several casinos(Olympic group) that run cash tables, freezeouts few days a week, there are a lot of poker clubs where you buyin for an amount which you can later spend at the bar. That is how the poker clubs avoid the law which does not allow to play for real money live apart from the casinos. In the past few years, Tony G has been hanging around in Lithuania quite a lot, he has been supporting our national basketball team, organizing quite a few Poker tournaments in his SPA resort. We have of the best Internet services in the world so you can expect cheap internet(20 usd for 100 mbit). The mobile internet is also very cheap so you can play from any place you like.
How Easy to Get There and Stay There? - 9 For Europeans - it's very easy. Since it is in the EU, you will only need to get a residence permit(If you want to use the public hospitals n stuff). I have no idea how it is for people outside EU, but i bet that it should not be too hard getting in. Vilnius airport has an air link with the largest EU cities via Ryanair/Wizzair so it's really cheap to travel around from the place.
Last edited by indigoflowgm; 11-19-2012 at 03:54 AM.