Life out of Latvia (an Interim)

2012-01-12T13:30:00.001-05:00

Ridiculously Belated Road Trip Recap

2011-09-30T22:22:00.000-04:00

Holy hell it's been some time. Some time since writing, of course, but also ~~some time~~ a stupidly long time since March. Just to get my writing mood going again I figured I'd finally get around to a recap of what went down during spring break. Mostly I need a break from translating a very rough chapter of the book I'm working on for my thesis. Might as well be somewhat constructive about it... The trip itself was something I personally definitely wanted to do this year, but I will say that it's something I won't be wanting to do again for a while now, at least not at the same harried driving pace. The United States is a very, very large country and it takes close to forever to cross a single state (with the exception of Indiana, bless its little heart). The overall experience was a positive one and I'm glad I did it; I'm also happy I got to see as much as we did. If anything, I can say and recommend to everyone to undertake a similar trip, even if in his or her own country. The States are so varied in topography, geography and climate (the temperature climbed almost 20ºF in one 15-minute portion of our trip through California) that even the boring parts (a.k.a. Nevada and northern Arizona and New Mexico) wind up being something to see and experience. Also, my list of favorite places now includes Colorado and California.
Now, just to be clear, the reason behind the March trip could be boiled down to two things:1) an accessible car;2) tacos.
In fact, if I remember correctly, the part of the conversation with my fellow graduate student and (then) future roommate, Emily, leading up to the decision went something like this:
Emily: Man I miss San Francisco. The tacos there are out of this world.
Kaija: I bet! ...Mmm. Tacos...
Emily: Tacos...
Kaija: *a few moments later* ...Wanna drive to California over spring break?
Emily: YES.
And the trip was born.

Friday, March 4
Emily and I head leave the state of New York Friday afternoon. We are excited, energized, in high spirits, and are driven by the prospect of the adventure ahead of us—but mostly by the thought of Californian tacos. Our plan is to reach San Francisco by Monday afternoon. We make it to Columbus, Ohio, in a little over 6h, where Emily is introduced to Caribou Coffee and I am introduced to a scratchy throat. We stay the night at my cousin's house just outside Columbus.

Saturday, March 5
We're on the road by 09.00 Saturday morning. It's raining, generally crappy weather wise, but we are still energetic and clock just over 13h in driving over the course of the day. The drive through the rest of Ohio is uneventful, as is the quite literal sprint across Indiana (probably my favorite state to drive through because it's over in under two hours and makes me feel as if I've accomplished something). Illinois and northern Missouri are an entirely different matter. This part of Missouri is at the tip of the Bible Belt and we see numerous road-side billboards advocating three main topics: Jesus, guns, and babies. We are unanimous in the opinion that this part of America is a scary place—we cannot drive through Missouri fast enough. The only plus is stopping to get gas and hearing some hardcore southern accents, as well as seeing a four-year-old boy in a stetson. The remainder of the drive includes a 45-minute stretch through the south-west corner of Iowa and a slightly confusing lead-in into the city of Lincoln, Nebraska. As a university city, Lincoln turns out to be not as boring as we'd expected it to be.

Sunday, March 6
Our plan to be on the road by 09.00 the next morning is shot when I wake up feeling like death. Even the thought of dragging myself out to the car makes me feel as if I'll pass out; my scratchy throat had happily incubated itself into a full-body, all-encompassing cold. An hour later I manage to get to the car and we hit the road again, but not before one last stop at a Caribou Coffee before we leave the Midwest. The state of Nebraska continues to surprise us. It's not as flat as it's made out to be and has plenty of rolling plains and eye-catching horizons. There's something inherently wholesome about it all. We drive through one area littered with ponds and reservoirs—and literally swarming with birds (which we later learned were pelicans). It would be frightening if it hadn't been so awe-inspiring. Before turning south to head toward Colorado we decide to take a 1.5h detour north to see Chimney Rock—something we and the majority of our friends recognize and know from the computer game "Oregon Trail." The rock itself is not that inspiring, but the historical information and displays in the tiny museum are. We then head back to the main highway, stop to climb a wall of cube-shaped hay bales, then cross into Colorado. The drive into Denver is anticlimactic, but relieving. After around 8h of trip time for the day we find or hotel and learn there may be a nasty blizzard hitting the city by daybreak Monday. We make alternate plans to extend our stay if necessary, citing the pending blizzard as a good reason to hit the slopes the next day and get some mileage out of our snowboards, which—obviously—we had packed along.

Monday, March 7
Monday morning opens to a grand total of ZERO SNOW ANYWHERE in the city of Denver. WTF, weather channel? Additionally, in a surprising turn of events, Emily wakes up feeling like death. Which is odd, as it's not like we'd been sitting in the same enclosed space together for the past three days. An hour later Emily feels up to sitting in the car, but we're still stuck in Denver until almost noon, as all of the roads leading out of the city in all directions are listed on the State Transportation website as iced-over and dangerous. To kill time we find a camera shop and then a coffee shop. A little after noon we finally leave Denver. The first ski resort recommended to us ended up being approximately no where freaking near where Google Maps told us it would be. Instead of boarding we spend an hour or so driving along a narrow, winding hill/mountain-side road. Instead of being annoyed we're amazed at the views, the fog, the forests. Western Colorado is a gobsmackingly beautiful place. An hour later we're at Arapahoe Basin and find a small, semi-secluded ski and board slope. We pay our tickets and get a grand total of 30 minutes to board—turns out all the slopes in Colorado close by 16.00. This is unlike Minnesota or New York, where places are open until at least 23.00, if not 00.00 on weekends. Nonetheless we are okay with being able to say we've boarded in Colorado. The rest of the roads through Colorado are clear and gorgeous; mountains on both sides, the river winding next to the road... We make it to Grand Junction just after dark and plan to stay there because of another potential blizzard on the way. We luck out and are able to stay with some of Emily's relatives for the night. Only 6h of driving today, but we're exhausted.

Tuesday, March 8
A good night's sleep in a real house and a good breakfast later we're ready to head out for Utah. But not before taking several minutes to admire the view from Emily's relatives house—they live by the Mesa, which looks incredibly inviting in the early morning light. But we have ~~bigger fish to fry~~ ~~roads to travel~~ tacos to eat. Utah turns out to be another mind-blowing state topographically and we stop at almost every sightseeing point along the road. In Provo, Utah, we stop and visit with a friend of Emily's, then trek on to Nevada. Which is supposed to be one of the most desolate and boring states to drive through. Ever. Luckily, our Nevada stretch takes place at night, and other than a sense of mystery (it's impossible to see anything off the side of the road and all you're aware of is intermittent inclines and declines) it really does kind of suck. The day's 11h drive ends in Winnemucca, a city that truly fits its name. Especially the "mucca" part of it. At the hotel, I point and laugh at the white pick-up truck I park across from because it's covered in a thick layer of sand and dust.

Wednesday, March 9
Wednesday morning Emily feels a bit sick again, but we want to get the hell out of Winnemucca ASAP and pack up to leave. In the parking lot I stop short—I don't see my car ANYWHERE. I am convinced it has been towed or stolen, until I realize the now greyish-brown car parked across from the dirty white pick-up is mine. I become convinced Nevada is nothing but dust, unfortunate city names, and CSI: Las Vegas. The rest of Nevada no one cares about, until we hit the California border. At the border crossing we declare and are allowed to keep our celery, then make a stop in Tahoe for some fresh air and to stretch our legs. Tahoe is a bit confusing, but very lovely. As are the 10-foot snow banks and face-sized pine cones. We check out a few ski and board shops, get some coffee, and take pictures of a Jeep from Germany and a basset hound in a knit sweater. A few hours later we hit the green part of California and the car rings with sounds not unlike a hyperactive choir of teen-girl angels. We make a quick stop at a rest area to jump up and down and squeal before meeting up with a friend of mine in Alameda for dinner. Afterward we make a quick stop to see San Francisco from the inland side of the bay, then arrive at the condo of more of Emily's relatives. 7h of driving later we're back in a real-house situation and finally at our destination, and only two days later than scheduled. False-alarm blizzards and rampant colds be damned—Taco Mecca, we have arrived.

Thursday, March 10
Thursday begins with dropping my car off at a dealership for its first 10,000 mile check-up (go big or go home). I'm amazed that the VW dealer there had no problems doing the free check-up, considering a) the car is plated in Minnesota and b) we drove from New York. The representative I talk to takes one look at my car through the window and writes "CAR WASH" in thick letters at the bottom of the receipt. Take that, Nevada! The rest of the day is fast-paced, with some light shopping (Emily used to live in San Francisco and wanted to stop at a few places, while I stood around a Crumpler shop practically drooling until I found the ideal messenger bag), meeting up for lunch (tacos) with another of Emily's friends, then a ferry trip to Sausalito, then missing the ferry and being stuck in Sausalito for around 2h, then booking it to Mission Street for a delicious (one of the most delicious, actually) snack (tacos), before Emily went off to spend time and have dinner (tacos) with family and I went to pick up the car before meeting up with some more of my friends in the city for dinner (tacos). I about die of stress from driving in downtown San Francisco, but still filter enough of my surroundings in to know it's a very colorful and exciting place.

Friday, March 11
Friday we wake up and, after breakfast (leftover tacos—duh), immediately have to decide what our course of action will be. We plan to meet up with my friends in Pismo Beach, but may have to rethink or reroute our course due to potential road closings on the coast. News of the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan has just reached us, as has information that California's coast is threatened by tidal waves. We stop and have coffee with my cousin not long after leaving San Francisco, stop at a few wineries along the route to start stocking the trunk of the car, and by the time we are within an hour of Pismo my friends call and give the all-clear, saying there is little wave activity on the coast by them. We get to Pismo with enough time to catch a genuine California sunset, then head into Splash Cafe for the area's best clam chowder. We decide to continue on to Bakersfield that night to make up for the time we lost the past few days. The road to Bakersfield is—if possible—even sketchier than the road to Winnemucca, and all we know is we're driving through groves of something.

Saturday, March 12
Bakersfield is uninteresting city wise, but we drive around for a bit blasting a Hispanic mariachi radio station while we look for a post office, where the postal worker rudely reads Emily's postcards without trying to hide the fact (at least wait until your customers are gone, you creeper), then gets confused when he looks at my postcard (suck it, you fool) and sees something other than English or Spanish. The drive out of Bakersfield and east through California is also pretty cool. We find a fantastic fruit and nut depot and pile the car with bags of dried fruit, nuts, and fresh oranges. Crossing the border out of California is a sad moment, but one we quickly turn around by making a random stop in the Mojave to see if our boards work equally well on sand. Since we find gravelly hills sharp with rock and shrubbery, our boards do not, I repeat, do not work well. We drive on to Flagstaff, where we stay the night, missing the chance (and daylight) to make a detour to the Grand Canyon by a few hours. With the exception of a few interesting sandscapes, one of the only good things about Arizona is the fiery, hot-pink sunset, colors I have never before seen in nature. Around 8h of driving today.

Sunday, March 13
The rest of the drive through Arizona is uneventful and boring, and the drive through into New Mexico is like having your teeth pulled by someone who has no idea how to properly anesthetize patients or pull teeth, but is really, really enthusiastic about it nonetheless. We're drained from the knowledge that we've seen and left California, and all we have to look forward to now is the long drive home. Another element making the return trip shitty to the nth degree is Daylight Savings—not only do we lose an hour in general, but with each time zone we cross we lose another hour. Thus, when we roll into Albuquerque around what the clock on the dash says is 01.00 pre-Daylight savings California time, it's actually 03.00. And we cannot. Find. A single. Hotel. With vacancies. Anywhere. Turns out there's some high school division track competition (or something similar or entirely unrelated—high school sports are all the same to me since I graduated high school) and practically every hotel is booked solid for Sunday night. We finally luck out and find a hotel, then find out the only reason they have vacancies is because one of the local teams was disqualified (so sad for you—so when do you serve breakfast?). We are beyond tired and agitated from the horrible things Time itself is doing to us.

Monday, March 14
Seeing as we're in New Mexico, we decide it would only be logical to have tacos and like-foods for a late-ish breakfast. We are wrong. Even though we chose a family-looking restaurant that seems teeming with locals, the food kind of looks and tastes like it was removed from a small cardboard box and placed in a microwave for 2-3 minutes on "High." We make it out of New Mexico, through Amarillo in the nubbin of Texas, and into Oklahoma City by nightfall. We are greeted by incredibly hazy skies, the result of grass fires just outside the city. The drive through Oklahoma City proper is uneventful, and we find a hotel just on the other side and well away from any potential smoke or fire damage.

Tuesday, March 15
Tuesday we push through almost 11h of driving to get to Nashville, Tennessee, where we stay with another of Emily's friends for the night. We decide it's best not to dwell on Arkansas too much—we intended to drive through there as quickly and efficiently as possible, and we were successful in doing so.

Wednesday, March
In the morning we head into the outskirts of downtown Nashville to meet another friend of mine for breakfast at a sweet coffee shop, Fido. Then we hit the road again in time to call in on speaker phone to our Wednesday morning class, which we had intended to be back in time for. Oh well—at least we made the effort. The next 1.5h is spent discussing a book we'd just read with our fellow students back at the university. Except we are put on mute because of the feedback the phone was getting from the car, so we take liberties in going off on our own tangents and shouting at other drivers on the road. We stop in Kentucky at a few wineries and the Jim Beam distillery—where the air smells of sweet, sweet bourbon, and the view is pretty good, too. Though we'd initially planned on making the final stretch home in one day, we are too knackered from the trip as a whole and only make it the 7h to Columbus, where we again stay with my cousin.

Thursday, March
Feeling more slightly more rested, we take our time leaving Columbus, stopping at a Caribou Coffee downtown before driving back north. No other significant stops are made during the day—we just want to get the hell back to our homes already. Which we do.

The end. I also took somewhere around 1500 pictures I think. At least those are the ones I decided to keep.

Stone Upon Stone

2011-06-14T12:55:00.003-04:00

Oh looky-loo! In between not writing about the 2011 Road Trip and finishing up my first year of graduate school, I hacked out another book review. I'm really starting to enjoy Archipelago Press books, and while 2-2 may not seem like a telling result, it certainly means something to me!

This review was of Polish writer Wiesław Myśliwski's Stone Upon Stone, a fantastic book just under 550 pages long. Here's the beginning of the review:

" It doesn’t take that many pages to figure out that the narrator of Stone Upon Stone is a womanizing, egotistical douche bag. Through a hyperbolic and highly digressive retelling of his life (ironically centered on the construction of a tomb), main man Szymek Pietruszka makes it clear that he is known by all around him as the best drinker, fighter, singer, dancer, ladies’ man—all the men want to be him and all the women want to be with him, etc. etc. But what’s amazing is that as much as Szymek is the type of guy you’d want to elbow hard in the back of the neck “on accident,” you can’t help but feel for and even like him. In just under 600 pages of palpable rural Polish imagery and culture, author Wiesław Myśliwski shows how easy it is to take a man who has seemingly spent his life at the top of his game and break him down piece-by-piece until he has nothing left but himself and the land.

Wiesław Myśliwski (1932- ) is an award winning Polish novelist and playwright whose novels have largely not yet been translated into English (with the exception of Palace [1991, Peter Owen Ltd] and the forthcoming A Treatise on Shelling Beans [2013, Archipelago]). Stone Upon Stone (Polish original published in 1984) has been called Myśliwski’s “grand epic,” and not without reason. In addition to specializing in all things Polish countryside, Myśliwski is a master not only of invoking location, but also of creating characters. The voice of Szymek Pietruszka is so distinct and so unique that it’s almost unreal to think the English translation is, in fact, a translation. That’s not to say it’s been streamlined to fit what could be considered a more “American” ideal or standard for fiction—this book is undeniably European. It’s more like the book was originally written in English."

Click here to read the full review.

How it Feels

2011-05-12T01:00:00.003-04:00

Since words have no place, this is an approximation of what it feels like to have completed and survived my first year of graduate school:

Wide open, expansive, free, overly pink like cotton candy and, yes, even a little fluffy.

I don't normally process or edit anything this...rosy, but it's what seemed the best at the moment. I could jump on a million trampolines for a million years, run a million miles, somersault down a million hills--fair enough, that sounds like a triathlon for people dressed in the latest trends in straight jackets--but it just feels pretty damn good. And I didn't screw up once!

The Chukchi Bible

2011-05-11T14:03:00.007-04:00

Oh hey! I wrote a book review for my internship class and the Three Percent blog a few weeks ago of The Chukchi Bible by Yuri Rytkheu. I really enjoyed the mixture of memoir and folk tale, as well as learning a bit more about the lifestyle of Arctic and nomadic tribes. So until my final course paper is written and before I finaly get to a recap of the March cross-country road trop, here's an excerpt of my review-oriented ramblings:

"A bird flies around, takes a few shits, the shit turns into land and, voilà, the world is created.

That may sound like a summary of a terrible animated short or a 1970s acid trip, but it’s simply my poorly hyper-abridged version of one of many truly beautiful Chukchi folk tales that mark the beginning of time and man in Yuri Rytkheu’s The Chukchi Bible. Here’s the real version:

A raven was flying over an expanse. From time to time he slowed his flight and scattered his droppings. Wherever solid matter fell, a land mass appeared; wherever liquid fell became rivers and lakes, puddles and rivulets. Sometimes First Bird’s excrements mingled together, and this created the tundra marshes. The hardest of the Raven’s droppings served as the building blocks for scree slopes, mountains, and craggy cliffs.

There’s just something amazing about folk tales. I grew up with them as bedtime stories and have had a soft spot for them ever since, even preferring them to all things Disney. See, I find fairy tales lack that realistic nitty-gritty and hometown hero charm only a culture-specific folk tale can evoke. “Folk tales” focus on specific aspects of a culture, its values and history, whereas “fairy tales” are mostly about dwarves, princes hooking up with princesses, and evil queens getting tossed into canyons. While both forms of story telling are meant to entertain, folk tales are better in regard to educating and reminding us where we come from. And The Chukchi Bible has no shortage of heroes, culture, reality and that delicious nitty-gritty that makes stories like this all the more tangible."

The rest of the review can be found here. So far I'm 2/2 on reading and liking works published by Archipelago Books. I've got a couple more from them to start and hope I'll find them just as enjoyable.

Sexism and Cars

2011-04-01T23:45:00.008-04:00

All over the place with thoughts on this one. I'm bad at organizing thoughts when I'm frustrated...

This post isn't necessarily road trip related, but the subject matter came up and has been on my mind now for a week and is still bothering me. And it's at least car related, so let's just pretend it's a well-planned segue into the road trip experience.

I think it's a generally known fact that the majority of Latvia is still stuck in a sexist, chauvinistic mind-set. When I say "the majority", I'm still leaving room for those who do not think this way – I've been very lucky in that I've worked and socialized in circles and occupational fields that do not glorify the apparent incapability of women to do much of anything beyond cook and have neat handwriting (yet even in those circles there are exceptions to the liberal/Western "We can do it!" way of thinking, and surprisingly mostly due to actions and choice of the women themselves). Sexism is wide-spread and goes widely unchallenged in Latvia, and in many forms. I'm only going to point out a few. Hah.

This sexism starts with little things like replacing a light bulb, carrying a box or uncorking a bottle.

I get that there is probably some greater cultural meaning and reasoning behind men being the ones to uncork a bottle of wine or Champagne at a party. And if there's a guy around to replace a light bulb or carry a box in my place, then of course he's more than welcome to take care of that for me because that makes a) one less opportunity for me to electrocute myself and b) one less heavy-ass box for me to carry.

I'm not saying I'm against chivalrous acts such as holding doors or carrying heavy items – quite the contrary. A guy I once dated and I were one day crossing a large, busy street, and as we stepped into the intersection he moved around to my right to place himself between me and the oncoming traffic. He did it simply, naturally, and without drawing attention to it. It was old-school chivalry at its best and probably one of the most romantic things ever done for me. But there is a point where excessive babying of women can mutate from chivalry into a kind of aggressive and forcibly sugar-coated repression.

The bigger ways in which sexism manifests is in such cases as buying lumber (my best friend was treated like she was on drugs when she went to a hardware store in Riga to buy wood to build a shelf), shifting furniture, and anything to do with cars. Especially anything to do with cars.

If it wasn't initially clear, this entire post has been a digression leading up to sexism in Latvia related to all things "car." Last week I translated a project that had to do with customer service stories submitted by the employees of a gas station chain in Latvia. One of the stories written by a male employee retold a situation in which a female customer had pulled up to refuel her car and would have left the station with a partially deflated tire had the employee not noticed it and informed her.

Now, that's all well and good, but what got to me was the scenario he laid out for the customer in the event he had not noticed and fixed the damaged tire. The text was something similar to "...and she would have ended up on the side of the road, a woman by herself with a flat tire..." While this statement is undoubtedly true, as in the woman probably would have ended up on the side of the road with a flat tire had the employee not noticed anything, the sentence placed a stereotypical emphasis on the fact that:

Client(Woman on her own) + Flat tire(On side of road) = DOOM

The fact that it is still widely assumed in Latvia that women will be rendered helpless without a man around to help pisses me off. What century are we living in?

Sure, it could be an established fact that most women don't know how to change a flat tire, but jumping to that conclusion is bogus and unfair. I myself am one of those exceptions. I and realize this is probably because I'm an only child, I'm female, and my parents like to torture me.

One summer day my father called me out to the driveway where he was standing looking at one of the front tires of his car.

Dad: I've got a flat.
Me: Bummer – how'd that happen?
Dad: No clue. But you're going to change it for me.

And that was that. My father stood back and dictated what I was supposed to do to, from putting a rock or brick behind the back tires, to where to place the jack, to which order to loosen and tighten the nuts and bolts. Thus I learned how to change a flat tire. This "skill" came up once in a conversation with a friend's cousin, who was so skeptical and disbelieving of the possibility that a woman knew how to do so that he actually challenged me to go down to the street and change a tire on his car right then and there.

The sexism in Latvia goes beyond this still. Some insurance companies in Latvia have special "Lady Insurance" policies, which, while I suppose good in theory, are worded in such a disgustingly over-bearing and sexist way that it actually makes me wonder if each woman who signs up for said policy is also given a little lap dog wearing a pink sweater and a voucher for a manicure for her troubles.

I've even had a rental car company employee in Riga make openly snide remarks about women (in this case specifically me) driving. Another employee was going through the pre-rental check list with me when the employee in question walked by and said "Vai meitene vispar' prot braukt?" ("Does the girl even know how to drive?") What surprised me (in addition to being a douche to a client) was that he was probably my age and had this kind of mind-set. While I would have preferred to rear-end his car (or him) and then call out "I guess not!", I just replied "But of course."

I'm aware that much of this is based on how I was raised and where I was raised. My parents made it their job to make me solve problems (re: "torture") to outfit me the best they could to deal with what the world may throw my way. Anything they didn't teach me I had to figure out for myself. If a light bulb is burnt out and no one else is home, guess who gets to change it? Me. This box of books needs to be moved from point A to point B and no one else is around, guess who gets to move it places? Me. If I'm driving by myself and wind up with a flat tire, guess who gets to change it? Me. And while I would like to say that a line needs to be drawn – or even erased, depending on how you look at it – in regard to what is expected of women in Latvia, or Eastern Europe for that matter, I am also well aware that there are unfortunately women who take complete advantage of the fact that society is trained to expect them to be the weaker sex.

It's 2011 for Christ's sake – can't we let go of some of those preconceptions and expectations? Or at least stop pretending we have no bones in our bodies and all we care about are flowers and ponies (no offense or insult to ponies intended, because seriously, have you LOOKED at a pony lately? AWESOME.) Like, that desk lamp is honestly too much for you to carry? Honestly? You're not strong enough open that jar of pickles by yourself? Really? No, I mean REALLY? Then tell me, oh fellow independent woman of the 21st century, what is life like alone at home at the end of the day? Based on your theatrical lack of self-sufficiency I'd have to guess there are a lot of shattered glass jars and pickle juice covering your kitchen floor.

Road Tripping, Tripping Roads

2011-03-27T03:57:00.001-04:00

I want to write about road trips/THE road trip. I really do.

Just give me a few ~~minutes~~ ~~hours~~ days to catch up to myself.

Freaking Reflections

2011-01-11T02:24:00.007-05:00

Freaking America.

Freaking winter break.

Freaking everyone else having either left or been left behind. So to speak.

I'm restless and have no idea what I want to do to combat that. Usually this is not the case. Well... at this exact moment I'd like to bust down the door of the people living above me and smash the gears out of the sewing machine being used with the object currently nearest me. Which is a hair tie or a cardigan. Needless to say it would be a very slow and awkward smashing.

Who sews at 02.30?

The holidays went better than I had expected (apologies to the family for my doubts), but the after parts were strange. It was odd driving my dad to the airport to see him off to Latvia. Usually it's me seeing him off back to the States. Same with my best friend. But I'm more okay with it than I was a week and a half ago.

Though New Year's Eve left me bitter. The experience of partying/visiting with friends and family at home in Riga and then rushing to the square by the Freedom Monument at 10 to 00.00 for the countdown is indescribable. Champagne bottles being passed around, emptied or kicked across asphalt. My middle-aged relative saying she hadn't taken a drink directly from a bottle since her college days, then stifling her laughter with a swig of bubbly. Mandarin oranges being shoved into your pockets by strangers. People dressed as chickens or call girls. It's like Halloween+Christmas+Easter+Independence Day. Then the fireworks. Oh, the fireworks. The fireworks well before midnight, shot off by Russians eager to get the party started. Then the city-sponsored fireworks. Then more Russian fireworks.

Then mulled wine, then sledding on plywood slabs by the Dom Church. Then throwing snow. Then chasing after some random golden retriever. I don't think I'm exaggerating or selling New Year's Eves to come short when I say the 2009-2010 exchange was the absolute tops. Man. I don't even want to try to beat it.

Homecoming Benefits

2010-12-18T17:05:00.003-05:00

Despite my initial worries about being back for a winter break period for the first time in three years, it appears things won't be as dire as initially expected.

I had forgotten that my room at my father's house is a veritable treasure trove of SimCity CD-ROMs, phrase books in several languages, a Rubik's Snake and lava lamps. If these post-finals swollen throat glands turn into something serious, at least I know I'll be able to entertain myself until it blows over.

I'll also work on my lock-picking skills. No joke. Watch me.

Finals, Holidays

2010-12-12T17:33:00.002-05:00

Testing an application I just got for the iPod Touch that will render my MacBook useless in one more capacity. Sorry, MB.

I got to talk to my best friend for a while via Skype today. She told me how the annual Christmas party among friends went, down to the tiniest detail, per my request. Masochistic on my part, I know. I wish they had videotaped it so I could on some level pretend I had been there with them. I'm going to come right out and say it now: I'm afraid of what this year's holiday season will be like. I haven't been in the States for Christmas in three years.

It will be strange not going to the habitual Christmas Eve mass in Riga, pressed tightly into pews between complete strangers because you're all trying to keep warm. It will be strange not walking through the month-long Christmas market in Old Town, laughing at the boar, moose, duck, horse meat sold in tins by that one weird guy. It will be strange not spending Christmas Eve with my cousin and her family, trying my best not to be involved in any bloodshed while roughhousing with their four kids. Strange not waking up at 4 AM Christmas morning to call family back in the States to wish them a happy Christmas while trying not to fall asleep again...

I feel like I should be excited, not complaining. If I even am complaining? But this major of a shift in activity and setting after an extended period of time is just plain unsettling.

I miss my friends. I miss being in Latvia. I miss Latvia in general. This could all just be a side-effect of the end of the school semester, but wow, does this ever suck.

Veterans, Dumplings

2010-11-11T13:09:00.004-05:00

11 November is Lacplesis Day in Latvia. This day isn't, like it is for most of the rest of the world, celebrated for the end of WWI. It's celebrated for the victory over the Bermontian Army at the battle of Riga in 1919.

Tonight in Riga, the east bank of the Daugava River will be amass with bodies and lights. The brick walls of the presidential palace will be lined with people lighting candles and sticking them into any free space, warm with the smell of melting wax and an atmosphere thick with patriotism. Folk groups will perform, singing old songs of battle and victory, people will gather at small bonfires scattered along the normally traffic-busy, but now closed off, main river-front street.

I want to be there. I want to walk the crowds with my friends and complain about the cold, split a box of pelmeni and drink kvass from a glass bottle. I want to light my own candles for remembrance.

October Highlights

2010-10-15T21:04:00.004-04:00

Or mediocrelights, really. Not that they're insignificant, they're just not bombastically exciting.

It rained a lot in New York, but I still spent a lot of time walking around outside, especially in the woods across the street from the apartment "village".

I also rediscovered the wonder of egg-less recipes, once again proving that just because you don't have all the "normal" ingredients for baking doesn't mean you can't make something as awesome as scones.

List Expansion

2010-10-15T16:38:00.006-04:00

Add to the list of things I'm still not used to: States-style grocery shopping.

I'm still in the mindset of European-style grocery shopping. You generally keep the basic long-lived items around the house (rice, pasta, onions, garlic, spices, flour, porridge, etc.) at all times, but buy breads, fresh produce and meat on an as-needed basis.

Not having a car, bike, or Wheelies makes this type of shopping style incredibly difficult and at times expensive (if you break down and buy something from the Corner Store on campus, which wants people to pay CLOSE TO $5 FOR A JAR OF PICKLES).

Case in point: two weeks ago I took the campus line bus to the grocery store, where I gathered, hunted and duly paid for what seemed like a normal amount of food items. Kind of an "only buy what you can realistically fit into your bag or carry" tactic. Too bad for me, this is an amount of produce that is good for around three days if prepared and eaten normally, or five days if you get REALLY creative. (Flat-bread+soy cream cheese+cucumber+yellow bell pepper = like a cold, veggie pizza, only much, much sadder.) If anything, the lack of standard "North American" food items in Riga and overabundance of seemingly random items honed my skills of combining individual ingredients for edible results, but when all you have in your refrigerator is onions, relish, apricot jam and half a lime, it puts a strain on your abilities.

Maybe my dilemma stems from the fact that I don't understand boxed foods anymore. Those pre-packaged dinners-in-a-jiff that are such a hit in the States. At the campus store, I can buy 20 different kinds of Rice-a-Roni or Hamburger Helper dinners, but I can't find a single box of plain, white rice. I almost didn't find the small box of bullion cubes at the store among the entire aisle of soup cans.

I miss deciding to make something for dinner, stopping by a grocery store on the way home after work that day to pick up the ingredients and just making something. I liked not having to pre-plan my meals days in advance. I liked walking to the Central Market on weekends with only LVL 5 in pocket and coming home with 20lb worth of produce and LVL 1.50 left over for a magazine or newspaper.

Luckily tomorrow is Saturday; I'll have food in my fridge again soon. Tonight I have to make a careful list of what I need and remember to get everything on it. There won't be any quick, running back to the store later that day or the next to pick up something forgotten. I know I need to relearn a few things about being back here, but in a sense I'm afraid to. Because I don't want to forget how it was back in Riga.

Autumn ASAP

2010-09-23T01:41:00.003-04:00

I guess this is what Indian Summer feels like? A stretch of two weeks in the 17º-19ºC range and suddenly we're back up to 26ºC?

I was ready for autumn last week. One of the things I'll miss the most this year is the turning of the leaves in Sigulda, Latvia. The city is hugely known for being a great autumn destination solely for the stunning view over the Gauja River Valley and the crazy spectrum of fall colours.

Even the beginnings of fall in Latvia are full of promise:

In New York I have a bit less to work with as far as fall colours go...:

Ah well. It's still kind of nice, though.

Shipping Methods

2010-09-17T21:39:00.005-04:00

Turns out getting things set up to ship from Latvia to the States was easier than I had imagined. The trick was getting things taken care of once my shipment got to this side of the big pond.

First my shipment was shipped from Riga to New Jersey. That was the easy part - the people at LASL (Latvian American Shipping Lines) are professional, efficient and helpful -- that goes for both the Riga and US offices taken from New Jersey to Pennsylvania for a random customs check. Then it was held for a week or so there before being shipped to Rochester, at which point the shipment just stayed there. Because the customs officials there "didn't have my phone number". Sorry, the two valid phone numbers LASL gave them for me must have been too much too handle. If you can't handle making choices, just ignore them, right?

Eventually I was given the go-ahead to pick up my shipment, which luckily coincided with the same weekend I had rented a car (which is incidentally WAY easier/less stressful than renting a car in Riga, but only because the States seem to expect less of you). I also thankfully didn't have to pay the $20 storage fee I'd been told I would have to pay. Anyway, I got my shipment in the following condition:

Needless to say, but US Customs seems to exhibit a certain sense of efficiency. Right? Kudos for creativity and complimentary colour use of the red sign next to the green tape. Also, thanks for not stealing any of my stuff. Though to be honest, there were so many books in there I probably wouldn't notice if one was missing.

Transportation or the Lack Thereof

2010-09-12T23:16:00.004-04:00

Public transportation in the city where I now live is anything but convenient. If I want to get to the grocery store by bus, I get to take a 45 minute trip to go 4 miles, but only after walking a dandy 1.5 walk to get to the bus stop itself. The only convenient thing about any kind of mass-transit is the university shuttle, which gets me to, well, the university. Put a Target or regular-sized grocery store on campus and I'll stop complaining.

To put it most simply, I miss Riga. I miss Latvia. I miss a public transportation so convenient and consistent that I know it like the back of my hand. I miss living in a city where it takes me only 15 minutes to get from point A to point B, pretty much no matter where you are in downtown. I miss bus tickets that cost LVL 0.70 (~USD 1.40). I miss a round-trip train ticket from Riga to Sigulda that costs me LVL 2.10 (~USD 4.20).

I miss not having my hands tied. If I at least had my bike here or, hell, even a skateboard or Razor Scooter, I'd feel less boxed in than I feel now.

If you're in Riga or planning on going, definitely take advantage of the mass-transit system, if only because the prices are cheap (in comparison to countries like Germany or Italy).

Riga also now offers several rentable bike systems, everything from a bike shop on the eastern side of Vermanes Park (Elizabetes Street), to BalticBike (by airBaltic). BalticBike I know costs LVL 1 per hour; register for it online here and enjoy a decently convenient ride with bike stands located throughout Riga and Jurmala (Radisson Blu Hotel Latvija in Riga, across from the McDonald's in Old Town, near the beach in the Bulduri neighbourhood of Jurmala, and several locations in the Majori neighbourhood).

The train station is much less shady than it was back in 1994, and much more convenient. The EC Fund has even helped out in sprucing up train car interiors. The passenger train network itself is fairly well-developed, but does not - I repeat - DOES NOT travel internationally, with the exception of a once-daily train to St. Petersburg (and which DOES NOT excuse you from needing a valid visa to travel into Russia). It's always cheaper (though by only a few santims) to buy a round-trip ticket instead of two one-way tickets. Tickets are bought for specific destinations and have no time stamp; they can be used at any time of the day on the date the ticket was bought. A round-trip ticket is valid for a trip to the destination on the date the ticket was bought and a return trip from the same destination either on the day the ticket was bought or on the following calendar day.

The Riga Public Transport system, I love. Sadly. Tickets are best bought in the new "e-Talons" card format, which are most easily purchased at Narvesen convenience stores. Yellow e-Talons tickets are essentially single-use tickets good for 5-20 rides. Single-use as in once the rides are used up, you toss the card. For once, buying an e-Talons is cheaper than buying a ticket from the driver (which you have to do if you don't have an e-Talons or if yours winds up being out of trips), which now costs LVL 0.70 per person, per ride.

The easiest way to get around and even out of Latvia in a bit more style and comfort (which honestly depends on the destination...I've ended up on a scary 30-person minivan for a 2.5 hour trip to Saldus mid-winter) is to travel by coach. Tickets are reasonably priced and best bought a few days in advance, especially if traveling to larger cities on the weekend. Tickets can be bought online at www.bezrindas.lv, but it really is easiest to just go to the Coach Station and buy them from a service counter. On that note, Vilnius and Tallinn are both a mere 4 hours from Riga!

I have none of these options here - or at least none of these options in a convenient way. I think I've made my point for now.

Missing Riga

2010-09-04T18:37:00.003-04:00

Some shots from the Riga Canal boat tour. I highly recommend taking this tour - if you want you can even disembark at one of many stops along the way. If you go on a Monday, the price is LVL 3 instead of LVL 5. Best of all, no annoying tour information. You just sit back and relax and enjoy the sounds of the city and river.

A New State

2010-09-01T17:45:00.004-04:00

Of being, of mind, of residence. However you slice it, this, my friends, is new.

The State of New York is proving to be an interesting place. The fact that the city I live in now is so close to the Canadian border takes the edge off of what I would refer to as "stereotypical New York angst", making people nicer, happier, helpful, more polite...

Basically, it makes them Minnesotan.

I'm hoping that once we get over the initial few days of receiving our syllabi and calendars for courses things will pick up in the world of academia. For now I wake up at 7 AM, an hour before my alarm goes off, and wonder what the hell I'm going to do with the 5-6 hours until it's time to catch a bus to campus. At some point I'm going to have to figure out how to get to a grocery store via the school's bus lines. And by "some point" I mean "preferably before I run out of food and starve to death". There are options for eats on campus, but I really don't think it's my style to pay $3.50 for a granola bar.

The graduate housing area I live in is nice enough. It's mostly foreign graduate students and graduate students with families and kids. And sometimes grandpas. I've seen at least one. So there are plenty of kids' toys and jungle-gyms and hey! a sandbox in the surrounding area. I will not get bored here.

I haven't met anyone living in my building, but have seen them many times and can say that I am most likely the only non-Asian person in it. In truth, most of the park seems to be inhabited by the Asian graduate student community. Which is fine, and sometimes hard to deal with, as around dinner time it's easy to catch tantalizing whiffs of noodles or pot dishes cooking in their apartments. I want to meet people and make friends, I suppose, but showing up at someone's door with a bowl and my own pair of chopsticks hardly seems the way to go about it.

Also, the eggs here are pure, snow white. And stick to the cartons and subsequently crack when you try to pry them off. Raw egg, it turns out, is rather hard to control and clean up.

Eyesight Ramblings

2010-08-19T10:42:00.002-04:00

Ah, another post from me about doctor-related things. I suppose the only reason I've been to see various specialists about seemingly small issues I would have otherwise left to fend for and fix themselves (had I been back in the States) is because, wait for it,

HEALTH CARE IN LATVIA IS DIRTY DIRT CHEAP.

This, of course, provided you have a decently-to-well paying job and can afford the odd $20 of chest X-rays and what-have-yous necessary for work permits or general curiosity. If you're old and have a crap pension plan, it's a whole other story, and in that case you're probably a bit up shit creek with getting by overall. Which is wrong and unfair. This, of course, also considering that consultations aren't all that cheap, but that most prescription medicines (inhalers, for you fellow asthmatics) and vaccinations and X-rays really are cheaper than a week's worth of red meat. Which, if you're like me and don't eat read meat anyway, is great because why wouldn't you want four identical X-rays of your chest cavity to turn into modern art in your home?

But I digress. Anyway, I've done a bit more research on whether or not it would be worth my time and money to make an appointment with an eye doctor again, as I believe the papillary conjunctivitis (re: rusty screw feeling under my left eyelid) has returned. I apparently took care of it once, medicated the peepers for two weeks, then disregarded the doctor's instruction to consult a contact lens specialist and just started using the contacts again. And lo! Problems! 1:0, doctors. Fair play.

Where all this is going is that I have reason to believe that it is the specific brand/make of contact that is causing problems. This I believe because I wore contacts in high school and throughout college without any problems - and I wore contacts the first ~1+ year in Latvia without any issues. After some article searching and reading I've come to the potential conclusion that the specific type of contact I've been buying and using in Latvia has slowly built up an allergic reaction in my eye. Damn you, fatherland optometry!

I'm reluctant to go back to a doctor, as I know what I have and would just rather have the prescription for the same fiery eye-drops of last time instead of paying someone close to $40 to tell me what I already know. Oh, wait, sounds like America!

It also seems that nothing is covered by the health insurance I've paid for through work. The clinic I've been going to for the past two years isn't covered by my programme or company, and nowhere else nearby either takes my insurance, or has any openings before next Wednesday, by which time I will be back in the States and hugging a $2 alarm clock and cotton bath towel set from IKEA.

However, on a certain level, I feel that if I do nothing about the eye I could be sporting an eye-patch sooner than and much later after Halloween.

Heat Wave

2010-08-14T16:56:00.001-04:00

Even cats have a rough time dealing with the heat. Mine can't even stand to sleep on his stomach.

Saturdays and Eggs

2010-08-14T15:53:00.005-04:00

I'm working through another weekend evening to try and ensure that I will be done by tomorrow and in time to go toss my cousin's kids around in the Gauja River. It was around 30ºC in Latvia today and will probably be the same tomorrow. Great swimming weather.

Though I'm supposed to be translating right now (I feel most of whatever I write or do at otherwise inappropriate times comes about when procrastinating), I can't stop thinking about the omelet I had for breakfast and the egg situation in Latvia.

Oh yes, we have a situation. About eggs.

Although life in Germany gave me the choice of buying brown or white eggs, life in Latvia generally greets you ONLY with brown eggs. White eggs only show up around Easter, right in time for them to be bought out and used for traditional egg colouring. (Truth be told, they might be available year-round somewhere else, but I'm used to not expecting to see them anymore.) So, brown eggs it is. And that's cool. I'm down with brown eggs; I have been since Germany.

The thing I'm not so down with is the fact that, when living in Latvia, you are reminded on an egg-by-egg basis just exactly where that egg came from. Almost every single carton of eggs is filled with individual reminders that, even if Egg did come first, this one definitely came from Chicken. Specifically, from the internal, body-juice, feathery nether regions of Chicken.

Eggs in Latvia are, as could be surmised, not cleaned very well or at all before being packed into cartons and shipped off to grocery stores for shelving. Standard cooking procedures at home have also changed. Gone are the days of carefree egg cracking straight into the bowl. Now everything is prefaced by wrinkled noses and gasps of disgust as eggs are turned over to reveal bits of feathers, bits of other egg and even blood before attempting to wash it with several cleaning fluids before use.

Granted, you can always opt for the plastic six-pack of eggs of non-specific origin, wrapped in a thin, black carton slip sporting a picture of a glistening body builder, but as these eggs neither come with miniature tricep and bicep bulges, nor do they make you strong enough to challenge strongman Raimonds Bermanis, the extra four santims don't really seem worth it.

Now, instead of popping the lid off the carton at the store just to check for cracked shells, I also check for the carton that has the least amount of carnage still attached to it. The day I find a tiny chicken beak or underdeveloped wing tip in a carton is the day I go ovo-vegetarian.

Ze donats/The Donuts

2010-08-13T15:38:00.006-04:00

First – I wrote this somewhere else a while ago, but it is once again relevant because I may be grabbing handfuls of breakfast there tomorrow if a) I get enough work done tonight/early tomorrow morning (such are my Friday nights, boo hoo), b) if I wake up in time to not miss three consecutive trains out to Riga (it happens, life moves on) and c) the Ze donats is open early enough for the pending feeding to be considered breakfast. (And d) who am I kidding? Breakfast is clearly an any-time applicable meal concept.)

Second - DOUGHNUTS. For some reason these pop-culture type re-spellings of words (also: drive thru) really, really bother me.

Third - oh my HOLY BUTLERS OF AMSTERDAM*. I'm not a fan of cake doughnuts, but these circles of perfection are a nice middle ground between cake and raised types. They also cost only LVL 0.25 a piece (unless you go for filled, which run 5-15 santims higher) and come in all kinds of flavours with exciting names, like "Džons lemons" (John Lemon). That's right, they're clever, too. The people, not the doughnuts.

Ze donats/The Donuts is located on Kr. Valdemāra Street in riga, between Dzirnavu and Lačuplēšu Streets (closer to the corner of Dzirnavu Street). The staff are extremely nice, the place itself is really unassuming and comfortable and the eats, well... Let's just say "two's company, three's a crowd" does NOT apply to this as a Sunday morning breakfast item.

This place used to be a slight problem (reference name's days, birthdays, last-day-of-work-on-contract days, random days) as I used to live a half block from it. The only benefits were that it wasn't open late (thus eliminating any post-office day depression fixing via sugary carbohydrates) and that I tended to quickly forget that there was anything in this country similar to a "good doughnut". Now that I live outside Riga, temptation has dropped considerably. This lack of temptation, however, makes taking the 30 minute train ride and 15 minute walk from the station to the cafe all that more important because, dammit, if I came all this way I'm going to go there and eat WHATEVER I WANT.

I also just discovered their website is up and running and full of annoying sounds. ~~Just wish it had opening hours available!~~Hours of operation are found under the "Kontakti" section.

*I don't get it, either. That's how I roll.

The Difference in Insects

2010-07-29T00:11:00.003-04:00

As far as mosquitoes go, there's not a huge difference between Minnesota's honorary state bird and its Latvian counterpart. Both result in gigantic red welts on your poor, abused skin. Minnesota mosquitoes, however, have a nasty itch that accompanies their bites.

I swear, the more I itch, the more the bites seem to multiply.

Tomorrow night I fly back to Latvia for around month before flying back to the States to resume academic life in New York state. Excitement! I still don't know where I'll be living! More excitement! Most of all it's one month left in Europe before I sign myself up for at least one academic year of living in the States. That may be what I'm most worried about. This is because I'm not used to customer service anymore, I'm not used to people being polite. I'm not used to people talking to you about the boots their crazy aunt bought for their sister's poodle while you wait in line for the ATM. It's just plain weird. Thus, being back may well derail me. I'm hoping I'll be able to handle a new environment in an old environment with a semblance of grace and calm.

I'd really like to say something a bit more regarding...anything, really, but my feet just itch too flipping much. I've also got a boatload of things to pick up tomorrow to bring back for people (fantastic North American candy for my co-workers and the most unnatural, sugar-loaded pancake syrup I can find for my cousin's kids), as well as my own packing to do. Not thinking straight right now. Clearly.

Bahaha!

Clap Paws, Squeal with Glee.

2010-07-01T12:13:00.002-04:00

Or something to that effect. My dad is a fan of this one time in a Garfield comic...

We leave Berlin on the night train tonight for Paris. We're sunburnt, tired and sore. Life hurts right now, but I'm still high from the excitement of flying back into Germany. I love this country.
Living in Latvia makes travel easier and generally cheaper, so I can afford to indulge in my travel obsession and fanaticism.

We may attempt to learn French by 10 AM tomorrow morning.

Driving in Latvia

2010-06-29T22:21:00.003-04:00

Latvian drivers SUCK. Period. Amen.

Yesterday I got to experience three different kinds of angry, stupid drivers. In a way it was my best worst driving day ever -- and that's a comment to the skills and consideration of the other people and considering I tend to follow driving rules and speed limits like the Bible.

The best example was a woman who was on the bumper of my rental car going 90 km, which isn't fast, I know, but it's the legal maximum in Latvia on highways. So I'm driving the speed limit because I don't want a ticket, not today, thankyouverymuch, when this woman tailing me starts honking her horn like it's her job. In the rear-view mirror I can see she's waving her arms wildly and her mouth is flapping as she rattles off a series of what could only be curses and poxes upon my house. Alright, she's upset, I get that. Then she swerves into the other lane, barely zips diagonally between me and the car in the neighbouring lane, speeds up to at least 120 and then cuts back across to the other lane without signalling and speeds off into the afternoon.

The funny part of her actions? Her car was covered in triangular stickers with a red border and black M in the middle - the stickers that tell you the car is a car used by a driving school. This woman was an instructor.

And thus I learned the probably source of all crappy driving in Latvia. Huzzah! Just in time to leave the country for a bit and soak up western European civility.

Moving, Cats, Dust

2010-06-29T04:33:00.002-04:00

There is an old woman sitting dejectedly on a chair on a balcony across the courtyard and two floors up. She looks like she's being punished. The door is closed behind her and she looks less than thrilled to be out in the fresh air. I wonder what she's done wrong.

Irrelevant. Today is the final day in the Riga apartment. Excitement and sadness. And a bit of frustration. I'll start with frustration. I love my (now former) flatmate and she's a wonderful friend and person, but when you move out and leave your key in the postbox without cleaning anything in the apartment and leave a bunch of your unwanted items behind for me to clean up, my positive feelings become a little harder to dole out. Good thing my best friend is coming out later to help me put this place back to order.

Sadness. This is a good place. It's a good location. The rent was decent enough. The landlady was a riot. The fridge is big enough to hold all of our assorted jams, mustards, and sauces (as we rarely had real food around). My cat had plenty of windows to guard from the onslaught of angry, dirty pigeons. Etcetera. Also, moving in general is a stressful undertaking.

Excitement. I leave with a few friends for a 10-day trip around Germany(!!!) and France. Then I get four days to pull myself together again before jetting off to the US for the rest of July. This will involve carting the cat, howling and piss-stained (the cat, not me), through four airports and three flights, followed by a two-day car ride across the eastern states. I'm excited for all of this, minus the piss part, but am also concerned for the cat. After today's vet visit, he has even ME convinced that I'm the worst person on the face of the planet. I hope the huge bay window facing the bird feeder in Minnesota will more than make up for what is to come.

As soon as I publish this post I'm off to keep throwing my belongings into unmarked boxes and bags -- it'll be like Christmas when I open them again in a few months or just days. I always want to write something more frequently, but June was a wild month in Latvia. I finished my contract at work and went in part-time to help out until they found someone to replace me (which has yet to happen), did some driving around Latvia with my dad, who was here on research/vacation purposes, and then the whole moving thing.

I can't keep my family obligations and thoughts straight right now. Hopefully I'll get some mental air cleared soon so I can make things interesting on here again.

That old woman is still out on the balcony. Now she's chewing her nails. What a world.

Um, June.

2010-06-01T05:00:00.002-04:00

Stuff and things, and then some more stuff and things.

Vacation was fantastic. That's about all I can really thing to say of it right now. I can't even say if I'll attempt to go back and write some kind of re-cap for it.

This is my last contract week on the job in Riga. It's a little confusing, but I think I'll be okay. I still haven't made it to editing photos from the UK trip, and friends and family are getting restless.

My thoughts will settle, soon I'll maybe get more then 6 hours of sleep a night, and things will be right again. Or at least more right than they are now.

In Time for Vacation

2010-05-07T09:34:00.002-04:00

We just had a long weekend in Latvia due to the national holiday on 4 May, marking 20 since Latvia proclaimed the renewal of its independence. I would be lying if I said I knew what went on during the holidays (except for the clusters of national flags propped up in strategic places around Old Town), as I was under the weather for all of it. Friday to Tuesday, I stayed at home, venturing outside only a few times and no further than the closest Narvesen a block away. Tonsillitis, nasal polyps, fever, headache. Best four-day weekend I've had in a LONG time.

Now I'm on my last day of antibiotics and am getting ready for a final few hours of mad dashing around to collect the last few items I need before heading off for a two week mother-daughter vacation. The last time we did this was in Germany in 2005, when my mother came to visit me while I was studying abroad. This year is a slight upgrade for her, as we'll be in a country where she fluently speaks the language.

I'm glad I got the worst part of the sickness out of the way before vacation, but will be wary the entire time of the cold and rainy UK weather. Forecasts say it will be around 10 degrees colder than it will be in Latvia. But I'll be armed with several scarves, plan on drinking more than my fair share of tea and am just excited for another chance to be away from the computer for two weeks. That said, I've got a few notebook pages scribbled full of geocaching locations, a handful of New Yorker fiction reading podcasts on my iPod and half a season of Corner Gas loaded onto my mobile phone. I think I'm more than prepared for the temporary separation.

There may or may not be updates posted during the actual trip. This depends on how frequently we have to visit internet cafes to find information on things to do or see. As if we're going to run out :) England, here we come!!

Weather by Sybil

2010-04-23T07:52:00.002-04:00

The weather summary for Riga today is as follows: rain, snow, rain, snow, sun, rain. Repeat ad nauseam.

We're nearing the end of April, and though Spring had seemed to more or less figure itself out, it's suddenly freaking out and throwing us all for a loop.

In other news, flights have resumed for the most part, which means our friend Emma will be able to return to Belgium a week after her initial flight date. I think at least one of my co-workers is still stranded somewhere, most likely in England or Ireland, judging by how long she's wherever she is now. Since family has asked previously, there are still no signs of volcanic ash in Latvia and I kind of doubt there will be. Unless that snow was really ash. In which case, jokes on us.

After this weekend I'll have finished my two-week stint of dripping a combination of liquids and gels into my eyes. I'd say I'll be glad to be done with it, but oddly enough I think I'll almost miss it. It quickly became a part of my morning and evening routines, and with the exception of the evening/morning of the work party out in Sigulda, I didn't miss a single dosage, which is strange, even for me. Usually I'm horrible at remembering to take care of things related to my health (re: that cough I had in high school and let go untreated for two months before learning it was a form of walking pneumonia, or those kind of painful months leading up to finally booking what was my first ever colonoscopy). Part of me thinks that I value my eyes a bit more than I may let on. I don't think I'd mind eventually going blind, but not at 24. Not on my watch.

Pun not intended.

About Geocaching

2010-04-21T04:32:00.002-04:00

Saturday I went on a work outing that involved a day full of running and driving around the city trying to find as many geocache points as possible before lunch.

For those who don't know what it is or do and want to know more: http://www.geocaching.com. There's probably a point near your house. I know there's one near mine :)

Though there are many disappointments in geocaching and the joy of finding a hidden cache is brief, however intense, it's also a great way to see more of the city or region in which you live. For example, I would have never gone to the former USSR Military Academy grounds (a now abandoned, bum-ridden and spray-painted complex), or picked my way through mounds of broken glass and shattered cement blocks to the top of one of the abandoned buildings in the VEF area of Riga. In addition to being a great team-building activity, it was also a great time and reason to explore.

The hardest cache to find was the one located by the Fire-fighting Museum in Riga. We spent an hour at the site looking into every possible nook and cranny, overturning every stone in the tiny flowerbed out front -- all while a group of fire-fighters looked on in amusement during their smoke break. Eventually we gave up, but after realising later that there were encrypted hints for most of the points, figured out the clue and drove back to the museum to triumphantly jump up and down when we finally had the cache in hand. Mid-day traffic was sparse, but cars did slow down as drivers tried to understand what why this group of four adults was prancing about a street corner in glee.

My team found 4-5 out of the 10-12 points we visited. Sunday afternoon after I got back from Sigulda, where we had our "8th Grade Reunion" themed party and feast, I did some work from home then headed out to find a few more caches. That night I told my mom about all of it and in 15 minutes had her writing down coordinates to find a cache near her house back in the States. It really is a global phenomenon and an addicting one at that.

I haven't really heard that much from other grad. schools yet. There seem to be a lot of technical issues going on: one school's system had my application fee marked as "not paid", but when I wrote to ask "WTF" and by the time I got a reply saying that's not what they saw, it was back to "paid". Other school systems seem to be missing or temporarily misplacing recommendation forms from my people, but if my in-box has three confirmations from three different reviewers, why should I think differently? I'm hoping these issues will be resolved, as I would be somewhat uncomfortable writing my former professors to say "So you know that thing you filled out five months ago? D'ya think you could do it again?"

I'm also hoping that the delay in hearing back from schools has a lot to do with the fact that I'm in Latvia, not that the schools are trying to decide on the best way to crush my confidence. At the same time it's frustrating, but what are you gonna do?

Spring in Latvia is in semi-swing. We've had sun and brisk weather, but today is a bit overcast. I wonder if that volcanic ash is finally making its way to our little country...

Sore Eyes

2010-04-12T17:14:00.003-04:00

I apparently have papillary conjunctivitis in my left eye. I went to the doctor this evening and after the ophthalmologist thoroughly poked around my eyeballs (so thoroughly, in fact, that we probably should have gone on at least three dates, first), she gave me a diagnosis, two prescriptions and sent me away bleary eyed and sniffling. For the next two weeks I get to administer two medications two times daily. Then I have to go back and meet with the contact lens specialists to have them tell me if I can even WEAR lenses. I think? Maybe she just meant whether or not I can wear them in respect of my poor, sick eyes.

As opposed to previous trips to the doctor's, this trip was a bit more expensive. Though I did get some kind of note qualifying me for a discount next time. The Latvian medical world works in strange ways.

Wonderfully sunny in Riga.

Transition

2010-04-12T03:38:00.002-04:00

As much as I appreciate my cousin's work in setting up a family server run blog for me, I have to admit that navigating and keeping things in order is much easier with the Blogger system. This is especially true considering the Blogger system also connects with the Gmail server, which will make linking to my Picassa albums much, much easier. I hope Steve will forgive me!

As of today I will be slowly transferring older posts from http://kaija.jatnieks.com to this blog. The most recent posts will appear first. This means that over the next week my archive will balloon to a size large enough to knock over the radio tower in Riga.

I also hope to make more headway with this. Expect Latvian music reviews and Riga restaurant reviews. Possibly even Latvian city reviews. Oh, how the writing will commence!

Slightly Absent

2010-04-12T02:44:00.001-04:00

I haven't written in what seems like a long, long time again. I seem to have lost my drive for writing, partially because I've been pushing all my energy into photography-related things. I'm learning new tricks with Photoshop and am even playing around more with colours and contrast. The results are good so far.

Easter was spent with a group of friends at our friend Ilze's house out in Jurmala. We had a feast of home-made Latvian style pancakes filled with ground beef, bananas and Nutella, and cheese. Soy cheese for me, of course. The fantastic soy cheese I picked up on that weekend trip to Brussels :) We also walked to the beach, took many photos, and then decorated eggs the good old Latvian way. Lots and lots of onion skins. The eggs also turned out lovely, and were then bashed to near smithereens during our friendly egg-wars.

The weather has been better in Riga, too. The week after Brussels (which was a weekend trip of running around seeing everything we could possibly see and eating everything we could possibly eat -- including escargot -- which was DELICIOUS) we still had snow in Latvia, and the weather got rainy and damp and disgusting. Then it miraculously all passed and one day the snow was gone! Today was about 45ºF, which allowed me to go for my first run of the Spring season and spend most of my time outside for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening I was to meet relatives to go to a play at The Stage Theatre, but there was a huge miscommunication and two of the main actors were in some other Latvian city putting on some other play, so... everyone was apologised to and invited to come back the next weekend or to get a refund. So next weekend it is! Instead we backtracked a bit to Gallery kim? to catch the last three Baltic Student Film Festival shorts and then have a delicious dinner at Meta Cafe. The Spikeri area of Riga used to be kind of shady, but in the past year has improved by leaps and bounds and is quickly becoming a hipster/indie hot spot for galleries, concerts and good eats. Whereas before I would have told people to think twice before heading out there, I'd recommend it now. Even with all the drunks and slightly creepy people still around. But they exist in groups and generally stay to themselves.

Something Something

2010-03-18T04:55:00.001-04:00

The past month has gone by pretty quickly. Lately I've been feeling like my life is a rubber band. It gets stretched out then let loose, over and over. Everything is perpetual.

Tomorrow I jet off to Brussels with Ilze and Davids for the weekend. We're going to visit our friend Monika, as well as to revel in the 50-degree weather. It's still below 20 here.

We've also had a good stream of snowy days, which pleases me immensely. Ilze and I finally made it out to Cesis a few weekends ago for our first ever snowboarding lesson. It went relatively well considering we knew nothing going into it. I fell a few times, but nothing I couldn't bounce back from. Once quite literally. Lately I've been worried that we won't have any snow left to let us go try boarding a second time, but if it keeps up like this, I might get a chance come April.

Last weekend I went with a childhood friend and her boyfriend (who are visiting Latvia from the States) to Sigulda, where we hoped to ride down the bob/luge/skeleton track in what is essentially several mattresses tied together on tiny wheels. But there was some kind of competition going on, so we were turned away and went bowling instead. Bowling also turned out to be fun.

Today I'm also off to get my third Latvian visa stamped into my passport. Except this time it's all about repatriation, baby! That's right, family members who may be reading this, I am an official repatriate to the Republic of Latvia. What this means is that I get a 5-year residential permit with little to no strings attached, didn't have to pay to submit my documents, and am generally smiled upon more than when I was just a temporary resident.

I now don't need a work visa to hang around or work in Latvia. I can just be here, if I so choose (to do nothing). This does not make me a citizen, it does not mean I have given up US citizenship, this does not mean I can vote in Latvia. It doesn't sound all that great, but really, it's quite exciting.

In other news, I was in the newspaper Diena a week or so ago, and I also indirectly found out my GRE scores. The article was good, the scores were kind of painful. As expected.

Palatine in "Schmap"

2010-03-07T09:13:00.002-05:00

If you go to www.schmap.com and check out their Rome map and pictures -- specifically the section about Palatine -- you'll find one of my shots from my 2009 Rome trip. The photo is one of many the Schmap people chose from Flickr.com members. Woot. My picture is now one of hundreds of others for the Rome guide:

happy searching!

Look around by clicking the right or left arrow of the Palatine pictures on the right side of the screen. Eventually you may find mine :)

Universal Medications

2010-02-26T03:28:00.002-05:00

This week has been fairly gruelling health-wise. It's amazing how something small like an accidental bite to the inner lip can result in a canker sore so painful I have to literally go home after work and sleep. It's hard to eat, drink, talk, laugh. Sometimes it's just painful to sit and do nothing. Seems like the "injury" is located at a kind of nerve centre, so the pain shoots up through my jaw and into my ears. GREAT times.

This is an entry to showcase the absolute absurdity or universal greatness (depending on how you look at it) that is Medicine in Latvia.

I've received recommendations from almost everyone as to what I should do/administer/not do regarding this canker sore. I am not allowed to drink juice, eat fruits, or spicy, hard or abrasive foods. Basically, anything with real flavour is off limits. If you know me, you know how miserable this has made me the past five days.

After realising that obsessively applying a numbing agent meant for teething children (the alcohol in the ingredients may actually be doing more harm than good), I have turned to other remedies. Baking soda, salt water, black tea bags, hydrogen peroxide. Ouch, blech, ouch and nothing.

After my numerous "consultations", I have decided that doing nothing that will make the canker sore hurt will be the best course of action. I understand that it may take the sore a full two weeks to heal, but COME ON. I can't do this that much longer.

Now I'm down to using something called "Faringo Spray", which is basically a mixture of seabuckthorn and calendula oils. Faringo Spray is first and foremost intended to be used as a throat spray for sore or infected throats, but per instruction leaflet extends to uses related to general infections of the mouth and (here comes the absurd/great part) is even listed as being good for outer injuries such as cuts, burns and rashes.

I understand that natural oils have many purposes, but I can't get over the fact that the spectrum of things this medicine is supposed to heal is SO WIDE. And random. Burns? Seriously.

This morning I stopped off at the pharmacy before work and picked up something called "Kanistad N", which is usually recommended for people with dental prosthetics to heal mouth sores and irritations. According to my relatives AND the lady at the pharmacy, this stuff is supposed to be ace. I read something online about a kind of paste or liquid meant to heal mouth sores that turns your teeth blue -- so I'm glad I wasn't recommended this stuff.

Another thing recommended (and heeded) was to take Ibuprofen. Since my "big stash" is at work, I picked up a smaller pack for a whopping LVL 0.25 (that's USD 0.50). I was about to buy more, but this Latvian Ibuprofen has an expiry date in March. MARCH. This medicine will be good for the next MONTH, at best. Which leads me to wonder -- what the crap is in this stuff that renders it useless in such a short amount of time?

My grandmother recommended that I simply chew or suck on Tums tablets (many websites recommend swishing Malox around your mouth for a few minutes) to neutralise the pH level in my mouth. I ate my last calcium-fortified Tums tablet over four months ago, but had a pack of Gas-X chewable tablets my mother had sent me. I will say this once: GAS-X IS NOT THE SAME AS TUMS. Oh, God, is it ever not the same. That was a burning, unholy mistake I will never, ever make again.

Other simple at-home remedies include drinking chamomile tea. Which I'm not a huge fan of doing, but let me tell you, was I EVER chilled out last night. Whoa, man. Whoa.

Next time I will write about the whole repatriation business. So until then I'm going to keep trying to nurse my poor mouth back to health with these Latvian wonder-meds.

No Motivation

2010-02-16T06:21:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling entirely unmotivated right now. Maybe it's certain factors that aren't really working to my advantage that are making it more difficult to BECOME motivated. For example, I was fully prepared to book an instructor to go start learning how to snowboard tomorrow. But the place I was looking at is not easy to get to with public transportation and doesn't have a bus stop anywhere near it, although buses do drive by it. So now I don't know what to do. I guess wait, maybe rent a car and go? But even that would end up being too expensive.

This just feels like a week that will take a while to get through.

Saturday I took my god-daughter to see "The Princess and the Frog". It was the first time I had been to an animated film that had complete and "professional" Latvian language dubbing. For the most part it was tolerable, except that most of the male-sung songs sounded more like schlager music than Disney music. But it was a good experience. I might borrow my cousin's kids again this weekend to go see "The Fantastic Mr. Fox". Of course it will be great to spend more time with immediate family, but let's be serious, I don't want to be that lone, creepy adult sitting in on a kids' film.

My back and neck seem to have be almost entirely recovered. This is fantastic news to me, considering it only took three 30-minute sessions to undo 3 weeks of pain.

It's snowing again today in Riga. This means more days spent traversing the different barriers put up on side-walks so roof cleaners can push the pounds and pounds of snow off the buildings and onto the street. This is something I didn't see or just plain missed last winter. It's kind of neat to see people up on the roofs shovelling snow, and people standing on the opposite side of the street with their heads tipped back to watch them do so. It's the winter equivalent of gathering to watch someone repair their car or motorcycle.

Ugh. I even lack the motivation to make connections throughout this post. Next one will be an enlightening update about repatriation vs. residential permits!

About Latvian Dentists and Other Doctors

2010-02-09T14:45:00.000-05:00

Today I went in for two consultations.

The first one was a form of physical therapy cum massage, during which I basically got a massage. The woman I went to see was recommended to me by a co-worker who has known the woman for some time. Though the better part of the consultation (pretty great that the consultations are so hands-on some of the time) was mostly trying to work out the ridiculous stiffness in my right shoulder and shoulder blade, a tiny part at the beginning was spent with my head being suspended with the help of a strap, then turned this way and that. This ended up being to make sure the problem wasn't in my spine. The best part of all of it? Massages like this are (rightly) considered a medical procedure, in my case is most likely a result of my working conditions and is covered by my insurance. Which I paid for, I know, but still.

The goal is to get me in for another 9 sessions to knock this thing out of my park, so to speak.

The second consultation was with a dentist, to determine if the apparent upward-crescent shaped wear in the bottom of my right front tooth (hah, seems as if the entire right side of my body is having troubles) was actually a wear, or a chip, and if it could be fixed. It's pretty widely known that Latvian dentists have good reputations for being skilled, efficient, and inexpensive. Many practices advertise to tourists who are looking for "medical vacation" options. Anyway, I went to the consultation and was told by the dentist that I had a few options for fixing what he determined was a chip in the enamel of my tooth. One was to fill it in with the same stuff used for filling cavities, but which would probably fall out within a week to a month later. Another option was to get ceramic caps, I guess they would be, which would be the most drastic option. Then he remembered he could always kind of "buff down" the corner of the chipped tooth to make it look even. When he said "buff", I heard "file". I said it seemed to make more sense than a filling.

So I'm sitting in the patient's chair, thinking about how I'm going to have to decide on what to do, then make another appointment, when the back of my chair is moving down and the dentist takes the buffer/filer and I have just enough time to realise what is about to happen and open my mouth. Water droplets fly everywhere to the whir of the buffer. I'm handed a mirror, and then I lose it. I laugh so hard form the bottom of my stomach up that the dentist and his assistant just look at me for a few moments before nervously laughing with and asking what is going on. But I'm laughing too hard to accurately explain that something like that would NEVER happen in America; there would be questions, new appointments made, lots of murmuring and thinking... I manage to say something about how everything looks good and it's great, but it's just so damn funny to come in for a consultation and next thing you know your teeth are being filed down.

The dentist stopped me there and said it wasn't "filing", but "buffing". So I kept laughing, this time with him and the assistant laughing with me. Then the dentist says "Well, there's nothing really for me to do here", then tells me I can go see the hygienist if I want, so my trip here isn't wasted. And I did. I waited 30 minutes, but I had thought to bring a book and wasn't bothered. All in all... a very good day for medical visits. I have yet to be disappointed by dentists in Latvia, though I've only seen three specialists to date.

I also think I did well enough on the written and analogies part of the GRE to make up for how shameful the math section will turn out :D

Busy in February

2010-02-03T04:16:00.000-05:00

For the shortest month, February is going to take a really long time.

I'm scheduled to take the GRE exam this coming Saturday, will be performing for about an hour the Friday after that with some of the members from a folk group "Saviesi" at a European youth association meeting. Or something. We'll be playing some "danchi", or dances, which are something between "rotaljas" (games) and folk dances. It's a bit hard to explain it. The easiest thing is to just see what "danchi" are and then put the word to the action.

At some point I also really really REALLY want to make it out to Sigulda to start learning how to snowboard. My learner-in-crime was sick this past weekend, so that fell through. This weekend is filled with tests and farewell parties for a few close friends and the weekend after at least two of my friends, if not three or four, will be heading for their "ski break" to Egypt. They're planning on Sharm el-Sheik and just basking in the sun. I can't say I'm entirely bummed out about this; I don't think I'd be ready for Egypt again so soon.

If absolutely everyone leaves Latvia during that time, I'm just going to go learn how to snowboard myself. The weather has been excellent for this the past two days -- we've gotten many much snow (6"+ or ~20cm+) in the past day, and a bit more overnight yesterday. It's enough to make me literally stop in my tracks and wonder if I shouldn't fake sick and just go roll in the snow in another city.

I have other things on my mind that will keep me busy during the month as well. One is putting together goodies for birthdays :) Others are things I don't quite yet want to write about because I'd rather not get people prematurely excited.

On another note, a few of us might go check out the last Dinamo Riga (hockey) game of the month. Against Moscow. Wooooot.

The Little Boy is Drinking Water

2010-01-25T05:53:00.000-05:00

January is almost done! Wow. I thought I wrote something a week ago, or at least had a draft going, but it turns out that was all in my head. Like one of those dreams you have right after your alarm goes off where you think "Well, time to get dressed" and physically feel like you're getting out of bed and are putting clothes on and are just about to go out the bedroom door when... the alarm goes off again and you realise you're still in bed, in your pajamas and with your shirt magically turned around completely backwards.

I'm a restless sleeper.

Anyway, January has been an interesting month in Riga. My dad was here visiting and taking care of research until mid-month. While he was here we spent time with relatives, did a bit of visiting away from Riga, watched some fish be fed, saw a few plays/shows and generally hung out and exchanged knowledge of memes and viral videos.

The two plays we saw were both put on by the Jaunais Rigas Teatris (New Riga Theatre), respectively "Klusuma skanas" (The Sound of Silence) and "Vectevs" (Grandfather). Both were fantastic, as is to be expected. If you're ever in Riga and are looking for a good theatre performance, check in with JRT first. If you're lucky enough to land some tickets (buy them online in advance if possible; they sell out fast), almost every show comes highly recommended. As an added bonus for those tourists who DON'T speak or understand Latvian, JRT has two plays that I know of where knowledge of the national language is not necessary. "Gara dzive" (A Long Life) and "Klusuma skanas" are both directed by Alvis Hermanis (a genius of a man, if I may say so.) and are entirely dialogue-less plays. Emphasis is placed on actions, and it is truly amazing to see that words really aren't that needed all the time. "Gara dzive" is a look at older Latvians and the daily lives they lead, most likely as retirees. "Klusuma skanas" was a later production but counts as the "prequel" to "Gara dzive" and takes the audience through the hippie movement in Latvia. Also fascinating. There are very well timed moments of laughter, seriousness, heartache, etc. And again, both highly, HIGHLY recommended.

Now I'm back to work, have taken two sick days, have continued with my Rosetta Stone Japanese lessons and have been to two of my three trial lessons in Russian language offered through the company I work for. I'm not sure if I'll keep up with the Russian lessons, as knowing the language isn't required for my position and doesn't change my position, and because I'm not able to understand the simple commands the teacher gives the others (some of my co-workers) in the class. They've grown up in Latvia and if they haven't spoken Russian now and then since they were little, they've at least heard it on a subconscious level. I, on the other hand, just stare blankly at the teacher when she says something as simple as "Kaija, will you please read the next sentence?" I recognise my name, the word please and the formal "you". Instead I think I'll just keep up with one-on-one lessons with one of my Russian co-workers who has been kind enough and excited enough to give me lessons on an as-possible basis.

The Rosetta Stone is an interesting product... I've learned some sentences (like "The little boy(s)/girls(s)/woman(en)/man(en) is/are drinking water") that I would never really use on a daily basis, but the point is that I can say them. I am aware that the point is to introduce simple vocabulary and sentence structure, and I kind of like it! Using that structure, I can input any variety of animate objects and subjects receiving action to get an entirely new sentence. Such as: "Neko wa mizu wo nondeimasu!" or "The cat is drinking water!" Which is a sentence that I clearly WOULD use on a daily basis. Now all I need to learn is "The cat is peeing on your bag" or "The cat is pretending to rip your face off in the middle of the night". One step at a time, this language acquisition business.

Yesterday, after an almost solid 48 hours of sleeping and sitting in one place to pre-combat this coughing cold sinus thing, a group of friends and I went to the Riga zoo. At night. Oh yes, at night. They're having some kind of deal until the end of the month: from 4-6 p.m., tickets are only LVL 1 and the zoo is open until 8 p.m. Camels in the dark! Outside was horrifically cold, but the indoor exhibits were a welcome change and it was feeding time for most of the animals, so we got to see them standing in one place instead of hiding from people. Some of the animals seemed to be affected by the cold, but when there's a bin of apples and carrots in front of you, seriously, who cares!?

It's supposed to get warmer by the end of next week and snow, as well. This will be a nice change considering the entire country has been hovering near -20 to -30ºC all week/end. It will be around -5ºC by this coming Friday, which means I get to officially drag people out to Sigulda to do some snowboarding. Sorry, that makes me sound too cool. To LEARN how to do some snowboarding. Yes, much better. I'm sure I'll have some kind of story for that...

This is a New Year

2010-01-15T10:23:00.003-05:00

Riga has been nicely frosted over the past two days. I'm excited to take my new tripod out for its first outdoor spin today after work. I've been waiting all day to get back outside and get some shots of the parks while they look this nice and fairytale-like.

I've also had the iTunes free download of the week, "This is a New Year" by Ian Axel, featuring Chad Vaccarino, on loop for the past 48 hours. It's a great, simple, upbeat and hope-filled song that I can't seem to get enough of. 2010 has had a bit of a stressful start for me, and a rocky and crap-filled start for others; this track seems to be herald something everyone could use a little bit of right about now.

Anyway, because there are only (based on Google.com search results) about 4 or 5 websites that list the entire lyrics to the song, I thought I'd jump on that bandwagon to up the hit count. Lo and behold, "This is a New Year":

Another year you made a promise
Another chance to turn it all around
And do not save this for tomorrow
Embrace the past and you can live for now
And I will give the world to you

Speak louder than the words before you
And give them meaning no one else has found
The role we play is so important
We are the voices of the underground
And I will give the world to you

Say everything you’ve always wanted
Be not afraid of who you really are
‘Cause in the end we have each other
And that’s at least one thing worth living for
And I would give the world to you

A million suns that shine upon me
A million eyes you are the brightest blue
Let’s tear the walls down that divide us
And build a statue strong enough for two

I pass it back to you
And I will wait for you
‘Cause I would give the world
And I would give the world
And I would give the world to you

This is a new year
A new beginning
You made a promise
You are the brightest
We are the voices
This is a new year
We are the voices
This is a new year

Athletic Clubs and E-tickets

2010-01-08T09:55:00.001-05:00

Epic fail for me this morning.

Last night I went with a friend as a guest to the gym she goes to. Quite the Eastern European experience. Other than a few guys working out, I think I was the only woman in the place wearing running shorts. There was one woman with a kind of onesie tennis skirt thing and leggings that looked like the Spandex delivery guys wear in the winter as they bike across the city. I can't imagine working out indoors with long pants, unless the place is highly air-conditioned.

The gym was decent as far as gyms go. I was glad to see they even have the unmarked bottles of "disinfectant", which could be a combination of any number of abrasive and clear cleaning liquids, used to wipe down the machines after use.

Anyway, after a good 30 minute run and lots of post stretching at the gym, I went home and slept wonderfully. So wonderfully, in fact, that I got to work 1.5 hours late. My alarm went off at 08.00, I hit snooze twice, and all of a sudden it was 09.30. I checked two other clocks, including my father's mobile phone, before I was convinced I was not hallucinating.

I called in to tell one project manager about my fail, and to have him send a project due at 10.00 to my home computer, and he laughed. Then proceeded to tell the rest of the office of my fail. At least everyone else got to start their Friday in-office with a chuckle.

The real reason behind this post, however, is that I just discovered it IS possible to pre-order bus tickets on the Internets! Bezrindas.lv, literally "No lines", is a dandy little website that lets you order tickets and have them sent to your e-mail in .pdf format, OR (I'm getting giddy) sent to your mobile phone! How green is that?

New Year

2010-01-06T04:26:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year to everyone! New Year's Eve in Riga was pretty fantastic. I was lucky enough to be able to combine friends and family; people came over to the apartment, where we visited, snacked, melted and poured lead to "predict our 2010 fortunes" and drank some pre-2010 champagne. At 23.30 we pulled on our coats and shoes and rushed to the square in front of the Freedom Monument, making it there literally 10 seconds before the New Year. 2010 arrived with fireworks, more champagne, part poppers and lots of picture-taking. Again, I felt really blessed to have been able to spend the evening with some great, close friends and family, my father included. We managed to eventually call through to the States, wish my grandparents all the best, and my mom all the best in the New Year (through my mother I got to speak to my aunt, too, since I caught my mother at church right before she was to go give the first reading). After taking pictures of people dressed as nuns, chickens and rabbits, we all headed to the Dome Square for some mulled wine and, and, AND! sledding down the small hill to the lower yard in front of the Dome Cathedral. I hadn't been sledding in YEARS and even though I was wearing a skirt I was more than thrilled to get the chance to do so again. The sled was a kind of lacquered plywood about 7' long. Very... minimalistic, but it got the job done. My father and I finally made it back home around 03.00, at which time we deemed it far enough into the New Year to open a sort of "New Year's present" from one of our relatives. We knew the present was books and we're book people, so waiting much longer to look at what they were wouldn't have happened anyway.

One of the books is this absolutely fantastic "The Big Guide to Riga Architecture". It describes a great deal of buildings around the city, both in the centre and out of it, showing a modern picture, a small copy of the original blueprint and a short write-up of what the building is/was meant to be. Many of these buildings are buildings I've passed on a daily or weekly basis and have had no idea what their deal was. It's a bunch of mini history lessons in a very non-boring format. I plan on stocking up on copies and gifting them to people.

This week is the first full week of the New Year. It was nice having two back-to-back three-day work weeks, and I'm surprised that I don't feel like it should be Friday today.

Last night my father and I went to see “Klusuma skanjas” (The Sounds of Silence) at the Muzeum of Art and Theatre. The funny thing about that was that we thought the play was going to be at the New Riga Theatre in the city centre, but at 10 minutes to show time figured out that the venue was NOT the New Riga Theatre and that the actual venue was across the river in some previously unknown location. But since the play is based off of movement and expression alone (that's right, ZERO) dialogue, it is not only a brilliant play to see (and take non-Latvian speaking people to), but it is also less of a big deal if you miss the first 20 minutes of it. I'm a fan of the director, Alvis Hermanis, and have seen his original "no-dialogue" play "Gara dzive" (A Long Life). I recommend both.

And now for the reason this post seemed important: we had dinner at the Theatre Bar Restaurant (through the courtyard behind the actual New Riga Theatre; there's a regular Theatre Bar across the street), which has a very unique menu and has a very kitschy yet not annoying interior. The food is also good. If you end up in the area of the New Riga Theatre (on Lacplesu Street), pop in for a quick bite or drink. The prices are decent, and their cauliflower-eggplant cream soup with pumpkin seeds is absolutely mouth-watering.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-23T04:51:00.000-05:00

The staff party at work last night went well. We predicted our futures, or "poured our fortunes", by melting lead or tin (your choice -- as I described to some visiting staff from Estonia, one is less toxic, but the other is more traditional). This made me feel strange, as I usually am very adamant that the lead/tin pouring take place only on New Year's eve. But hey, if my luck runs south, I'll know why.

Though a day early, I'd like to wish everyone a fantastic holiday season and all the best in the New Year!

Sock it to the Post

2009-12-22T10:02:00.000-05:00

Let me tell you a bit about the Latvian postal/UPS/postal customs system.

I ordered Rosetta Stone goods from the States (yes, I decided to take the Rosetta leap, if you will. Hate on me after I have my post rant) back at the end of November. Somewhere in the beginning of December I got a hurriedly mumbled phone call from someone at Customs saying I had to come pick up a package. I assumed this was the package from my mother she had told me to watch for and so started planning a transportation option to go pick up said mommy-pack.

But then I got curious as to how far the Rosetta shipment had gotten and logged into the UPS tracking website to discover that it was in fact the Rosetta Stone box that had been sitting at Customs the past several days. Joy of joys! Only problem is that the UPS/Customs office is only open until 18.00 on week days. This, coupled with the inconvenient yet cheap public transportation option that takes me 10 minutes to walk to and takes 15-20 minutes to arrive at the required stop, promised to be an interesting task to manage seeing as I work 9.00 - 17.00.

I'll say now, the simple fact that I, too, work a 40h/week job seems to surprise most of the people I've had to deal with on a bureaucratic level. Ack! I'm not just some American-Latvian come to mooch your money for doing absolutely nothing all day! I actually pull my own weight (and often then some) in the local work force, just like so many other hard working townies! I know, it's INSANE!

I digress.

Then I get a phone call from a weasely sounding man at UPS, who basically informs me that the package has been at their office for some time and that they want to know if someone is ever going to come and pick it up. I then inform him that I've been trying to make it out to their office the past week, but I don't usually get out of the office earlier than 17.00. Enter surprised sound from the weasely man. I continue by saying I intend to do my best to make it to their office the next day. He then tells me I'll have to pay an additional (!!!!) percentage for customs fees. I say this is excellent. My sarcasm goes over his head as he asks me, "So, is someone going to come within the next days or not?" KICK. IN. THE. HEAD. He also adds that the hours are from 8.30-17.30, meaning that I lose a 30 minute window of arriving to get things done.

I roll into the UPS office the next day, no one looks at the passport I've brought with me, I get a piece of paper from a guy at the UPS desk and am told to go talk to the customs declarant. The customs declarant is an incredibly bored looking woman with ink smudges all over her manicured but calloused hands. She takes my "receipt" and tells me if my package contains an educational material, I'll have to pay a 10% customs duty, and if it's something else, I pay 21%. Then she looks me in the eye and asks me, "So what are we going to do about it?"

I am confused and tell her so. "Of course it's an educational material - it's a language acquisition programme." She then tells me that yes, the invoice does say "Educational Material", but this doesn't mean that they know what is in the box. I am also told that a woman received a similar package from the same company a few weeks back, and she was brought to customs inspection. This is at least what I initially heard. At this time I'm starting to get concerned. It's just a box of learning CDs, right?? I didn't do anything wrong, I don't want to be interrogated!" But then I understand that it is the contents of the box they inspect, not you. So my options are: let Customs open my shipment and poke around to make sure it is what it says it is, then pay them 10% of the total of the product, or walk away with it then, but pay 21% of the total. I say I'll take the first option -- hey, what's another 10% and more days of waiting for an item I thought I would be receiving at my local post department branch office, right?

So I sign the invoice and the customs declarant takes my phone number and tells me that the box will be brought to inspection the following day (Wednesday), I would be contacted by Thursday, at which point they would tell me how much I would have to pay in addition, e-mail me a copy of the final invoice, and I'd be able to come pick the package up by Friday. Frustrated, I ask about the office hours and she informs me that her station is open until 18.00, but that the main UPS counters I passed when coming in (and where, presumably, I'd have to pay) are open until 20.00. Great. I part empty-handed, not very amused, but glad that things are at least moving forward.

Fast forward to Friday. I've heard nothing from UPS, Customs, or the weasely man. I don't know who to call. I have no papers. I find the UPS Latvia e-mail address and write them a frustrated and slightly angry letter. Where. Is. My. Stuff.

Fast forward to Monday. I get an e-mail from UPS Latvia saying that my package has been taken to the Customs inspection department near Riga International Airport and that I need to show up in order for them to open up the box and look at it. I also need to take some document with me that proves the contents of the box. Big, ol' WTF. So I call the number at the end of the e-mail, get a somewhat sympathetic woman on the other line, who tells me the exact same thing the e-mail told me. Which is okay.

But then I tell her I'm just really confused why I have to go all the way out to the airport, when the customs declarant at UPS told me I would be called once everything was taken care of to come pay for and pick up my package. The woman on the phone (ba-bah-daaah, bureaucracy!) told me she had nothing to do with what the customs declarant told me, but I would still have to come to them to get the package. Also, I'd have to show up by 16.00 in order to draw up the declaration papers (which, oh, I get to pay for, too) in a timely manner and get the package. I tell her about my 40h/week job and I am not surprised that she sounds surprised. I am then told that my other option is to give UPS Express the authority to fill out the sheets for me, which I'd have to pay extra for, and then they'd deliver the package to my place of work. I ask if this is something the post office would take care of. Of course, it isn't. I didn't ask, but I would bet money that I would have to physically go to the UPS office, fill out countless documents to give them said authorisation to go take care of my stuff for me. The woman asks me if I want her to give me the number for UPS. I think for a second, then tell her very bluntly that no, I do not want to call them. I want my package. It's been in the country for almost a month, I've had all this unexpected stress and ridiculousness to deal with and I still don't have my property. She kind of sympathises, but not too much. She then reiterates that, if I trust UPS Express to handle things, I could still try that option. I bite my tongue to keep from telling her just how much I actually DO trust UPS Express in comparison to the standard postal system.

Then I figured out I could try to take care of all of this next Monday. The woman agrees this would work. I ask her if I can pay by debit card. She says no. I then ask her how much money am I supposed to know to bring with. She gives me a ballpark number. BALLPARK. Jesus Christ on crutches on ice.

During this week I also got a "Repeat Reminder!!!" notice from the regular mail saying I had a package waiting for me some time. Funny, because it was the FIRST NOTICE I HAD GOTTEN. But they delegated UPS Express to bring it to me (who signed on those papers, I wonder?), so it worked out in the end. Then yesterday I got a letter from my friend Andi and her husband Brent, something that I'm guessing is a "Thank you for being at our wedding!" (I was on Skype conference, different story) photo of the two of them. I say guess, because the envelope was put back together with sports tape due to what the stamp basically calls "being opened upon receipt". The envelope looks like a Rotweiler slept face-down on it. The paper of the envelope is worn and liquid-stained and has completely adhered itself to the face of the photo. The front of the envelope with the addresses is mysteriously unscathed, but the back... The postal system here is kicking my butt.

So I am going to go to the building next to the airport next Monday and hope that I have enough time after filling in the declaration forms to tell them exactly how I feel about their absolute crap lack of inter-departmental and office communication. I AM FUMING. You just can't tell because all the snowfall we've had lately is masking it.

Christmas, Blood and Viruses

2009-12-20T10:16:00.001-05:00

Oooh, happy 3/4 of the holiday season! I spent Christmas eve with my cousin and her lovely family. We ate goose, listened to poems recited and songs sung to earn the joy of opening presents and watched the tree warily to make sure it didn't light on fire. Some of the ornaments did, but the tree itself stayed safe all night. Toward the end of the evening I got socked in the mouth by my god-daughter's head and got to stand in the kitchen with an ice pack to my face and spitting blood for a few minutes. I still have all my teeth, but the cuts on the bottom part of my mouth still hurt a bit. This was probably subconscious payback for that time she hit her face on my knee and got a bloody nose. So we're even, right? RIGHT?!! I am now being teased that I am incapable of walking away from a visiting session with my cousin's family without any blood having been shed. We're full of talent like that.

I got home just past midnight, I think, stayed awake for 3 more hours, then slept for an hour before waking myself up to call back to the States to wish people there a Merry Christmas. I got a little video-chat time in with the festivities going on at my mom's house, and a surround-sound speaker phone effect when calling my dad and grandparents (I called my dad via Skype, then my grandparents called me on my cell phone...and no one thought to hang up one of the two calls. I don't know what happened there...). Christmas morning -- or day, since I slept in until 13.00 -- I hauled myself out to my friend Ilze's house (while Ilze is outside the country, I'm making sure her cat survives the winter) where I kept her cat some holiday company and continued to relax.

People, I did so much sleeping in those four days it was DELICIOUS. Three day weeks should happen more often. This week is another three day week; today I drove out with a few colleagues to Malpils, where we were scheduled to go spend some time with residents at an assisted living centre. But then the girl who was supposed to sing them some songs got sick. And then when we got to Malpils (an hour's drive from Riga) we were told by the administrator that the majority of the residents and some staff were sick with this nasty flu+vomiting+diarrhea virus that's spreading around faster than H1N1 on horseback through a wildfire. It took a few moments of deliberation, but we decided it would be best to just leave the dessert pretzel, mandarins and candies at the front desk, have the administrator say "Hello" to the residents for us, and left. It was too bad we weren't able to visit, but I had a similar virus two years ago and would rather miss an opportunity to do a good deed than be stuck halfway between my bed and the toilet for a week and a half. Thanks, but no thanks.

On a slight side note, I will mention that the assisted living centre in Malpils looked really nice from the outside. The one we went to in Riga with the Martin choir wasn't that pleasant to look at and it's all I can do to hope that both places treat their residents (and as such, clients) with the respect and care they need and deserve.

Now I'm just a short while from another four day weekend. Tonight I'm going to a year-end concert with my dad (who is in Latvia now, HURRAH!) and some relatives. Last year's concert blew my mind, so I'm extremely excited for this one. After tonight, sleep, glorious sleep! Then off to the store tomorrow morning to prepare for our New Year's party tomorrow night. My first time with family PLUS friends. I have butterflies in my stomach. Will all go well? Will people enjoy themselves? Oh, the suspense!

Once more, happy new year to everyone! I'll be hitting 2010 approximately 7 - 8 hours before most of you. I'll let you know how it starts out.

Choir, Indian Food, Weather

2009-12-11T07:01:00.000-05:00

Last night I participated in my second choir-related event. We performed at the 9 Lessons church service at the Anglican Church last night, followed by a delicious Indian cuisine dinner at the British Chamber of Commerce Christmas Party. I had the chance to see and speak to people I haven't seen in some time, which was great, however short the conversations may have been. You learn the most important facts right away -- how they're doing, if they're happy and if they look as happy as they say they do.

People fascinate me.

After dinner I headed home and started some more translation related projects. I just found out that one larger work I'd like to do some work on has NOT, in fact, been entirely translated into English. In terms of this specific piece, I was quite surprised, but I suppose some things just slip under the translation radar, so to speak. I think all that's left is to figure out what I have to do to "officially start". Either way, I'm excited at the prospect and look forward to working with the piece.

In other news, choir has been going well. It's allowed me to meet some new people and spend time in a different environment.

The weather in Latvia has been plain stupid the past few weeks. I keep waiting for it to snow (hell, we've all been waiting and are tired of hearing about all the white goodness the States have been getting); I don't know how many more pressure headaches I can take in one week. At least it's Friday.

Tomorrow the friends and I are having an early Christmas themed dinner and gift exchange, since a good portion of the group will be gone during the actual dates. I have yet to buy a gift for my person, but I know what I'll be buying.

No real Riga-related news for now. The economy still apparently sucks, and I'm still not really seeing it.

Name Days

2009-12-03T03:54:00.000-05:00

In Latvia (and several other eastern European countries), name days are about as big of a deal as birthdays. Friends, family and co-workers generally dump mounds of flowers and/or chocolates into your lap, you get plenty of cheek-kissing action and the responsibility of bringing something tasty to work to share. If you plan really well, you will not only bring something to work, but will also have an evening planned at your place, as it is not abnormal to have guests drop by throughout the evening.

Today, two women at work are celebrating their name days. Thankfully, I did my date-checking yesterday and was prepared to leave earlier this morning and swing by the flower market on Terbatas Street. I'm surprised I wasn't hassled by more of the flower ladies. The rainy weather seems to have every other person in a funk. I was able to find some nice Gerber daisies for LVL 0.80 a piece and bought three per person. Ah yes, another thing I have learned since living here. When you buy flowers for someone, whatever the occasion may be, BUY AN ODD NUMBER OF FLOWERS. I don't know exactly why, just that this is what you should do. Even numbers are reserved for funerals or to put on graves. If I figure out the complete story behind that I'll share it. But for now, know that it's just what you do.

Helping Out

2009-12-02T04:27:00.000-05:00

I've had a lot on my plate lately. I've also been doing a lot of reading lately. Among this reading was something of a less-positive or action-packed nature. I'm just going to go ahead and be Ms. Ad Campaign.

People around the world need the assistance and financial support of others who are living in more stable conditions. Donate a dollar, donate a lat -- it all adds up. It's kind of like voting for president -- each vote or dollar matters.

So as the holiday season draws nearer, do your part to help those less fortunate. Or do your part to help remove a cat's naughty bits. Either way, help.

http://www.ziedot.lv/lv
or
http://www.ziedot.lv/en

More Pumpkins and More Vets

2009-11-27T07:32:00.001-05:00

Please grant me Weekend NOW.

This has been week two of three rough weeks; I'm happy to say that the third week of huge projects will only last until next Tuesday. Then I should be somewhat back to normal in regard to a work load, though there is a possibility that this will not happen.

Tonight is "American Culture" event night at work. I'll be leading an English activity and have made 16 cups-worth of cranberry sauce and baked three loaves of pumpkin bread (this was the way I spent my US Thanksgiving evening). The sad thing is that I have enough pumpkin purée left over to make pumpkin bread for another year.

That's a rough estimate.

Saturday the cat gets another vet visit, this time to catch him up on his vaccinations. Sorry, buddy, but it has to happen. I honestly am partially expecting to have to leave the cat at the clinic overnight so they can extract all of the broken needle tips that will lodge into his skin. This cat is the King of Skitters and I don't foresee that this visit will go smoothly. The less traumatising purpose of the trip will be to get him some more de-worming pills.

This morning I had my left hand scratched up and nearly took a paw-smack to the face FOR NOT GETTING UP THE MILLISECOND MY ALARM WENT OFF. Thanks, cat.

I am incredibly tired, incredibly drained, and want nothing more than to go to sleep relatively early tonight, go for a run tomorrow morning and take an easy weekend. I'm trying to watch my health as best as I can -- two more people have died in Latvia due to H1N1+complications. I'm considering re-visiting a clinic to get a prescription for a steroid inhaler, just in case I get a head cold that develops into what I had earlier this year.

Garlic and Vets

2009-11-24T05:23:00.000-05:00

Saturday night some friends and I went to Kiploku krogs – The Garlic Bar – and had a very flavourful dinner. As far as I know, almost everything on the menu has some amount of garlic in it, including some of the desserts and beverages (ice cream with honey-garlic sauce, anyone? Or how about some delicious garlic mulled wine?). The joke/saying that goes with this restaurant is that if you plan to go, it is recommended to spend the rest of the evening hanging out with the same group of people who were at dinner, as you are the only ones who will be able to stand the garlicy company. I don't think any of us ate enough garlic for it to be seeping out of our pores, but I definitely still had the taste on my tongue the next morning.

But the food was delicious, the garlic mulled wine was as well (for this they don't actually crush the garlic, just drop one steamed clove into the drink, so the garlic taste is almost undetectable) and the prices were decent. Definitely a must as far as going back for more.

Now about the visit to the vet. Oh, experiences. First I called the taxi company to make sure I could transport the cat that way (by car from my apartment is the most direct, as with any other transport I would have to walk through the city for 10-15 minutes to reach the respective tram stop or the main train station with a howling, dagger-spitting cat, then sit on said mode of transportation for another 30 minutes while people eye me either warily or with annoyance as the cat makes horrific "I think I'm dying slowly and painfully so I'm going to make you experience every second of it" sounds. The cab company is run by saints who allow pets and even said "Hey, if you have a kennel for the cat - even better!" Like I was going to just carry the cat down to the car without any problems. On the way to the vet the cat literally crapped himself silly (at least we had some fecal samples for the doctor when we got there) and stunk up the cab. Not my problem.

The visit itself went well; the vet was a younger guy who kept dropping things all over the place, including at random and uncontrollable intervals from his pockets. He also knocked a few things off the exam table and expressed his frustration that something was going strangely that morning. He couldn't find anything wrong with the cat, and I started to think it might be because of his own judgement. The man is holding my cat down while sticking a thermometer up the poor animal's butt and tells me, "Wow, your cat is really freaked out." I just looked at the vet and kind of laughed. If he can't see the reason for the cat's nerves, then he's beyond my help.

The cat got a de-worming pill, prescriptions for a kind of anti-diarrhea pill and a "natural bacteria" balancer, and I got tagged with an LVL 19 bill (NOT bad at all - this price includes the medicine) and the strong suggestion to take the cat in for more de-worming and the next round of shots once he feels better.

The cab ride back started with the cabby picking up the cage and looking at it, then up to me with eyes glowing like a small child's and asked excitedly "A kitty!?" The cat was able to control its bowl movements better during the return trip and immediately forgot his recent trauma once back at home and stretched across the top of the radiator.

At this time it seems like the cat has gotten better. It was absolute hell trying to get the medicines in him; the pills were ridiculous (my cousin, also a vet, said that he doesn't even give that specific type of pill to clients for their pets until he chops them up and puts them into gel-caps to mask the bitter taste) and if I fail miserably trying to shove those down the cat's throat, I was generally too tired to try to get the other paste (which is apparently semi-delicious and tolerable) into his mouth. But the symptoms of whatever look like they're gone and I was able to call the clinic and let them know that everything seemed to be back in order. The cat is now splayed out on my lap, but little does he know that another vet visit is just around the corner.

Tonight I also went to choir practice with the Martinu koris. It went about as well as I could have expected it to go. I haven't completely forgotten how to sing, though practising my violin more will definitely get that hearing back into shape. Tomorrow night I go to play my violin in a Latvian fiddle-type setting with some folk dances/games people. That may be a bit more nerve-racking.

Two Weeks of Feeling Displaced

2009-11-18T14:41:00.000-05:00

Two weeks of pure, non-working vacation felt very strange. I've been away from the office for two weeks before, but never away from work. But I guess it was something I needed and in the end I was ready to get back to more constructive things. My vacation ended on a Thursday and I was back on Friday, then ready to have it all stop again by the following Tuesday. Ah, work. The thought of getting back to it is always nice, but I think that in the end it was the atmosphere and company that I missed more than the actual projects. Though I think that's an entirely expected and healthy thing to feel. Point is, two weeks of doing nothing left me feeling slightly out of place, which is probably indicative of workaholicism. Watch out, world

Rome

Rome was a fascinating place, though rather dirty. I was surprised by the amount of trash in some areas of the city and the general filth we saw. True, the southern part of the city near the Colosseum was cleaner and seemed a bit more maintained, but this could be because of the mass amount of tourists. I can safely say Rome doesn't make my top five list of European cities, but the architecture was definitely mind blowing. Even considering the straight up massiveness of it all and the grandeur, none of it felt overdone. St. Peter's Basilica, for example. It is the most decked-out church I've ever been in, but I didn't get the same feeling of religious overcompensation that I get from other churches in Europe. It was like the fanciness was well-deserved and that it could really be no other way. Of course there were these random buildings and churches scattered all around the city and it was exciting to turn a corner and have it be BAM! oldest church in Rome! or BAM! Bernini sculpture. A lot of the trip for me was being in a city with such historical artistic and architectural value. The Colosseum was huge and I wanted very badly to go running through the lower levels (where they used to keep the animals before setting them on the gladiators) and climb on the walls. We had a picnic lunch at the Colosseum and it felt unreal to know that we were sitting in such an old structure, enjoying a sunny day and eating sandwiches. In comparison to countries like Latvia, Italy struck me as a very hands-on type of place. If the Colosseum had been in Latvia, there would be barriers and fences all over the place restricting access to about 99% of the structure and, additionally, they'd make you wear torn up slippers to keep you from scuffing up or wearing down the floors too much.

We also took a 13-hour day tour to Pompeii and Naples. We didn't see much of Naples; it mostly consisted of our bus driving a loop through the city centre while our tour guide Monika (who spoke four languages and none of them well) informed us when we passed the Opera house, the City Hall and some house on a hill, which she pointed out about 17 times and, of course, which we didn't remember what it was called. At one point they had us get off the bus and spend 10 minutes taking pictures of the peninsula of Sorento and the island of Capri -- both of which were so shrouded in morning sea mist that we spent the 10 minutes taking pictures of each other standing in front of what we could only assume was a peninsula or an island, but might have just been factory smoke from the port district.

Pompeii, on the other hand, was simply ace. I don't know how else to describe it. Again, one thing that really got me about Italy was how you could essentially go anywhere, touch anything, and not get in trouble for it. In Pompeii, at the old city site, it was all "Welcome to the site of a city buried by volcanic ash in AD 79. This is a mural on the wall of the richest person's house. Go ahead, touch the paint." I mean, FOR REAL? I'm in the middle of what is essentially a living archaeological dig and I can touch everything? It blew my mind. Old Pompeii has these large stones in the middle of its streets, which were used as stepping stones for pedestrians when it rained and the streets flooded. The stones were at least 8 inches high, just huge. And a genius idea. Modern cities should have these. The number of stepping stones at the beginning of a street also indicated if it was a one- or two-way street. You could also see the grooves in the stone made by wagons from way back when. Just amazing. Egypt was old, yes, but this was just.... unbelievable. Most likely because there was proof. We only had two hours to walk around Pompeii and had to follow our second tour guide, an interesting 83 year old man who started telling Ilze and me about the history of the occupation of Latvia. So in Pompeii we only saw the "important" things, like the home of the richest person, the red light district and brothel, the bath houses and the small amphitheatre. Ilze and I also befriended some nappy and scraggly looking dogs while Davids took every opportunity to bask in the sunlight. (The entire week was spent in 20+ºC weather.)

We also took a day trip an hour north of Rome to a city called Tivoli. The city was recommended to us by one of the attendants at the hostel as a great place to get away from Rome and see some fancy villas and nature sites. It was good to get out of Rome and see some of the Italian countryside and the hilly areas. Tivoli as a city is pretty unexciting, but the Villas were something else. The first one we went to, Villa Gregoriana, mostly functions as a nature trail/reserve area and has a lot of caves and waterfalls. We wandered around there for a few hours and then headed to Villa D'Este, which is known for having 500+ fountains, including in some of the halls inside the Villa.

Villa D'Este started out in with a "special" twist. EU passport holders could get a discount, so Ilze used her Latvian passport. The woman at the desk takes the passport, looks at it, then picks up this clipboard with a bunch of papers and starts looking through them. She does this for a few seconds, then looks up at Ilze and goes, "Mmm, no." and shakes her head. So we go "What do you mean 'no'?" She gestures to the list and shakes her head again and then basically proceeds to tell us that Latvia is not in the EU. Because it's not on her list. The guy next to her couldn't find Latvia on the list, either, and the three of us are telling them that Latvia's been in the EU since 2005 and they should just look it up online, but they're sticking to THEIR not-on-the-list story. Finally the other two women working at the front register ask what's going on and, after being caught up on the situation, the younger of the two says in Italian "Umm, yeah. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia...." and the second woman nods and goes "EU, yup." Then the first two people went kind of silent and the man pointed to a receipt-size piece of paper on the clipboard and goes "Ah, yes, Latvia." I'm still not sure if he actually saw it written there or if he just tried to play off the fact that they made a huge mistake. Trying to tell us our country isn't part of the EU. That was... We were pretty speechless after that. The fountains at Villa D'Este were many and varied and made us wonder what the water bill was like each month. And how much it would cost to throw a huge party there.

The rest of the trip involved gelatto, wine, seeing many of the "important" sights of Rome, lots of walking and LOTS of bread. Oh god. I hadn't eaten that much bread or meat in months. By the end of the week I was feeling almost possessed by carbs. I was overall not impressed with the food in Rome, at least not with the taste. The best tasting food we ended up eating was at this semi-hidden restaurant by day, club by night, place that had umpteen types of pasta in a buffet set-up. For EUR 5.90 you could choose three types of pasta dishes (risotto included) and they would put a large amount of this food onto a plate, microwave the plate and bring it out to you. Sounds kind of gross, but it really was the best tasting food we had all trip. We also put our hands in the Bocca della Verita (think "Roman Holiday") and tossed coins over our shoulders into the Trevi Fountain (well, Ilze and I did, so we're apparently going back to Rome, but Davids isn't). Maybe the city will be cleaner next time. We also saw the Pope on big-screen TV in St. Peter's square the Sunday morning after we flew in, but that's as close as we got to him.

For family, Italy will be an ask-and-tell trip, since we saw and did so much. This also includes making a trip to the Rome IKEA and seeing a woman pee into a plastic bottle behind and trash can located on the median of a busy street.

Latvija

For the second week of my vacation I rented a car and did some decent roadtripping around Latvija. Two friends (both here on the Fulbright research scholarship) tagged along a few of the days. With them I hit up Ventspils, Liepaja, Tukums, Dobele, Salaspils, Jelgava, Aizkraukle, Ogre and Daugavpils, to name a few. Driving was alright, though I'd forgotten how sore your legs can get from driving stick shift without cruise control. Two straight hours of pressing on the gas pedal? No, thank you. I also think that I was the only person in the entire country of Latvia driving the legal speed limit. Call me a grandmother, I don't care -- I'm not going to be the one to get pulled over by the cops and end up paying a 5-er or a 10-er to get out of a LVL 30 ticket. One of the days I got to spend some quality me-time, driving around Vidzeme and listening to my new German CD (Peter Fox; Stadtaffe). Cities I roamed through on my own included Sigulda, Valmiera, Smiltene and Rauna. I really liked Daugavpils and Liepaja, but Vidzeme... Vidzeme is wow. The people seem nicer and the countryside is stunning. It kind of reminded me of the Midwest. Even though there wasn't much to see other than cows and hay-bales (which I've decided I like very, very much), it felt good being there. Daugavpils, on the other hand, was extremely creepy driving into at night. Even though it was only 6 p.m., we almost didn't want to go back out until the next day. However, the next morning (it had also snowed) everything looked much better and by the time we got to the centre it was good times. I know some people who make gagging or shuddering noises when Daugavpils is mentioned, but I thought it was a nice place. Earlier in the week the Fulbrighters and I also tried to find Kandava, but it was like it had been spirited away. For real. We turned at a sign that said "Kandava 1,5 km" and after 1.5 km there was a sign pointing in the other direction that said "Kandava 1 km". And no Kandava inbetween. Throughout the travelling it was good to have a range of cities I completely disliked, to so-so cities, and ending with cities I really liked.

Most of my reason for the Latvija road trip was to get more photographs of Latvian graffiti. So far, it's going well as a pending serious-type project. I'd like to turn it into some kind definite project, though I'm not sure what, yet, or how. But I'm definitely having a good time seeing the different types and levels of graffiti and how it changes from region to region. Most cities had a good amount of graffiti to photograph, but Smiltene, for example, was 99.9% clean. I almost didn't find anything there. It's also interesting seeing someone's tag in several cities, especially when those cities are far apart.

Post Vacation

Nyargh. Why is it that the return from vacation is always the most brutal time period? I have a big project going on right now, which will be followed by another big project for the month of December. Busy, Busy.

I also learned how to bake pumpkin pie from scratch. It's much easier than I had thought it would be, and I'm excited to keep using pumpkins for all kinds of baking delights. In addition to the pie, I experimented with pumpkin bread, which ended up looking and baking a bit better than banana bread does. This I attribute to the fact that pumpkin is more moist than banana. Either way, I brought both the pie and the bread to guinea pig on people at work and was asked to cough up recipes for both. I also made cranberry sauce from scratch, which worked out well as expected. It's not that different from making rhubarb compote.

The pies and the cranberry sauce are all for the "American Culture Night" event at work. Everyone seems to have faith in me and my baking/cooking, which is flattering, even though I keep reiterating the fact that back in the States, Thanksgiving comes in cans. This weekend will most likely be spent visiting with a friend flying in from Brussels, making more pumpkin goo for pie and pre-making cranberry sauce. I should also invest in a pie pan and reinvest in a rolling pin. Mine seems to have gone missing.

When there's a Crisis...

2009-11-16T16:13:00.000-05:00

When there's an economic crisis –- bake pastries! There is a relatively new bakery/café on Terbatas Street called "Kukotava" (The "Cakery"), another Martina bekereja (Martin's Bakery) opened up in Old Town on Valnu Street a month or so ago, there's a new Vecrigas konditoreja (Old Town Bakery) shop on Dzirnavu Street, a relatively new bakery/café around the corner from the House of Blackheads called "Opium" and, coming home tonight I walked by a "Coming Soon"! sign on Dzirnavu Street for a bakery that will be called "Smilsu kuka" (roughly "Shortbread").

So...you can have your crisis, your depression, your losing of a job, but you can totally have your cake and eat it, too! That is, as long as you can afford it.Wednesday is Independence Day here in Latvia, so I'll take that opportunity to sleep in, have a slow breakfast and then wander around the city and take many pictures.

Rome information by Wednesday the latest. If I miss that deadline, it's because I have 250 pages of fishing brochures to proofread by Friday.

Kaija, Kornelija

2009-11-12T04:52:00.000-05:00

As information about Rome, my Latvia road trip and my recent visit to the vet with the cat are STILL PENDING, I've been greeted on this my Name's Day with a lazy, snowy morning. I'm still trying out pumpkin pie recipes for an event at work at the end of the month. Recipe number two seemed to be better consistency wise, but I did something wrong with the oven temperature and scorched about half of the top of the pie. I'm bringing it with to work today as my Name's Day office treat and am planning on slathering it with an artistic layer of whipped cream to cover up the damage. I made cupcakes for my birthday and though I realise that this process is more time-consuming than just buying a torte, it's also less expensive and more interesting for me.

That being said, pumpkin pie is very easy to make, completely from scratch. Like, almost dirty easy.

Pumpkin "goo" used for the pie filling can also keep in the freezer for a little over a year. This means it would be possible to steam, blend and pack pumpkin for an entire year's worth of pumpkin pies, cookies, and other assorted baked goods. I know I could go the soup route, but I'm not into that. I deal with oveny things.

Roadtrip Saga Complete

2009-11-06T07:58:00.000-05:00

Still no recap on the Italy trip, but know that my vacation is officially over and that I am running on burn-out right now and won't be able to stop and take another breath until Saturday evening.

Also know that I have finished my Latvia road trip and have come out breathing on the other side. I almost didn't sleep last night for fear that the rental people would find something, ANYTHING wrong with the pristine car I returned to them early this morning. But everything went well.

In temporary closing, we have snow, or had snow in Latvia yesterday. From Riga all the way to Daugavpils (where I was Thursday morning).

Keeping you on the edge of your seats...

Vacation

2009-11-03T06:14:00.000-05:00

I'll get around to writing more in detail about the Italy/Rome experience, but for now know that I am back in Riga, currently implementing my mini Latvia road-trip and am doing well. What sweetens the deal is that I was finally able today to pick up the goodies I ordered from Amazon.de.

Stay tuned.

Leaving on a Ferrybusplane

2009-10-15T18:37:00.000-04:00

This weekend three friends and I will be travelling through Estonia to Tallinn, then across the way to Helsinki, where we'll spend a day filled with IKEA and H&M and Sibelius-dedicated sculptures before heading back to the Baltics. That's one good thing about living in a small country – it's much easier to get to the bigger ones surrounding it.

Today, through the assistance of a friend, I found this guy, who roughly translates popular English songs and performs them in Latvian. Some are pretty amusing, while others are just a bit off. The video I've linked, however, has over 95,000 hits on youtube.com, which is a pretty decent number. It's amusing, to say the least.

English Conversation Group is going well - at the second meeting last week, all three students showed up again. They seem to get my jokes, which is a relief, and are responsive, which is rewarding. After the last lesson the two girls came back to the classroom after getting their coats and were like "This has been bothering us since last week, but...WHY ARE YOU HERE??" It's mostly the mid-teenage group that doesn't understand why someone from the States would so willingly set up life-shop in Latvia. I thought I had explained things fairly well during the first Group, but I guess I still left some things unanswered.

In other Riga news, yesterday we had a wind storm advisory. I guess that's what you'd have to call it. The TV screen was literally scrolling a message that read something such as "Unless absolutely necessary, it is recommended for people not to leave their homes". I didn't think it was that bad, but it was very rainy, very windy, and rather cold. Some parts of Riga have gotten their fall colours, but the majority of it is still stuck in a stunted air of almost-there. It's like watching a little kid trying in vain to blow up a balloon because their lungs aren't strong enough or they're just missing something.

I had another analogy involving a dog trying to pass excrement, but I won't go there. But I guess I just kind of did.

Subject Unrelated

2009-10-12T03:29:00.001-04:00

This is almost entirely unrelated to anything, except for the fact that I am in Latvia and that's where our dog, Kimene, was born. But for no reason that I can immediately identify, I really really miss her today. She was a one of a kind dog. Excuse me -- person. It would be offensive to refer to her as having been anything else.

Jelly-bellied

2009-10-08T04:47:00.000-04:00

Just had my second of what will end up being three trips to the clinic. Today's task was to hit up the ultrasonoscopy/ultrasound section to be, what I have now deemed it, "jelly-bellied". This physician was very grandmotherly, and after looking at the write-up of Tuesday's surgeon looked at me and very sincerely asked "Alright, but how do YOU feel?" The procedure itself was...surprisingly calming? The ultrasound "wand", I'll call it, was very warm. I could have fallen asleep and kind of wish I had done so and had started snoring, just to see the physicians face when she'd have to shake me awake.

Of all the institutional things in Latvia, I think I like the health system the most, minus the 1. Riga Hospital, which seems to be the home to rampant ignorance, with the exception of the women at Registration. I'm also VERY glad I signed up for the health policy offered through work, as the visit to the surgeon would have set me back LVL 20 (~$40) and to the ultrasonoscopy a whopping LVL 30 (~$60). I'm pretty sure that I'm closing in on the coverage limit, but since I go so rarely to the doctor for actual problems, I'm not complaining yet.

Tomorrow I go back to have my ultrasound results looked at and explained to me by the surgeon. What I can discern from the medical text (another perk of my job -- you unwillingly pick up jargon the form the ability to decipher texts you otherwise would never look into) tells me that I need to ask the surgeon to explain to me what's going on. But overall the report reads positively and doesn't scream "IMMEDIATE SURGERY!" or "THIS IS THE MOST MESSED UP CASE EVER!" or "WTF?"
So I'm not worried.

Looking the Other Way

2009-10-07T03:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had an appointment at a nearby clinic with a surgeon. During the visit I had my lower abdomen poked and prodded and was then instructed to turn my head and cough.

I was lying on the exam table and almost lost it in a fit of laughter. Turning your head and coughing is something I associate with the 1970s-1980s, males and prostate exams. I guess it works both ways. It was all I could to to turn my head quick enough and cough extra loud to mask my guffawing.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: the Latvian health care system never ceases to amaze or amuse me. I get to go back tomorrow (Thursday) and expect a whole new adventure.

Also, after several days in a row of rainy and overcast weather and general fall frigidness, it promises to be a nice 12°C today, which means I may be able to finally get a decent run in. My flatmate Julija is also back from Russia -- TDA Ligo, the dance troupe she rolls with, won the Grand Prix in St. Petersburg.

I look relatively dishevelled this morning because my cat has taken to lovingly kneading the back of my head while I sleep. The effect of his furry pads and ruthless talons digging into my scalp create a nice 80s prom look that is hard to brush out or comb down. I will have to find a way to avoid this. The easiest ways probably involve wearing a hat or reactivating my ebay.com account and researching whether the sale of animals is legal.

Already this Week

2008-12-09T02:30:00.000-05:00

We haven't even reached Wednesday and there have already been events.

Events during which some things have happened.

First, our landlady finally came and took the large creepy bed out of the apartment. Since I didn't get any follow-up calls from her saying "Sorry but we broke ------- and ------- and --------- and ---------" or "You better pray to God that masking tape on the wall doesn't strip the paint", I assume everything went well. With the big bed there's enough room to put together the individual beds – I took care of mine first thing after work. In the process, I was reintroduced to the joys of "building" IKEA-like furniture and was reminded (more so the day after) that my hands are not, in fact, hammers.

Today, Tuesday, was normal enough except that I was 10 minutes late in meeting up with friends because I was busy leaning into the apartment dumpster trying to punch the cardboard box of said bed into submission. A big thanks to the guys carrying chairs out of the furniture store for not stopping to stare.

I was going to continue by explain how I experienced some kind of weird coca-cola poisoning at the restaurant, wherein I got waves of dizziness and nausea, but then I remembered just now that I ate a yogurt and fruit thing, which completely explains everything. It wouldn't be the first time yogurt made me feel like I had been hyperventilating in a room pumped full of helium.

Berlin is in four days - tomorrow I go to buy plastic boxes for transporting of German goodies.

I'll Show YOU Puddle!!!

2008-12-05T02:31:00.000-05:00

While on the way to pick up three pairs of my long-ill shoes from the...cobbler? That's pretty archaic. Anyway, on my way to the cobbler through Friday afternoon weather that just couldn't be bothered to be a little bit colder so the rain would turn into snow. At the door of the cobbler's I remember they want cash and I have none, so I about-face and head back in the direction of the nearest ATM. As I'm walking I reach an area where there are several shallower puddles at the same time as a car. This car driver is obviously a jerk, as I have no steps to jump up on or any doorways to duck into as he or she drives by, right through the puddle. Luckily I had my purse and computer on the left side of my body, because right side was tidal-waved (in a big city sense).

WHY do people do that? I understand driving through puddles on empty streets, I used to do it all the time. But here... luckily most people don't act this way. There's a puddle the size of four Mastiffs lying back to back at the corner of our street, and no one drives through that. Because they're most likely not jerks like today's person. Today's person probably has a thought process along the following lines:

"I am approaching a group of shallow puddles on the passenger side of my vehicle. These puddles have been put there by rain. Rain that wants to spite me and make my driving experience that much more of a hassle. Rain puddles that need to be retaliated against. Ergo that pedestrian there, who looks like she probably forgot to get cash on the way to the cobbler's, deserves to be punished as an extra."

At least I live around the corner so I didn't have to experience sitting or standing on the train home with people secretly eyeing me with pitying stares.

All I have to say to that driver is this: be happy I forgot to buy marinated gherkins at the store because if I had done so, I would have retaliated and had a fun time seeing how quickly you could U-turn on a one-way street in Friday early evening rush hour traffic. And you would have had a fun time explaining "pickle damage" to your car insurance company.

On (e-)Spam

2008-12-04T02:31:00.000-05:00

I'm tired of filtering through spam comments regarding free porn, gold jewelry and pizza bagels. CUT IT OUT.

Last Night in Zoli

2008-11-30T02:32:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in my soon to be ex-apartment spending what will be my last night as a resident of this apartment. Then it's off to the city centre to organise the life I've progressively trucked over there for the past month. Including the cat, who turned out to be an apartment...floozy, really. 10 minutes in the new place and he had checked out every corner, pawed both the couch and beds, and found a necklace belonging neither to me nor my new flatmate. What a treasure hunter I've landed myself!

This past month has really been mostly work and slowly moving. Yesterday, though, we went to an afternoon showing of Phantom of the Opera, which wasn't the Andrew Lloyd Weber version, but another one. One that probably should have never been made. In its defence, I guess you could say it was more of a "Phantom light", as the whole thing was rather hokey. In a nutshell, we laughed a good deal, mostly at the wrong times (if one were to look from the director's/writer's persective), and I even did so to tears.

The most exciting part of the show was before we actually got into the stadium (bad placement...), when the Belgian friend of one of our group looked at her ticket and said "I don't want to ruin the fun, but is it normal if the ticket says 6 p.m. Friday?" We were waiting to get in for the 3 p.m. show Saturday.

WHAT???

So we start to think - or more realistically, I started to panic. Yes, I picked the tickets up the same morning, Saturday, so why wouldn't the woman at the ticket counter been all "Umm... I'll give you your tickets, but they're worthless."? Yes, I read the sign at the counter that said "PLEASE CHECK YOUR TICKETS BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE COUNTER!!!" Did I check them? Of COURSE not! This is Riga! And why would I have bought the tickest for Friday, since I have class Fridays, and we even remembered having a discussion on which time for Saturday would be best. We decide/hope it's a print errorSo I start to scheme - we'll get to the doors and if they put up a stink I'll tell them I saw the mistake and informed the woman, but she waved her hand and said it would be alright.

But we get to the doors and all they check are purses and bags. They rip the stubs off of our tickets and we're in. We go to our row and see - yes, someone is already sitting there. So someway, somehow, yours truly supergenius managed to buy tickets for the exact day and time the entire group had decided AGAINST. Luckily a fellow North American was working the tech booth (total fluke - Julija ran into him while trying to find someone to explain which doors we were supposed to enter through) and he told us to just wait until lights down, scope out seats and, if anyone came to bother us, send them right to him. REEE-SULT!

Thus, although the show wasn't the best (we decided before we even got in that we have seen enough crap shows over the past year to prepare us for anything out there), we ended up sitting about two price sections up from where we had purchased our tickets. I guess we weren't the only ones "seat-surfing", as an older woman entered the row we had picked before us, sat down, said "Man nepatik!" ("I don't like it!") and then got up to move somewhere else.

Like I said, this is Riga.

Oh, and I have nothing for breakfast here except coffee, cheese and mustard. And the room is eerily empty. I feel like I'm right back in college circa 2005 and my first weeks in Germany. Memories.

18 November! (Happy Birthday, Latvia!)

2008-11-18T02:32:00.000-05:00

With the rabies scare over, I was able to fully concentrate on work, work, and more work.

As of six minutes ago, the independent state of Latvia is officially and 90 years old. For those who don't know, 18 November is Latvia's Independence Day. A huge light-show deal was going on over the past weekend, too, called "Staro Riga" (www.staroriga.lv), which will certainly rack up a pretty electricity bill for the city's November account.

Independence Day in Latvia seems like a slightly bigger deal than that celebrated in the States - first of all, I can't remember a single 4th of July wherein I felt compelled to participate all day long in something. Most people seem to concentrate on the odd parade and the obligatory fireworks that happen once it gets dark. And if you have a grill and use it on this day, more points to you. Independence Day here went on all day long, mostly involving all sorts of documentary films that I didn't go see because I got to work from home today - that was my dose of fundom. I made it to the city centre in the morning to work from the new apartment in time to watch the morning's event of people laying flowers down at the foot of the Freedom Monument. We got to watch President Zatlers put down a bouquet of flowers larger than his torso, and then the whole slew of former presidents, ministers, members of Saeima, political figures, ambassadors, etc., put down their flowers. They cut the feed before the "normal citizens" got to do their stuff.

So even with all of the activities and Independence Day business going on today, I stayed at home and worked, then took a nap, then walked around a bit, got stuck in major people traffic, took some pictures and eventually made it to Krastmala to see the fireworks. Which weren't all that outstanding, but at least they had a few stints of "red-white-red" to keep it patriotic. It was very windy and we got some snow with which it was painful to be hit in the face. Tra-laaah!

I know it's a bit of a bummer I didn't walk around more, but I was out of the country last year, so this is a step up, if nothing else :)

UK Recap

2008-11-05T02:33:00.001-05:00

I'm still sick, but have braved morning commuter traffic to come into work, tentatively until the meds wear off. I'm working off a combination of tasty cough syrup (which has most likely already worn off), Halls lozenges (not as bad as I had expected them to be), inhaler (whaddaya know, asthma is triggered by colds, too!), black balsams (a bit with my morning tea, no more, I swear) and good old-fashioned Tylenol Cold and Sinus.

All of which is mostly doing jack all. All that I really want is to go home, stuff Kleenex balls into my nostrils and sleep until I can't sleep anymore.

UK Recap
Saturday the 25th
Ilze, Davids and I arrive at London Stanstead and are greeted by a friend of Davids, who accompanied us to our hostel and then led us willy-nilly around the city. Mikelis, the friend, has been living in London for only six weeks, so this is marginally forgivable. We sit outside at a pub along the river front for a few hours then head back to the hostel, where we are the only three people in a six-bed room (for the time being).

Sunday the 26th
We wake up and realise two things: 1) there are now 3 slightly hung-over Scots in the room with us and 2) there has been a time change. The Scots confirm this. Mikelis meets up with us in the morning. We go off in search of breakfast. We find: Star. Buck's.
Oh. Yes.
One giant mug of soy caramel macchiato and one ginger muffin later, I am in corporate heaven.
After we buy train tickets to Wales, we spend the day walking around, window shopping, actually shopping (H&M and Borders were hit by us the hardest - I bought these wonderfully sarcastic and cynical children's books starring a horrid old grump by the name of Mr. Gum), and being dumbfounded by the number of people that could fit in one store. I really wanted to look at the sales at Top Shop, but the amount of people immediately killed the desire to peruse. We realize that London is a butt-load bigger than Riga.
Back at the hostel we find the three Scots have been exchanged for two beds with suitcases on them and one bed with a very drunk English girl in it. She asks us where we are from. We say North America. She asks if we saw an American guy and a French guy. We say no. She asks if we are with the guy, the one from California. We say no. She asks from where, then. Ilze tells her she's from New York. The girl giggles drunkenly and asks if J-Lo isn't from there, from the Bronx. I tell her that, according to the song, yes, she is. The girl finds this hilarious and attempts to have some kind of conversation with Davids before half-passing out and giggling continuously to herself. We are concerned - more so for us than for her. That night I have a nightmare that she attacks me.

Monday the 27th

We wake up to find drunk girl very out of sorts (Davids said she had alternated between whimpering and sobbing throughout the night), the French guy kind of off, but still coherent, and the American guy, who turned out to be completely normal and from Cleveland, Ohio. Not California.
Ilze, Davids and I get to the train station and on our train to Holyhead, Wales, with a stopover in Crewe. The Crewe train station is cold, boring, and hasn't a single waste bin in sight. I looked everywhere, too. We get to Holyhead around 7.30 p.m., call the hotel to let them know we're on our way. The man says he has to pop out for a bit to the store, but will leave the key under the plant on the front step and we can just let ourselves in. We learn everyone in Wales is incredibly helpful and friendly. A bit after 8 we are in the hotel room in a small, steep-staired bed and breakfast when our host knocks on the door. Not only does he own the B&B, but he is also a coast guard. He is the epitome of friendliness. We set our time for eating breakfast and he leaves us to explore the town a bit. We end up at one of maybe four town pubs and enjoy a quiet hour or so before the locals show up. They don't approach us until we've got our jackets on to leave. Then one man asks us from where we are, we tell him Canada, New Jersey, Midwest (respectively), and he tells us he has a friend who lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I mentally crap myself. We tell him that we have all spent a good amount of time in that area of the states.

Tuesday the 28th

We wake up, have our Welsh breakfast (which doesn't differ too much from English breakfast, save that the beans taste a bit better and there aren't as many of them) and walk a bit around the town and see it in its rainy, windy daytime mode. We attempt to walk along the coast but quickly give up. We learn that the early morning ferry was canceled with good reason -- we can see huge waves crashing over the breakers off the coast. We hit up an off license store, buy a few puzzle books and head out to the ferry. The ferry does rock considerably, but none of us gets sick. We get to Dublin later that afternoon. We learn/realise that Ireland is on the euro. We are lucky that I had euro in my passport purse stored up from previous trips. We are able to pay for bus tickets to the city. We drop out stuff off at our hotel and stroll through the centre to a bar on one of the main streets. The bar has an absolutely gorgeous mahogany wood interior. We all decide we would not mind hijacking the building and living there. I am astonished to learn that, in Ireland of all places, a pint of Guinness costs me €4.50. For that amount of money one can get at least two large glasses of beer in Latvia. I get over it quickly and am simply excited to be drinking a Guinness in its homeland. Davids and Ilze are less enthused about the "dirt beer". We get back to the hotel and are asleep probably by 10.30 p.m., 11 the latest. We have become wimps.

Wednesday the 29th

Our first full day in Dublin. First things first, we take the Guinness storehouse tour. It is not as completely exciting as we had hoped it would be (it was a museum and we expected a tour of the actual facility). Nonetheless, we get a free sample of fresh from the kegs Guinness and later can comp our tickets for a free drink at the dead freezing "cafe" at the top of the storehouse. Beverage options are: Guinness or soda. Although it is 10.30 a.m., I recall how much yesterday's Guinness cost and opt for a pint o' black. Davids follows suit and is relieved to find that the first half of the pint does not taste as bad as yesterdays. Not so much for the second half. Ilze sticks to a sprite. Other tour-takers have been smart and have taken crisps or other salty along with them. The rest of the day is spent ambling around Dublin city centre. We don't do anything else exciting except for go in and out of random shops and walk up and down more or less every major and non-major street. At the end of the day we are tired, tired, tired. We drag ourselves to another yet expensive pub in the bar district and have a feast of fish and chips. Inside jokes are born. After dinner we drag back to the hotel and sleep.

Thursday the 30th

I forgot to mention Irish breaky. Irish breaky, though extremely similar to English and Welsh breakfasts, is somehow even more fantastic than anything out there. Irish breaky has the same fried mushrooms, broiled tomato, breakfast sausages, egg and toast as the other breakfasts, but the beans have been replaced with a wonder called "black pudding". Black pudding is a food that tastes like meatloaf, but has more grains in it, and is probably better left unexplained until several hours after you've eaten. It struck me as one of those foods that shepherds would have eaten: mash everything you need for the day, meat, grains, etc., into a patty, fry it and you're good to go. They won't crumble in your bag and could probably double as small, projectile weapons if left to harden.

Thursday we dragged ourselves around the city once more, went to the city gallery (not exciting) and the writers' museum (we only went to the gift shop to laugh at witty Irish writer quotes -- the museum itself we found was too expensive). Since our back-ferry had been an up-in-the-air as far as being canceled or not, we had switched our reservations to the evening trip, which left Ireland at 8:50 p.m. and arrived in Wales just past midnight. True, we were forced to squeeze every ounce of will out of our bodies to find something to pass the time, but after seeing what our original ferry looked like (take the Titanic, then put a rowboat next to it. the Swift ferry is the rowboat) we were more than fine with the change. We were to stay at the same hotel in Holyhead and they were to use the same "key under plant" system. We got back and promptly fell asleep.

Friday the 31st

We get to breaky and find we are less amused with our host when he is in casual clothes than when he's in coast guard wear. After breaky we slowly make our way to the train station, but not before stopping at the grocery store for provisions. We are now very aware that any UK breakfast can keep you going for hours and hours - you eat at 8.30 and aren't hungry again until 3 p.m. While last time I guarded the bags and was asked by a woman working at the store if I was leaving home, this time Ilze guarded and was asked if she was going on a trip. Apparently we either look like locals or like people from neighbouring towns (I assume Holyhead is one of the biggest towns in the area with the biggest or only train station in the direct area/island). The train ride back to London is boring, but we do get to see the Welsh country side a bit. In London we drop our bags off at the Daugavas Vanagu house and do some last minute shopping before meeting once more with Mikelis for dinner. Dinner is real Chinese food from real Chinese. In London's China town. Excellence. Since it is Halloween we avoid any confrontation or decorations and find a "chain pub" to sit in and chat. We are there for a few hours and meet one guy who has a self-diagnosed "obsession" with the 2008 US elections.

Saturday the 1st

After a slightly "blah" breakfast at the DV house (no juice... I'm still trying to get over that one), we meet with Mikelis at the closest Starbuck's for one last "good coffee" hurrah. As we are finishing up Davids says he has a great idea for our last hour in London. Ilze and I are immediately skeptical. Davids announces that we must go to Hyde Park and feed the squirrels. The rest of us immediately concur. We go to a convenience store, buy nuts and head to the park. Things are great until I am bitten by a squirrel, at which point things just become hilarious. I wash up, we head back to the DV house, we get our bags and go to the train station. We realise that we have been on vacation just long enough to want to be back home. The flight back is a little harrying - I almost experience my second-ever panic attack as we hit some turbulence and the flight (RyanAir) starts to play some very odd techno-ish and very epileptic music. It was some promotional song whose lyrics went something like "Gotta gotta RyanAir ooh yeah RyanAir" (repeat). The combination of the music, the lack of knowing or understanding why the @(*#@& they were even playing it (I have never heard music on any other RyanAir flight) and the turbulence and I almost snapped. It was soon over and we finally got back in Riga. My taxi driver got me back to the apartment in what was, in all seriousness, probably under five minutes. I gave him a generous tip.

"I Went to the UK and all I Got was this Lousy Squirrel Bite."

2008-11-03T02:35:00.000-05:00

But no, really.

Before I enter my recap of the week in the UK, let me add a little enlightenment to the last bit of the vacation.

Leave it to me to create a bit of entertainment our last hour in london. After breakfast and coffee we decided it was absolutely necessary for four adults to buy peanuts and go spend 30 minutes feeding the squirrels in hyde park, just like the signs tell you not to do.

It was your run of the mill chaos with pigeons flying every which way and certain members of the group not understanding that throwing peanuts AT someone equals being mauled by stupid smelly birds and the occasional cute squirrel. The squirrels in Hyde Park are nice and take peanuts from your hand as if they were gentle hamsters. No tugging, no biting - they know exactly what's going on.

And yet... It was all good fun until I stopped doling out cashews to adjust the camera lens. My decision to stop led to a squirrel shimmying up my leg to my shoulder to my arm, at which point a tug-of-war for the small bag ensued. The squirrel scrabbled, I shook my arm and said "Nonononono" and then a pigeon joined the squirrel. Things went quickly from good fun to being hilarious. I'm trying to work the camera, the squirrel is trying to work the bag of nuts and the pigeon is seemingly just hanging along for the ride. The squirrel ended up accidentally biting me before I flung it off and tossed the bag of snacks to someone else, after which I tried to stop somewhat heavy bleeding from the thumb and simultaneously search for a tissue and half-punch any pigeon that tried to land on me.

There were blood spatters all around the bench by which we had been standing. It looked like a tiny war-zone. Miraculously, no one was crapped on.

I'm not extremely worried about the bite, but just in case I'll be paying a visit to some doctor or other by monday to get a tetanus shot. But I more or less held a squirrel today. One of my dreams has come true.

Look Twice before You Pick Stuff up off the Ground.

2008-10-17T02:35:00.000-04:00

Barely made my train of choice this morning. Dutifully joined the masses in lining up to get in. Before I'm even on the train I can see that there are 5 minutes (a "quick-fix" free newspaper put out by the same folk who bring you Diena) scattered about the floor of the entrance. I finally get on the train and see the woman in front of me do a double take and bend forward to pick up one of the papers (maybe it's still readable), but then recoil in a kind of awkward horror; the newspapers had been scattered to cover someone's morning upchuck all over the one side of the entrance floor, the stairs, the door.

NICE.

I had almost planned on standing in the entrance (no point in standing since the ride to the centre is only 15 minutes and I basically sit all day anyway), but the upchuck played a big role in my decision not to. Hey, at least they covered it with something. It's better than nothing and there's not much you can do but wait until it's time to clean the trains. Which might not be until a down-time in the schedule.

And, of course, the upchucked-upon side of the train was the side from which we had to exit once we actually got to the city centre. Of course.

One Violin Richer

2008-10-16T02:36:00.000-04:00

Monday after work I went out to the psuedo-boonies of the city centre to pick up a violin from a guy who was recommended to me by a guy who my grandfather knows. turns out to be this really nice elderly gentleman (and I mean GENTLEMAN. holding doors every which way, walking me out of the building, etc.) who has an apartment full of string instruments and books. In the process of getting the violin from him we also started to talk and I found out his life-partner (she had passed away a few years ago) and he learned I worked as a translator. this led him to telling me of his own interest in languages and, a few minutes later, how his son is a writer and how his life-partner Vizma Belsevica had also been a writer and he himself was interested in Scandinavian languages and how one has to really love the language from which they are translating (in a literary translation sense).And in my head I go "HOLD up. VIZMA BELSEVICA?!!?" and then I almost started to cry. Maybe it happened because I was in Vizma Belsevica's apartment, in the room in which she had passed away, talking to who was probably the person who knew her the best after herself. Maybe it’s because I’m just a big fan of her work. Vizma Belsevica was and is one of the hands-down all-time best Latvian writers, female and in general. The woman knew how to use words in her poetry, how to get the gritty yet emotionally sensual, the politically charged. Through her writing it is clear to see she was a fiercely intelligent woman. And I’m there. Thanks to my grandfather who either didn’t remember or just failed to tell me who I was going to see.

After a few more items were passed into my bag (an article from the 1920s on translation and a copy of Belsevica’s "Bille" to borrow) and a few short anecdotes about his and Belsevica’s son and grandchildren, I went on my way in a whirl of emotions and one violin richer.

And my assignment, apparently, is to have "Bille" read by December.

This past weekend we went to Sigulda to look at the fall colours and sort of celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. This involved riding a skilift down a hill, having a picnic on a small beach by the Gauja River and then booking it back to the train station. We took pictures with giant canes, as well. Look for those photo-moments at kaija.jatnieks.com/photos!

How to (not) Kill a Snake

2008-09-21T02:36:00.000-04:00

One thing I forgot to mention about the interesting trip to Lielvarde: we saw a snake!

Ilze noticed it, actually, and made me almost piss myself because as we were walking to the river we reached the path and she suddenly gasps really loudly and goes "ACK!" and all I saw was her dash away and something by me move, so I yelled, too. But then I saw it was just a snake and that I hadn't stepped on it, and proceeded to take pictures of it. As the snake seemed more interested in crossing the path away from me than stopping and rearing up to protect itself, there was no reason to worry. So there I am, taking pictures of this snake, when this older man speed-walking suddenly approaches from the opposite direciton. He sees us standing there and comes to see what I'm looking at, then goes:

Man: "Oh, that's just a *insert name of snake*, see the yellow on the head? It's okay, they're all over Latvia!"
Me: "Oh, okay." *keeps watching snake*
Man: "No, no, they're perfectly harmless! No reason to hit or kill it!"
Me: "...um, I-" *shifts expensive camera around in hands*
Man: "Really! Perfectly harmless, see how it's slithering away from us?"
Me: "Yeah, I know, no one's talking-"
Man: "Harmless!"
Me: "-about killing it."
Man: "It's just a *insert snake's name again*, this one's one of the bigger kinds. Don't have to hit it!"
Me: "Yeah, we know, I was just taking-" *once more indicates camera in hands*
Man: *abruptly walks away, still talking about how the yellow mark on the snake's head identifies its kind*
Me and Ilze: *kind of stand there, not really sure what just happened*

YEAH, because the FIRST thing I think of when I see a snake is to bash it to bits with my very expensive camera. Gut reaction, honestly. Forget going to find a stick, a Nikon D-60 is weapon of choice #1.

Whatever, weird speed-walking guy. Maybe it was because we were two females standing around looking at a snake that made him think our intentions toward it were anything but benign.

In addition! Since I've figured out that the reason pictures wouldn't load at a normal speed was due to my choice of browser, the photos at kaija.jatnieks.com/photos are going up faster than ever, starting with September 2008.

Dirty Deal and Comic Books

2008-09-18T02:37:00.000-04:00

So.

Tonight I went here to see/support this. I left after an hour and a half due to the ever present illness (though I will say that the HUGE shot of balzams the bartender put in my hot currant juice might have finally done the trick), but I enjoyed every minute of it. My time there, not just the medicinal beverage. I sat for a bit and read some comics, then nursed my drink, then bought the rest of the comics to support comic books in latvia, then watched either Zidruns or Silards play (neither the Zidruns myspace page nor the Silards stuff at presiite.org sounds like whatever or whoever played tonight) - either way they were fantastic and I miss going out to hear bands like that perform, especially in that type of local. Dirty Deal is basically one huge room (with a back door leading...somewhere. I didn't get that far) with one bar and a few places to sit. Getting to the place made me feel like I was going to drop some kind of drug transaction at the docks, but once you get in the building that all fades away.

I'm mostly sad that I didn't follow through on my curiosity of what "kus!" might be and find out about this place sooner - this was the last "kus!" shindig. But now I have another site to keep my eye on, as I most certainly will be going back to Dirty Deal, which, from what I understand, supports these kinds of creative/contemporary events and artists.

Cold Season

2008-09-17T02:38:00.000-04:00

Usually I'm one of the last people to fall into the cold season trap, but this time around I got hit first. I've been on the border of having a cold for the past week; Monday night it hit me full force. As such, I've been working from home since then. Sometime around the lunch hour I passed out for a few hours and felt like I might have had a slight fever. I also missed class yesterday, but am not worried about it – I'd rather miss class than sit in a closed, poorly ventilated room for 1.5 hours (or more, hence no going into work to work) and risk getting everyone else sick. Oh, yes, I'm so considerate. I'm also headachy and nose-drippy. At lease I managed to buy some Balzams and throat syrup Monday night. The Balzams I've been feeding into my system little by little by mixing it in with tea; the syrup is basically a mixture of honey and natural fruit sugars. As such I am saddened that I am only supposed to take the syrup three times daily. Last night I managed to drag myself to the closest grocery store and but dry-packet soup and lots of tissues. Good foresight!

So for now I'm working from home, sleeping when I can, drinking lots of liquids, etc. It kind of sucks.

Lielvarde

2008-09-15T02:38:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday while thinking about what plans people had over the weekend, we decided to just suck it up and go to Lielvarde. And by "we" I mean myself and Ilze, since everyone else (as in Davids and Julija) had already made plans to do other things. We had been joking about going to Lielvarde for a few months, since we often see the listing for it in the train station. The joke with Lielvarde mostly revolved around the song "Daugavas krasta" and taking a trip to Lielvarde to act it out in a brilliant photo-montage. Which we ended up doing on Saturday. Ilze and I packed up our white clothes, cameras, and provisions and took the train to Lielvarde. Once we got there we bought some flowers from the market and headed to the river. We got to the shore, waited a while for people to stop suddenly and randomly flocking to the same area, and then finally got to business. Which equalled to me rolling up my pant legs , putting a skirt over my jeans and standing around in 46ºF weather white, summery clothing. This may be why I am currently ill.

The montage turned out ridiculous in a good way - things were less than historically accurate, as I opted to pair my weather-inappropriate style with grey Converse. As soon as the montage is photoshopped I'll post it up somewhere for all to see. Who knows - this may be the beginning to a wonderful side project in visual aid folk and choir songs!

After the montage and freaking out a local fisherman as I removed the white clothing (we believe he missed the part where I got dressed OVER my existing attire), we headed to Uldevena castle, which is a remake of the wooden Lielvarde fortress. Ilze had stumbled upon the fact that there was a wooden castle while we were trying to see if there was anything else we could do in Lielvarde other than just dress up in white and tag random photos; turns out that it was the same castle we had been taken to 10 years ago when we were on the Sveika, Latvija! trip. So it was a reunion, of sorts. The place had changed a lot - there is now a fancy tourist-trap restaurant across the parking lot from the castle, and the castle boasts a horse (we thought Lielvarde was going to be a one horse town until we saw 5 other horses in a field behind the train tracks). VERY up-to-date. The castle, in a sense, is like a playground for adults. We got more information than we could handle from a very informed, very "hip" older woman (that being said, she works Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. If you ever go to Lielvarde and to the castle, go one one of these days because she knows her stuff and is very entertaining in a kind of sarcastic way) and spent a couple of hours climbing around the area. It was a nice break from big-cityness and a nice blast-from-the-past.

Now I'm sick, have many much photos to process and upload (it still takes FOREVER for the photos to load on the blog site...), and have a lot of work for, well, work, to do. Peace.

Lielvarde

2008-09-15T02:29:00.000-04:00

Slow Monday in Riga

2008-09-08T02:28:00.000-04:00

Apparently, it's a really, really slow day in Riga. The biggest story in comprehensive news today is that there was a call made to the local fire and rescue service to come pull an iguana out of a tree by an apartment complex. Although the residents of the building pretty much knew who the lizard belonged to, because the people weren't home, the iguana was taken to the zoo. In other news, fire and rescue service workers were also called out to rescue a cat from a tree. The cat, however, obviously irritated and frightened by all of the ruckus going on about it, got itself down from the tree and booked it out of the area. Other than that, it's going to be raining all week in Riga. Good thing we had 26'C and zero rain yesterday -- we were able to go and sit on the beach for a few hours before it got windy and chilly.

Something Else to Laugh About

2008-09-05T02:27:00.000-04:00

I once again had to laugh out loud at work. I'm listening to Radio SWH and the hourly news updates. The 12:00 update once again mentioned an incident in some city in Russia, where a legless man killed three people in his apartment building and then proceeded to flee from authorities. His fleeing was, quote "unsuccessful" - not because this man is LEGLESS, but because, while fleeing from the police, he dove into a ditch with the hopes of avoiding capture. While hiding in the ditch, a very large rat crawled onto the legless man. The man's screams led authorities right to him.

I hope someone else sees the black humor in all of this.

On the Radio

2008-09-04T02:26:00.000-04:00

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

I just heard myself on the radio for the first time. True, I've had the sound clip on my computer already a month ago, but it's much more awkward to hear it in the context of a radio programme. If you listen in to Latvia's StarFM (www.starfm.lv) between now and September 15th, you might catch the Skrivanek Latvia radio commercial, wherein I am the English language representative, and wherein I think I sound like a cheerleader. Or a tool.

..."LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE OPENS THE DOOR TO A NEW PERSPECTIVE!!!!!!!"
..."see you there!"

Either way, I don't think I've ever sounded that peppy - but there it is on the radio for people to hear. I don't think any of my friends listen to StarFM, though :) Good for them and better for me! At least recording the bit was a new experience.

The Cost of Health

2008-08-30T02:26:00.000-04:00

For me, around $49.

After a fruitless search in several pharmacies for information on inhalers (some places were out of stock, some had the disk, not the aerosol, some didn't have them at all), I decided to suck it up and make an appointment at a clinic to get a prescription. I phoned a clinic that was supposed to be on the intersecting street of where my office is, and was scheduled for a same-day in the afternoon.

I personally think that's amazing. Same-day appointment, on a Friday no less. True, there are probably enough clinics in the city for each resident to have four appointments in one day, but I was still surprised. And the clinic was literally around the corner, not 3 blocks down like I had initially thought.

I went to the clinic for my visit, talked to a physician/"therapist" about getting a replacement inhaler, was told how many of the women working at pharmacies are weird and unnecessarily haughty, was given a prescription and was sent on my way. The doctor's visit cost me 22 LVL (around $45) upfront, since my U.S. insurance wasn't accepted (but they gave me a stamped receipt so I could see if the U.S. insurance would pay the $45 back). The inhaler, which I picked up after work, cost me 2.42 LVL. As in $5. For a prescription, fast-acting inhaler. FIVE DOLLARS. In the States, we'd pay $15 for three inhalers because we had insurance + copay. I don't know what they cost without - maybe $45 a piece? So here, in Riga, I paid a sum of money for an inhaler and a doctor's visit equal to the cost of one inhaler in the States, sans insurance and not including the visit to the doc. And now that I know the inhaler won't cause any side-effects, I can stroll into the pharmacy and pick up another one when this one runs out. And pay the 2.45 LVL.

Brilliant.

Ah yes -- I was finally able to get a hold of someone at the humane society in Zasulauks (from where I got the cat) and ask them what a cat bite gone bad would look like and if I should worry at all. The woman, after hearing that the cat initially came from them and that he had all of his shots said there was nothing at all to worry about, adding "I don't know what else to tell you - we get bitten all the time and we're all fine." Me: "And all of you have all 10 fingers?" Woman: "Yes, yes, all fingers and all limbs, we're all fine."

The swelling on my finger also went down finally and there is less pain in general.

The Cat

2008-08-26T02:25:00.000-04:00

For those of you who thought I was joking about having a cat, I wasn't. Why would I take such a fantastic picture of a cat if the animal wasn't mine?

The cat went missing somewhere between Friday late evening and Saturday morning: I went to the Sigur Rós concert Friday and stayed at a friend's in Riga. When I got home Saturday the cat was nowhere to be seen and there was no conclusive evidence to explain what had happened to him.

Today, on the way home, I found my cat in the carpark across the street from the train station, but on the same side of the street as our apartment. The cat recognized me and seemed thoroughly freaked out, but I was able to get him to follow me to almost our apartment entryway, where he promptly freaked out again when I picked him up and tried to get him in the door one-handed.

To cut to the end of the story, I got my cat back into the apartment, but not without a heaping helping of this. Though I had a decent amount of cat spit and hair on my clothes and in my hand wounds (not shown), I can safely say that the cat has a good amount of my blood on its fur. I now also have more scars to worry about and will have to wear long sleeves for the next month. At least it's almost fall.

And, of course, as barbaric as the cat acted on the street, as soon as he was back in the apartment he was rubbing against my and my flatmate's boyfriend's legs (he helped keep the stray cats at bay while i coaxed my monster out from under a car. Apparently I looked a lot like an auto mechanic with my body half under a Mercedes) in an attitude that said "Gosh, was that ever intense! What's for dinner?"

Dinner was wet Kit-e-cat food from a pouch.

Now he's sprawled out on the couch next to me purring away like nothing has ever changed.
Hurrah hurrah, I didn't have to go wild-goose-chasing. Flatmate's boyfriend asked, "Don't you want to give him a bath? You can bathe cats, right? I sure wouldn't let him sleep next to me like that..." I pointed to the blood seeping from the scratches and said "You think he's dirty? You wash him." The cat isn't that dirty, anyway. I sprayed him with the water bottle for a good 5 minutes which will have him licking his fur dry all night. Problem solved.

Addictive Food Items

2008-08-22T02:24:00.000-04:00

Salsa nuts - you can buy them at grocery stores. Look for little green bags. They remind me a bit of those Boston Baked Beans/Nuts, that have that red, candied shell. But these peanuts have a tasty "salsa" flavoured shell that, although it may not be that incredible upon first taste, make you want to keep eating them. 2 points out of 5 on a scale of EVIL.

Randomly shaped Ritz-like crackers - I've only found them at Rimi, haven't checked Stockman, but know that Nelda does not carry them. These crackers come in all kinds of shapes, have the right amount of salt, and for 0.35 LVL a bag are not something you should think twice about buying. 4 EVIL points. (Note: stay away from the goldfish-shaped crackers if you don't like deceitful foods. The "goldfish" are sweetened crackers with no salt and little to no fun-factor.)

Sweet cottage cheese sticks (Saldie biezpiena stienisi) - a snack I just discovered, made and sold by Index Cafe. Baked, little stick-treats that seem to be nothing more than a more-baked, little stick-treat version of "Latvian cheesecake". They cost 0.85 LVL a pack and go great with coffee. Another reason to love Index Cafe, if more were ever needed. 2 out of 5 EVIL points.

Cheese balls (Siera bumbinas) - Can be found in any grocery store; just make sure you buy the Latvian-made Adazi brand. They're the best. Even better than North American Cheetos. For real. Do not buy these if you have food-guilt issues. If I let loose, I can clear one medium bag by myself over the course of an evening - I now buy them very rarely (once a month tops), because I am aware of the dangers. 5 out of 5 EVIL points.

Dried hibiscus - slightly scary looking, but with a very mild taste. The first time I had one of these was at a relative's house. The next time I saw them was at the Riga Central Market, among the counters of other dried goods. Dried hibiscus is tasty, unobtrusive in flavour, and probably has some kind of health benefit. They also keep forever (at least mine have). And yes, I had to add these to balance out the preceding list of junk-type-foods. 3 out of 5 EVIL points.

This list will be continued as necessary.

23 and in the Back of a Police Van

2008-08-20T02:23:00.000-04:00

Because Sunday was my birthday and since Monday (and the job) comes after Sunday, my friend Ilze graciously offered the use of her house in Jurmala for a pre-birthday dinner/party. There were only four of us there total (other people were out of town or otherwise already engaged), but after a simple dinner we still had several hours to kill before we could officially open the champagne. We played some boggle, made up plenty of words, and, around 11 P.M., decided to head down to the beach, taking the champagne with us.

At the beach we walked around then dutifully attacked one of the most messed-up playgrounds I have ever seen. After a good 20 minutes of spinning around in awkward metal frames and trying to make a huge, tilted plastic ring go around in circles by heave-ho-ing movements (it worked once before, but seemed to fail this time), we sat down to chat and wait for the wonderful 00:00.

A good-sized group of people our age were also hanging around the area; some of them ended up at the playground on the swings. Two of them bummed cigarettes from Davids; a bit later one of them sat down on the benches behind us and eventually joined us in conversation. He was quite drunk and tried to mostly communicate with us in Russian and sometimes English, though he also spoke Latvian. But when someone is drunk to the point where he asks you twice in 30 seconds where you're from and then forgets that he's told you his name, consequently thinking it's some kind of magic you know it already, I'm not surprised. Everything was fine and dandy until we decided it was getting a bit awkward and we wanted to head back home. The guy had invited all of us to come with him and hang out with his friends and drink, but we passed, saying it was late, maybe we'd meet with them tomorrow, etc. Then he got angry as we were quickly walking away and started to follow after us, shouting at us in Russian first in general and then using some choice words. Everyone else from his group had already moved on down the beach in the opposite direction, except one of his friends who seemed to be there just to make sure the guy didn't do anything too stupid. Apparently and unfortunately, repeatedly grabbing onto women and aggressively shouting and following a group of people doesn't fall under the category of "stupid". I personally kept thinking "Okay, after this bout he's going to stop, after the next 10 ft he's going to give up", but no. The two of them followed us all the way from the beach, up the cobblestone/cement path leading to the beach, past a very large group of people (who did nothing, by the way, to try and help us), all the way down one of the main roads until we approached a hotel, at which time they gave up, but not without Mr. Drunk and Belligerent shouting some final words in our direction. I think we were more shocked than anything; we didn't run, we didn't fight them. But it was definitely rough not knowing exactly what they were saying to each other. The non-belligerent friend kept trying to tell one of our group that if he just gave Mr. D and B 70 santims for a beer, he'd stop following us. We were basically chased at a snail's pace.

As soon as we got up the stairs of the hotel and into the lobby, the Davids looked down at his watch and let out a half-strained "Happy birthday!" Kristine and Ilze joined in, I was congratulated, and we were thrilled that we weren't bleeding on the street or dead, happy birthday.

After a quick consultation with the man at Reception I was handed the hotel phone and put through to the Jurmala Municipal Police, who, apparently, would pick us up and escort us back home. I had asked if there was hotel security that could do that or if we could be called a cab (even though none of us had our wallets with us), but it turns out that the Municipal Police are required provide escort in such situations. Or maybe any situation, I'm not sure. So I explained to the woman on the other end what had happened and that we just lived a few blocks away, but didn't know what to expect and weren't comfortable walking back through the streets. She said we'd be picked up soon.

About 15 minutes later, a tall and rather attractive policeman walked into the hotel. My opinion was backed up by the sudden silence from Ilze and Kristine. (Note: After we had gotten home the three of us seriously contemplated running back into the night and causing trouble just so we'd be picked up again.)

Me: *walks toward policeman* You're the one then, yeah?
Policeman: Then you're the one who called?
Me: Yes.
Pm: Alright, let's roll.
*The group follows the policeman outside*
Pm: So, what happened, exactly?
Me: *tells the short version of the story*
Pm: *referring to Davids* Couldn't he have done anything?
*to Davids* What, haven't you ever learned to box?
Me: *laughs like it's the funniest thing anyone has ever said*
Davids: Huh? What?
Me: *careful not to say that Ilze, Kristine and myself could have done just as well physically defending ourselves and that I have a bottle of Riga champagne in my bag that would be worth at least two blows* Well you never know what the other person is capable of - and it would be two against one.
Pm: Yeah - I was just joking.
Me: *super quick to agree* I know I know.

The four of us got into the back of the police van and I doubt that we appeared to be as frazzled about the whole thing as we really were (we spent the remainder of the night back at Ilze's discussing the what-ifs): Ilze started to giggle semi-without reason, Davids started to joke-dance to the rock music the policeman turned on, and Kristine leaned forward between the driver and other policeman, elbows on the backs of their seats like we were on a road trip.

In hindsight, despite the situation, we made it through the best way we could AND we got to ride in the back of a police van. On my birthday morning :) I felt a bit bad about having to be driven back to Ilze's house, but in all honesty, it was the middle of the weekend and the policemen seemed bored out of their minds. Despite that, they were not at all rude and had senses of humour. So if you've heard bad things about Latvian policemen, know that the statement isn't bulletproof.

After sleeping in Sunday and having a late breakfast of grilled-cheese and tomatoes, courtesy of Davids, we headed out and spent the remainder of the day at the Riga Zoo. After dinner we went out to Krastmala (Riverbank) to watch eight fireworks teams compete for the chance to organize the New Year's Eve fireworks show. I took over 550 photos that day - if I ever catch up on my sleep this week and have a night where I don't take any work home, I'll post them and all of those other promised photos at the http://kaija.jatnieks.com/photos page. I SWEAR.

What it Feels Like...

2008-08-14T02:23:00.000-04:00

...to be a working adult. Some of you may remember my "being an adult sucks" post. Though I'm sure this post won't be as negatively geared as that one, I am just WAITING for the weekend. I am, however, surprised at how fast the week went by, especially during the day and the hours of 10.00 and 15.00. I am close to burnt-out, have been going to sleep no earlier than 01.00 every evening/morning and have been at work by 8 almost every day.

This weekend I went on my first field trip with the office. The trip went from early Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon. Uh-huh; not only was it my first field trip with the office, it was an overnight trip. The itinerary was simple (raft down the Gauja river) and the weekend was, quite literally (and, it seemed, sometimes painfully so), a lazy couple of days. We were driven by a mini-charter bus to somewhere near Cesis, where we unloaded our overnight gear, were piled into another couple of vans and brought somewhere else up-river where the epitome of a "white-trash" water vehicle was waiting for us. The raft consisted of several sheets of ply-wood belted together over huge plastic water bottles. The icing on the backwoods cake: a full-size should-be-in-a-camp-site-and-not-floating-down-a-rive picnic table in the centre of it all. Add a makeshift roof made of cylindrical posts, blue tarp and bungee cords, and throw in a grill and you've got yourself eight hours of slow-moving, barbecuing fun.

The raft turned out to be much safer than it looked and felt and the fear of dying at .0005 mph quickly melted away. Although I gave up on going to the Prata Vetra concert in Mezaparks to go on the work trip, and for all of the cynical comments I have on the material situation of the trip, I really had a great time. There were maybe 13 of us total and it gave me a chance to talk a bit more to some of my project managers and to get to know them outside of the office. The trip also re-lit the canoe bug within me, so I'm getting antsy and hoping that the opportunity to go canoe some weekend will present itself before it gets cold(er).

When we finally, fiiiiinally made it to the end point, Cirulisi, we were all more than happy to get off the raft and start something else. Luckily the Gauja is shallow along the shore for much of the part we rafted down, so some of the guys on the trip would take those chances to jump out and push the raft along to speed things up. We set up tents (I had bought a sleeping bag the day before [a good brand, proper temp. range for summer and on sale, no less!], but don't have a tent, so I had to tent-mooch) and then waited for round 2.5 of barbecuing to be completed. I played some volleyball with a two of the other women from the office and some random (and somewhat to very drunk) guys until food was ready. After food there was a card game called "Vilkaci" ("Werewolves"), which I won't even attempt to explain in type. I can remember how to play now and can relay the rules and process verbally, though. Eventually it got dark and to the point where the flickering of the citronella candles made me feel like my brain was bleeding, so I went and used my Minnesota suburb survival skills and hunkered down for the night. The next morning after taking down the tents and eating breakfast (more barbecue!) we basically waited anxiously for 12 o'clock to roll around when we would be picked up and taken back to Riga.

I'd do it all again any time :)

Monday night I went to the Riga Zoo for a get-together/party that was organised as a thank-you to those people who helped in the process of putting together this book. I wasn't much of a party-accessory, unfortunately, because my brain was completely fried as of Sunday night. After getting back from the trip I went to work on a few projects that were due Monday, and sorely underestimated the type and amount of work it would be. Then Monday was just a very long day, worse than normal Mondays. So at this party I more or less sat with a glass of bubbly and stared blankly out at Kisezers, which the zoo sits right next to. But Monday was another nice night because I got to see some of the other people who helped out with the book as well, talked more with the main brains behind the whole project, and just unwind a bit. I also got to leave with a little hot-pink button that reads HELPER! - it is pinned proudly on my purse :)

And by a bit I really do mean just a bit. When I got back home that night I went right back to work on some more projects. Tuesday was, work wise, a repeat of Monday. It wasn't until Wednesday that I was able to take a deep breath and move on a little. Today was better and tomorrow should be a blast.

My mood has been improving rapidly as well - it may partly be due to the fact that, in the process of going over one project today I learned that 2009 is the year of the ox - my year. I took it as an indicator that 2009 will be an overall positive experience. I've got my residential permit, I've got a job, a convenient apartment, and even a cat. I feel bad for not making that public sooner, but when the cat was first "acquired" I was unsure at the time of where I would be in the months following and didn't want it to be a big deal. The cat was something that I felt was personally necessary and, although I feel like I'm more often annoyed with the cat than not, I also lucked out in picking a compassionate animal; in addition, I supported the local humane society. Besides, if I was renting in a private home I would have gotten a dog. The way I see it, worst-case-scenario, the cat is at least friendly, disease-free, neutered, etc., so if a/the situation arises that the cat can't go somewhere with me, he will be good for someone else, too.

Another thing I not only realised while on the rafting trip, but also made a point to say on the trip, was that I was really happy with where I work. I'm happy with the location, the people, etc. I have honestly lucked out.

Ooooh yes and I bought my ticket to the Sigur Ros concert :))) August 22nd and I am very excited to see how things go down. They're a band that normally and, as a standard, performs outdoors; the Riga concert is going to be in the Arena. But it should be a good concert - I've heard good things, and their new album is very relaxed, so it will be another great night for me to unwind. Amongst thousands of other people, of course.

The Power of Reese's

2008-07-30T02:23:00.000-04:00

I brought back one 2 lb bag and one 1 lb bag of (respectively) regular and white chocolate Reese's mini peanut butter cups from the States for my office. I brought the chocolates in yesterday and opened the bags around 10 A.M.

When I got in to work this morning, there were approximately 7 candies left on the break room table. From 3 lbs of chocolate goodness to 7 bits.

Holy COW, colleagues! I guess I found something everyone really likes. Someone mentioned I should start a small business of importing and re-selling the stuff. Maybe, someday. :)

2008-06-26T02:21:00.000-04:00

I have now acquired a new recipe into my knowledge bank: Kiploku grauzdini or garlic toast bites.

I found the recipe here, bought bread and garlic salt, and went to it while my internet was resetting itself.

To that note, the name of my wireless account has had to be changed from "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" to something else.

The first batch of toast bites was a bit on the burnt side, but after adding the garlic salt and fresh garlic, it really doesn't matter. Grauzdini are a popular beer-snack in Latvia and it's easy to understand why. Garlicky goodness in finger food form; even though it has kind of a rural ring to it, the snack is more graceful than an entire loaf of garlic bread. My flatmate asked me last year if I knew how to make them, as this guy she was seeing was a huge fan of the toast bites and hers always turned out too soggy or too dry. But the process of making them is super easy... I wish I had tried it out earlier. No worries! Now that I know how to make them, I'm sure to be a big, big hit at all of those countless parties I go to several times in one night even on the weekends, but maybe only at the ones that are BYOS (bring your own snack). Kidding. You and I both wish my night life was that exciting, don't we. The most exciting my night life ever ends up being involves missing the last train after sprinting across downtown to get to the station and then immediately afterward getting caught in a rainstorm without an umbrella. And that's me without the umbrella, not the rainstorm.

Oooh yes and I'm back in Riga now and very glad to be so. Other than the depressing non-bed qualities of my couch-bed, I'm loving every second about being back. Yesterday a friend and I rode a train with the rest of the entire population of the city (no, really, it probably honestly was...) out to Jurmala and lazed around the beach for a few hours before walking down to Majori (which we almost were unable to find because neither of us payed attention to where we were going and missed the big mansion landmark, oddly enough during a conversation joking about how bad our skills of observation were - or are) for coffee. Then I was planning on coming back home to work on some projects due Monday, but instead half made my dinner and passed out for 4 hours. All of that sun, fresh air and walking definitely got to me. But it was a sound sleep and I woke up happy. And hungry.

So, to recap, I've mastered another great recipe thing. My next goal is currant pastries. They had them at Double Coffee, but there was no way I was going to pay 2.20 LVL for a pastry that costs about USD 0.50 in Germany (it was also listed in the menu as "Johannisbeer" pastry, which is correct, but why use the German word for currant in an English translation of a Latvian menu? I swear...) The only solution - learn to make them myself! Luckily for me, it's season and currants can be bought at the grocery store fresh instead of frozen. Until then-

P.S. due to mass amounts of spam regarding all kinds of interesting topics, I've set this blog to require people to register and sign-in in order to comment. If that doesn't help I'll switch it again.

P.P.S. pictures now available here. It's taking some time to load everything up, but at least I know how to get to the site now :)

I've Been Quoted!

2008-06-26T02:19:00.000-04:00

My father came across this live journal: ozgurturna

where my "controversial" list of things you can/shouldn't do in Riga is quoted, then commented on at length by readers of ozgurturna's journal. It's always interesting to find out who your own stuff reaches.

This past weekend was a LONG one, thanks to Jani. Monday and Tuesday were holidays so, naturally, there was crazy weekend traffic already at 12 noon on Friday. On Monday, my mother and I ended up going along with my cousin and her family to Pinkas, south of Ogre, for a traditional Jani. There were games, there was singing, "witch" burning, wreath burning, and of course eating and drinking. We didn't stay the night, but were brought back to Riga by 2 A.M. I promptly fell into bed and slept until noon the next day. Tuesday was spent lazing around my apartment, eating Jani leftovers and relaxing. Wednesday I took them to *finally* see the sea; we took a train to Sloka, then walked through Kauguri to Kaugurciems, where there's this absolutely excellent restaurant right on the beach front called Kurins. The prices are decent, the portions are gigantic, and the atmosphere is plain beachy. (No, I didn't play hookie - I had taken a day off to spend my mother and aunt's last day in Latvia.) After lunch we toddled back to the train station, got off at Majori and checked out some shops they wanted to look at again, then went to the sea again. Twice in one day, MADNESS. If I wasn't so weirded-out by tours I would make a great tour guide.

Mom and aunt made it safely back to the States this afternoon.

For those following, there are 5 (five) business days and 7 (seven) days total before I get to start calling the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs to find out if they're letting me re-enter the country in July or not.

Monday I'm thinking of spending 5 LVL for a ticket to see the closing Kremerata Baltica Festival concert in Riga. I've got one CD... don't remember too much of it, but enough to make me want to listen to G. Kremers rock out live. Oh, violinists.

USAnnoyed

2008-06-18T02:21:00.000-04:00

Oooooh, buddy.

I am now back in the United States, somewhere a bit past the mid-point of my two-week return visit. Did you just read the word visit and think it implied that I would be leaving the States for some other country, say, perhaps Latvia? Because if your thought process brought you at least that far (mine would have taken things much further, even to a point of developing a short story; I think my friends would agree), your thought process has not led you astray. Not this time, at least.

I am an official quasi-citizen. What this means is that I have my long-hoped for temporary residential permit, which gives me the great honour of not only living in Latvia for a year (until I have to go through 85% of the same hellish process in order to re-apply for temporary residence if I decide to stay there longer), but of also having the 15% tax deducted from my salary. Thus the "quasi". The best part is that I finally have this weight lifted off of my shoulders; I don't have to worry about deadlines for turning in those fabulous documents, no worries about taking time off of work to jet over to Tallinn and throw down 300 EUR cash to have said fabulous documents processed in 10 days, no worries about being shipped out of the country for reasons out of my control.

I'll leave you to imagine what the reasons within my control may or may not be.

Ah, yes, and USAnnoyed because the weather here in the mid-west blows. And not in a weather-terminology windish way. It's humid here, hotter than Riga, and the air just sits. Sits on my lap, and my legs are starting to fall asleep and get tingly. Otherwise... Clothing prices here are a dream, peanut butter was 3 for $5, and there's a Caribou Coffee approximately every 5 miles. So I don't know what my problem is - I should stop complaining. Caribou Coffee trumps bad weather any day.

On the down side, I feel like I've had so much coffee in the past 24 hours that the acidity from the beans is eating away at my throat. It may be time to switch to green tea and mango smoothies.

Anyway, other things that have happened since the delicious, sweet, sweet victory of having that visa stickered into my passport (accompanied by a photo wherein I look like I've been picked up for carjacking or stealing broken TV sets - what're YOU in for?), I got to live through the Latvian Song and Dance Celebration in Riga. Since there was so much happening during the celebration and I was only able to go to a few things (work + preparation for visit to the US), here's a rundown of the events I went to:

1. The "Gajiens"/Parade.
35,000+ participants from all over Latvia, including groups from the States, from Canada, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Ireland, Luxembourg and Russia, walking through the major streets of downtown Riga. 11 AM start time; the parade ended about six to seven hours later. Participants included brass bands, folk dance collectives, choirs, colour guards (no, really, a large group of teenage girls with twirly flags and/or batons), etc. LOADS of people. I even saw the strange grimy man from Zilais kalns, where I've been twice now with relatives. It made me wonder how he got the money to get a ticket from there to here (albeit it's not that expensive, if he took a train, but the hill is, if I remember, not exactly close to the train station. Or really even near it.). Later, however, an acquaintance told me how a few years back at a similar event in a concert hall, there was a group of bums milling around, but after security was alerted the bums were approached, and it turned out that they had all purchased legitimate tickets at the ticket counters. So no knocking bums until you ask to see their tickets, y'hear?! The day was really nice, sunny, sun-burn causing, and a generally odd experience to see even more people than usual in Riga, and all lined up and concentrated along certain streets, no less. Many of the participant groups walking along were singing, like you do, but not many of them had original ideas. The most frequently sung diddies that day were "Ai, jel manu vieglu pratu" and "Bedu manu lielu bedu". I heard one - count it - ONE group singing "Riga dimd".

2. The Opening Concert.
This I had not planned on going to. At most I had thought I could call up one of my friends who own a TV and ask to come sit on their couch and watch the live broadcast. Buuuut, a fairly new acquaintance of mine (the same one who told me the bums with tickets story) called the night before and offered me a pair of ex-media tickets for the Opening Concert in Mezaparks for the following evening. I figured why not - it would get me out of the house and it could very well be interesting. And interesting it most certainly was! Although I unfortunately didn't quite make it to the seat indicated on the ticket, I was able to stand amidst the probably thousands of other audience members, gaze at the stage with certainly thousands of choir members, and be flabbergasted. North American Latvian Song and Dance Festivals also have mass numbers of people, but I don't think it ever reaches past the 10,000 mark. Plus, the way the Mezaparks estrade is laid out, the entire literal sea of people is clearly visible. I should add that the whole thing is also outside. So the rain, it got people wet. Another way in which this concert differed from NA festival concerts is the set-up: there's the stage, then the hill on which the audience is seated/standing. Directly behind the hill is something similar to a state fair. There's food, drink, trinkets, and so on. In this area it is absolutely impossible to hear what's happening on stage. In NA festival concerts, if you want to get something to eat or drink, you go outside. It was strange to see one part of the people present sitting and listening intently to the concert and the other part milling around and eating and drinking. But I'm glad I got a ticket and ended up going - I took pictures, which, as usual, will *hopefully* sometime be posted. I'm terrible.

3. Folk dance concert dress rehearsal.
After eventually finding which left side of the stadium we were supposed to be in, which section of the correct left side we were supposed to sit in and wiping down the wet seats, we sat down and saw the very organised and profesionally done dress rehearsal for the Folk dance concert. It. Was. Sweet. True, the concert was more artistic and "formationy" than what we have in NA (I guess not necessarily a bad thing), and the ending was rather anti-climactic, it was another fantastic experience. 13,700 dancers on the field... more mind-blowingness. The effect is totally different when there are that many dancers. We were sitting on the side of the stadium, so we didn't really see more than loads of people, but it's surprising to look at pictures that were taken from a central location; you can see they actually created Latvian symbols with their formations. The highlight for me was the dance "Es atnacu uguntinu", which featured the Ilgi song "Nesmejieti jus lautini". The dance, which is for women, was performed around torchlit pyramid piers, and with other dancers (mostly men?) standing around strategically with torches. The women dance in a circle, waving around red ribbons in a very ritualistic manner. No way can you watch that and tell me that Latvians have cut off all ties with that which is Pagan. I definitely got chills. After the concert we experienced the singing bus/tram/trolley phenomenon, as we had a very enthusiastic singing man ride with us all the way to the central station stop (and then later on the train).

I realise that this post is pretty pathetic in terms of consistency and clarity, but the Song and Dance Festival is something you definitely need to experience in order to understand that it's very hard to put into words what you see and feel.

I fly back to Latvia on the 23rd - then I'll be around for a while.

Documents and More

2008-06-16T02:18:00.000-04:00

Since last week, a considerable amount of things have gone down on this side of the world, the top two being 1) I flew to and from Tallinn to turn in those wonderful documents I've been collecting since September 2007 and 2) my mother, aunt, cousin and her children flew into Latvia. Oh, and I shouldn't forget this one, but 3) we went to see Raimonds Pauls in concert on Sunday. RP!!

Tallinn the second time around was about as fun as Tallinn the first time around, though I was able to decide that it would be nice to return to the city to just walk around and be a visitor. None of this "12-hour layover" or "just here to appease bureaucracy" business. But real, walking around and enjoying my surroundings.

Prior to making it to Tallinn this past Thursday, I almost didn't make it to Tallinn. The lines were crazy long at the airport and by the time I got to the counter it was 20 minutes before my flight was to leave (10.20 was the scheduled departure).

Woman at the counter: "Uh, don't you have a paper ticket?"
Me: "Uh, I bought them online."
Woman: "Alright." *picks up phone-thing, tries to call several times without success, finally reaches someone, gives them my info, etc., etc., then looks up at me* "Did you fly to Tallinn on Monday, too?"
Me: "...No, I called on Sunday and had the ticket switched to today."
Woman: "Hmm. Well, it says here you flew out on Monday already."
Me: "..."
Woman: "So go to the AirBaltic counter down there *points*, have them fix it then come back to the front of the line so you don't have to wait again."

So I power-walk it to the AirBaltic counter, where I then got to stand for 10 minutes, my passport shaking in my hands, as this older man had a row with one of the staff behind the counter. This older man had convinced a larger group of people to let him budge back at the ticket counter line, but that didn't help him, as he ended up with troubles as well. Troubles, apparently, that couldn't be fixed. I GET IT, YOU'RE MAD, THERE'S NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE. But there are *ahem* other people waiting WHO MIGHT STILL HAVE TIME.

I finally ended up with a trainee helping me, who was very nice, but didn't know any of the right buttons to push on the keyboard and had no clue what any of the right codes were that needed to be entered. She was then joined by an older woman who immediately looked at the screen and said, "Oooh, she's not going to make that flight." Once it was understood that there had been an error on AirBaltic's part (I had called 24 hours in advance to change my flight, was told everything was in order and that I would just have to show up at the ticket counter, pay a 70 LVL fine, and go about my business. The catch is that they hadn't completed the transaction on their end; thus, their records stated I had already flown out once on the 9th), we got to work trying to find the next flights, which we did. Then the two women called over the staff member who had been argued at by the angry older man.

Women staff: "Can we give her the ticket without the fine?"
Staff guy: "Why?" *looks at me in an annoyed manner*
Me: "...."
Trainee: "There was an issue with the flight registration and now she's missed the flight."
Staff guy: "And?" *to me* "What time did you get in line?"
Me: "...I...don't know?"
Women staff: "The lines are ruthless today."
Staff guy: "So, why waive the fine?"
Me: "I DON'T CARE! My flight was supposed to be on Monday, I called Sunday and changed it today and was told everything was taken care of, just that I'd have to pay the 70 LVL fine - I came here today prepared to pay a fine. I JUST REALLY NEED TO GET TO TALLINN."
Staff guy: *mumbles something, shrugs, and wanders away to do something else*
Older woman staff: *also kind of wanders away*
Trainee: *prints out a receipt for a ticket and hands it to me* Have a good flight.
Me: "..."
Trainee: "You can go to the ticket counter, now."

My new flight, fine definitely NOT applied (!!) left at 12.55, which meant I actually had the chance to run up and surprise my mom, aunt, cousin and kids as they got off their plane and right before I had to run to my gate.

Tallinn itself was fine, I guess. At least it wasn't raining. I took a taxi to the embassy, turned in my documents, took probably one of each possible brochure laid out on the tables because I was so nervous I would still be missing documents, paid them my 300 EUR and left to find the bus stop I needed to board a bus back to get to the airport.

No time for lunch, though I did stop by the shopping centre for a few minutes to see if Wayne's Coffee there had soy milk on the menu. After standing at the counter for a few minutes of having the servers stare at me staring at the menu boards, I left. No soy milk, no tasty beverage for me.

I bought my bus ticket from a kiosk, proudly (yet eventually...) found the right bus stop and lo! there was the bus at a red light, heading for the stop located on the street. I sprinted through the under-street tunnel and up the other side, just in time to jump on the bus, stamp my ticket and sit down. There were a couple of people on board with suitcases, so SCORE! I was golden.

Until the bus pulled up to the D Terminal for ferry boats.

Yeah, I got on the bus going in the wrong direction and ended up by the flipping sea. The bus driver told me he'd be heading back to the airport, so I bought another ticket from him and sat down to wait. The driver then shooed an annoyed and very much not sober bum off the bus, took a cigarette and coffee break, then sat to wait. 15 minutes later the bus was started up again, we pulled up to the first stop by the D Terminal (at which point the drunken bum got back on the bus...) and were on our way to the airport.

Once at the airport I got to the ticket counter and once again almost didn't make my flight. The lady checked me in and all, but then said, "Oh, but you realise that the gates are closed, now."

Me: "As in the plane is gone already?"
Woman: "No, but the flight closes 30 minutes before departure."
Me: "...please..."
Woman: "..."
Me: "...I just need to get back to Riga..."
Woman: *sighs* "Do you have any luggage?"
Me: "No!"
Woman: *makes a phone call, prints my ticket* "Gate 4."

I booked it to the gate and had 30 seconds to spare before they announced that they were going to start boarding. I ran for no reason, really. Back at the ticket counter I was ready to ask the woman "Do you have TIME to hear my story?! Do you WANT to know everything I've been through just to make it to this day?!" She was smart in sparing herself.

Then tah-dah, back in Riga, just in time for the downpour and me without an umbrella.

The Raimonds Pauls & Laima Vaikule concert on Sunday was great. RP is still his maniac self on the piano (which doesn't say much because he doesn't at all act manic, but the guy has X years of genius in his portfolio). Andris Erglis was also there, in a completely white suit. Good singer, no comment on the choice of evening wear.

This will be another busy week. Wednesday is a curry-cook-off/tasting event, Friday is my aunt's birthday.

It's a Small World, after All.

2008-06-04T02:20:00.000-04:00

Just now, on the way back to the office from the insurance firm, within a 5-minute period of time, I ran into the parents of a Minnesota friend of mine and saw singer/songwriter/producer Ainars Mielavs having a cigarette and looking fidgety-bored next to some parked cars.

Riga is, as people have said, say, and will say in the future, a small, small world.

Things You Cannot/Should Not Do in Riga

2008-06-04T02:18:00.000-04:00

Let me preface this by saying that in no way are these meant to be taken 100% seriously. There are some places where I'm obviously having a bit of fun. So if something seems overly ridiculous, chance are it's because I was writing it to be ridiculous. I live here, too, y'know.

Somewhat more extensive than originally intended, here's a list of cannot's and should-not's for Riga/Latvia. The list will be modified/added on to as items are remembered, brought to my attention, or their statuses change.

1. You cannot or should not drink the tap-water, unless you KNOW the place has a filter. Ask to see the filter, or a receipt for purchase/installation of the filter if said filter is not in a clearly visible location. Even if said filter truly exists, you may want to ask for boiled water instead.

2. You should not pay the bus attendant for a single ticket with anything bigger than a 1 lat coin, unless you really really want to get back a handful of copper and the cold shoulder.

3. You cannot get a full night's rest, unless you live somewhere surrounded by NOTHING. The people in the apartment above mine have been hammering on something starting at 8 A.M. every weekday and Sunday, since last September.

4. You cannot sit on the grass in public places. Seriously, there are signs, and you probably have to pay a hefty fine if you are caught doing so. And tourists may wonder why the grass is so pretty. FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY it is permissible to sit, sleep, stand and roll on the grass in the city parks in Riga! This offer is only good for the month of June and is a test to see whether or not the people of Latvia can "handle" the responsibilities that come with being allowed to sit on grass. I don't know...one stray grass stain and some crazy person might snap and try to burn the mother down.

5. You cannot find a decent cup of coffee at a cafe without an all-out search or at least with insider information. Latvia is not a coffee nation. I realise there are cafe's called "Coffee Nation", but other than a pleasing ambiance, free 15-minute WiFi cards and good pecan pie-cake, there really isn't much to it. Insider information: All Capuccino (K. Barona, Centrs, and right next door to Lidojosa varde) has coffee that is, by leaps and bounds, more like coffee should be. Index Cafe not only has cheap and very decent sandwiches, but also serves up a fantastic espresso shot, or anything with espresso in it. They also have a drip-coffee machine, which is, apparently, VERY RARE in Riga. Rare as in, like, it's the only one we've seen.

6. You cannot get from point A to anywhere within two blocks of point A in under 20 minutes if you're (quite literally) trapped in a motor vehicle. Your best options are to walk or bike.

7. You cannot read a single restaurant menu without laughing, especially if you are fluent in the English language and/or have a degree in literature/English/writing.

8. If you listen to the "mainstream" radio stations, you cannot go a single day without hearing music from one of the following artists at least five times and preferably doubling up on at least one of the songs: Mika, Robbie Williams, The Sugababes, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, The Backstreet Boys, Rihanna, Madonna.

9. You cannot and should not start crossing the street without looking both ways several times (that goes for any country), or start crossing the street the moment the little man turns green. Although some cars stop, the general mentality seems to be "If there are 10 or less people on the crosswalk the road's as good as clear".

10. You cannot win with ATMs. If you want one 10 and one 5 to make 15, you will get three 5s. If you want two 10s to make 20, you will get a 20.

11. You cannot commute to work in the morning without smelling alcohol on at least 5 people around you. You cannot go a single week without seeing a person stumbling around completely inebriated at a seemingly abnormal time of the day.

12. You cannot get a bad serving of potatoes. Anywhere.

13. You cannot "finally" get rid of all of your small change (1s and 2s) with a clear conscience because, as Murphy's law would have it, the next time you make a cash purchase you're going to wish you had held on to something.

14. You cannot buy alcohol after 10 P.M.

15. You cannot get home using public transportation after 12 A.M. or before 5 A.M.

16. You should not assume that, even after living in Riga for 6 months, you know how to get to your apartment by car. Because you totally don't. You know how the BUS or the TRAM or the TROLLEY gets to your house, but not how a car might achieve the same thing.

17. Some taxi drivers will, after being told what your destination is, say "Right, so which way should I go?" and then get angry at you for telling them to go the wrong way, which only happened because you thought you knew how to get to your apartment by car. But you don't. (ref. No. 16)

18. You cannot go a single day without running into or seeing someone you know - excluding colleagues. Even if you hide out in your apartment all day, but make a short trip to the store, you'll probably randomly bump into someone who decided to randomly stop at the grocery store tucked away in your labyrinth of a residential community.

19. You cannot be served at the bank (or other similar places) without a numbered ticket. If you took the wrong type of ticket, it's not their problem. If you were given the wrong type of ticket by an actual person, it's still not their problem.

20. You cannot buy letter envelopes by the box. But you can buy them by the "packet". I finally noticed them in a pen/pencil/stationary store I go to now and then. Problem solved.

21. You cannot get soy milk in your coffee at a cafe. If you ask for soy milk, the only response you will get is a blank stare.

22. You should not dry your laundry at a laundromat. It costs around 6 USD for one small load of laundry.

23. You cannot see a play, opera, or ballet in Riga that does not include some kind of random, psychedelic or otherwise awkward-moment dance or scene.

24. You cannot drink in public, as in sitting on a park bench sipping a bottle/can of booze. However, it seems that if said bottle/can is concealed in a paper/plastic bag, regardless of how conspicuous the concealment is or isn't, the act is ignored.

25. You cannot attempt to take care of any bureaucratic documents or business without being sent to X number of offices, given X amount of telephone numbers to call, X amount of forms and applications to fill out. Once you have completed the aforementioned tasks, you cannot attempt to take care of the documents/business without repeating the process.

26. You should not forget to stamp ("compress") your tram or trolley ticket. If ticket-control personnel board the tram or trolley and find that you have not compressed the ticket, you will be fined.

27. You should not cross the train tracks at any point other than the indicated crossings. If you get caught, the fine is probably around 30 lats.

28. You cannot get large, plastic grocery bags for free.

29. You cannot easily recycle plastic or glass. Most of it is just thrown away with the rest of the trash.

30. You should not dispose of still-lit cigarettes directly into metal trash bins. The trash inside WILL start on fire. I regret not having my camera with me, because it's not every day you pass a burning metal bin.

31. If you want to have a quick meal, you should not eat at a restaurant where there is a middle-man, e.g. a server, between you and the food.

32. Even if a car is backing up slowly, you should not assume that the driver is actually looking back, looking in the rear-view mirror, or even aware that his/her vehicle is backing up.

33. You cannot leave work early on a Friday and expect to make it out of the city centre in a timely fashion because everybody else has the same plan.

34. You cannot use public restrooms for free, unless you are in a larger shopping centre where the door is not monitored very carefully.

35. When planning on using a public restroom, you should not assume that there will always be a toilet seat, a rim to the toilet, or even an actual toilet. (Most places now have normal situations, but there are the few exceptions where there's not much to nothing)

36. You cannot buy hand sanitizer. We have yet to see it in stores.

37. You should not, absolutely SHOULD NOT piss on the Freedom Monument. If you do you are unbelievably childish and should have your passport taken away (if you are a tourist) because you obviously are incapable of respecting the culture and history of other nations. If you are a local doing so... what's wrong with you?

38. You cannot touch the guards standing by the Monument. Or maybe it's "you should not". I've never tried or seen anyone try to do so.

39. You cannot buy/find "standard name brand" medications, such as Tylenol, Advil, Pepto-bismol, etc.
40. You cannot cross major streets in logical places because crosswalks are not logically placed along major streets.

Week of Entertainment Pt.2

2008-06-04T02:17:00.000-04:00

My week of entertainment PLUS! continued. It stops at Wednesday the 28th, so don't get too excited.

Wednesday the 21st I met up with some people in Livu laukums and saw folklore group Vilkaci perform. Figures our friend Edgars would be in the group - there seem to be very few folklore groups that he's not a member of. It was a laid-back performance for the "grand opening" of Zelta filings, this beer-garden restaurant bar that basically changes its name every few years. The evening consisted of Vilkaci performing a few songs, then the increasingly more inebriated Host talking and then talking about how "if no one else wants to say anything theeeeeen I guess it's back to me!" Vilkaci is the folklore group that's supposedly known for not only singing, but also for gearing up and having old-time one-on-one combat shows. The first two guys fighting had a couple of clean rounds, finished with a truce handshake-hug. The next to guys fought like little monkeys. Swords and shields swinging all over the place, cheap shots to the head and groin. They finally went with the handshake-hug, but not before slamming each other in the helmet with the butt of their swords.

Thursday... Thursday I went and visited the relatives I had stayed with last fall (Agra & Co.), had a nice chat and some tea, then went home. It wasn't so much a night of entertainment, but a night of unwinding with some dog-therapy included (they've still got Doro).

Friday I don't remember what I did. There's nothing written in my calendar, so there's a good chance that Ilze, Julija and I met up like usual and decompressed after another hellish week. By decompressed I mean cocktail hour.

Saturday was Eurovision. This year I have surprisingly little to say, only that I'm a little disappointed that Dima Bilan won, considering his performance was... not really that spectacular. I'm sure the song is wonderful on its own, but how can the guy NOT be reaching for points when he has three-time Olympic figure skating champion Plushenko twirling around next to him? I have to say that Bilan's 2005 Eurovision song was actually better than this one. Maybe next year more than four countries will get themselves in gear and put out an act that they think has a chance at winning. I have to agree with the consensus that this year's contest was pathetic.

Who knows what happened Sunday. I think I did some work and then went to buy dish soap.

Monday nothing happened. Monday night I realised it had been a week since our dog Kimene had died and I spent my final hours awake in a crap mood.

Tuesday I once again headed out to Vienibas gatve and saw the daughter of the relatives with whom I stayed perform in the year-end recital of her music school. Another low-key and heartwarming concert, with free admission to boot :)

Wednesday was the big night for "Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat". I've never seen the performance in any language before, but Julija assured us that it was exactly the same, choreography included, except the words were in Latvian. The musical was enjoyable enough and an interesting change from ballets and operas.

Week of entertainment ovah.

Week of Entertainment

2008-05-20T02:16:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to point out about how cool Stockholm is: let's say you're running for the bus but on the way realise a) you don't have enough change or b) you don't have your wallet with you. If you don't have a cell phone, you're completely up creek, but if you do, you can send a quick SMS to the transportation number and buy a ticket that way. Spiff, no?

Okay, on to the week of entertainment. Why week? Because it's an approximate calendar week, leave it be. Entertainment? Weeeeeell, it all started on Saturday morning when I picked up my new computer.

That's right, this post is coming to you from the half-comfort of my own couchbed.

So that's just entertainment on its own - I now have my "land-line" back, my "TV" back, all of it. Saturday was spent hanging around Riga centre in the lovely weather (don't worry, Sunday to today has been either cloudy/rainy/depressing or sunny and cold, by May standards), looking at the photography display (A Day in Latvia, 1987 and 2007) set up in Doma laukums, and then heading home for a quick nap and a bit of tinkering with a project I had gotten for the weekend, before heading back into the centre for Museum Night.

Museum Night! Not all as exciting as I would have thought it would be, but it was definitely interesting seeing how absolutely packed the buildings and streets could be. Museum Night happens once a year in Latvia, where basically every museum in Riga and other major Latvian cities is open until the very wee hours of the morning. I doubt that the museums see that much action (I'm talking huge lines of people waiting to get inside) any other day. I started late, met up with some friends (who were very [Slava!, much??] plastered with round stickers in all kinds of colours, showing which museums they had been to see) and took a quick turn through the National Art Museum and the tiny yet shiny Latvian jewelry museum.

Sunday I did nothing but wash laundry, watch three movies on my computer (entertainment) and take a quick trip with my flatmate to the resident Nelda grocery store (entertainment - I still don't know how to get there and back from our apartment. I rely on my flatmate to steer me through the labyrinth that is our neighbourhood).

Bad choice! Monday I was overly stir crazy, even borderline hysterical. I think I've really learned that, as much as I'd love to and as wonderful as it sounds to just sit and do jack for an entire day, I pay for it dearly with what could be considered an energy hangover. I have too much of it the day following and almost need to cry after sitting at my desk for 8 hours. Anyway, during the day Monday a friend sent me an SMS saying that music artist Imants Daksis was having a CD release concert. For free. So I totally went. The only thing I knew about Imants Daksis was from what I read of a relative's album review of Daksis' last album; the music wasn't necessarily bad, it was just weird.

This was beyond me as the first "set", in which he played songs from his new album, were really good and, despite some of the texts being a bit more than I'm used too, completely normal. The guy sitting in front of us was a normal, long-haired (Daksis ditched the bald head and long beard image, apparently) indie musician. THEN he got into his old stuff, which was, in all sense of the concept, AN AWKWARD TIME. The guitar was still amazing, but I can't say I was feeling the lyrics about "burnt witches" and "massacred Indians", although I thought that the general message of the song was important. There was a message, really.

Tonight I'm heading out to go see Chekov's "The Seagull". It's supposed to be a short play, and I've checked with my grandfather, who approves of it, so I'm expecting a decent evening. Keeping my fingers crossed (or holding my thumbs)!

Addition: The Chekov play wasn't bad, but I didn't really get it. I'll have to read an English version of it to see if it makes sense then. Tomorrow evening we're going to stop by Livu laukums to see Vilkaci perform. At this point, anything to keep my mind off of the new loss of a seriously excellent family member, who was like a figurative sibling to me. R.I.P., Kimene. This is one of the rare times in my rounds of Europe where I regret not being home.

Always One Step Ahead

2008-05-13T02:15:00.000-04:00

Latvian bureaucracy. Always one step ahead.

I got up extra early this morning so that I would have time to not only eventually get to work, but also to stop in at the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs to see what I could do with my documents (as I may have mentioned, yesterday was a bust because yours truly forgot her passport at home). I get off at the respective bus stop, correctly guess which street to turn on, walk up to the building and LO! The door is there, but there are no signs, no indicators, nothing. I try the door - nothing. A woman who was also milling around asked "Excuse me, but do you know where the OCMA is?" Me: "That's what I'm trying to figure out. It was here not too long ago..." Then I went to the computer accessories/office supplies store on the same block and asked a nice elderly man if he knew what was up.

Me: "Excuse me, but do you know if the OCMA has moved office?"

Man: "Yep, they sure have."

Me: "Geez. Do you know where to?"

Man: "Oh, sure, out in Ciekurkalns in the direction of Mezuparks..."

Me: "......where??"

Man: "You take the 11th tram, across the B--- bridge, second stop, past Mezaparks cemetery, it's on the right side, a huge, glass building. Ugly box."

Me: "...thanks?"

Basically, whenever I think I'm one step closer to my goal, or that I'm almost to the finish line, they somehow manage to top it. They've moved office and left zero notice on the prior building. The only advantage is that the new office has been in service since May 6th (there were a few weeks in April when I wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway since they had locked down for the move), meaning that, hopefully, other 'immigrants' will either a) not know where the office is or b) be too lazy to head out that far to get their paperwork taken care of. Let's hope that Latvia is full of lazy people who want citizenship, right?

Kidding. But I could totally use a nap.

If I can figure out where the new office is, I'll try again tomorrow. In the words of Chumbawamba: "I get knocked down, but I get up again - you're never gonna keep me down! (repeat ad nauseum)"

Stockholm and Clean Lungs

2008-05-12T02:15:00.000-04:00

Poor readers! I promised you Stockholm almost a week ago and have given you NOTHING! Today it’s cloudy and considerably cooler in Riga – what a great end to an absolutely fantastic weekend of sunny weather. Friday I had my lungs X-rayed (and I’m CLEAN! No TB in these puffers!) and was going to take all of my documents to the respective department today, but realized that I had left my passport at my apartment (note: last night/today is my last day of apartment sitting, so all of my belongings are not where I am), so I get to try again tomorrow. And if I haven’t already said so, I have my official and for-real work permit, so now all I need is the stay-in-Latvia permit! Keep your fingers crossed!

Stockholm, much like Zurich, has nothing really pretty to it, but has something about it that makes you want to go back.

There is a free city bus that leaves the centre once every hour on the hour and drives you to IKEA. The same bus drives you back to the city centre from IKEA once every hour on the half hour. I learned only post-Stockholm that the IKEA we went to is the largest IKEA in the woooooorld! And it was glorious. It’s kind of a slow-sloping spiral design, so you see everything at a nice, slow pace. Real Swedish IKEA’s have “family” goods: shampoo, lotion, toothbrushes, bathrobes, jogging suits, etc. Families also get a discount at IKEA with a special Family Card.

For lunch we ate real Swedish IKEA meatballs, from the motherland source, with a nice glass of lingenberry juice on the side.

We hit up more or less every H&M store we saw – and yes, they ARE all different. At least what you can't find at one you could find at another, and some "special" items weren't available at other H&M stores (like this dress thing I bought. Yes, Kaija bought a dress thing. Of her own free will. And it’s girly. But has a good deal of black in it [HAH!]). The other things I picked up almost made my flatmate cry from joy because they weren't black. She was very proud that I came back with clothing in colours.

We also managed to take a quick jaunt through the Old Town on Gamla Stan. We got as far as the Parliament and the Royal Castle, then hit up this little square with the Nobel Museum and three buildings that look suspiciously like the Three Brothers here in Riga. Then it was time to head back to the hotel to pick up the rest of our loot and find our way back to the ferry. The ferry on the way back was very... "Eastern European", as my father put it after hearing my description. In comparison to the near-luxury we experienced on the way from Tallinn to Stockholm, the Stockholm to Riga trip was mostly groups of middle-aged people drinking when they got on the boat, drinking that evening on the boat, drinking that morning as we drew closer to Riga, and drinking while we were waiting to get off the boat. Getting off the boat… let’s just say that, had there been a real emergency situation, we would have all been screwed. There were no announcements made regarding where we were to disembark, no ferry staff walking around directing people where to go (in fact, some were even standing in the cattle-drive like lines with the rest of us, checking messages on their mobile phones). It wasn't until 20 minutes after we were docked that an announcement came saying "Uh.... all passengers please disembark the ferry via the vehicle cargo area..." So down, down, down we went into the cargo area where cars were parked, and then out the back of the ferry onto solid, Latvian concrete. This ferry was also much shakier than the Tallinn-Stockholm ferry.

None of us, however, got sick from the trips. The rides were both considerably smooth, no trouble, no turbulent waters. Only the back-trip was a bit shady.

Overall the trip was a hit – we talked, we laughed, we took pictures. Our feet hurt like the flipping dickens. I smile to myself thinking back on it. We got back Sunday late morning, then had a few hours to recover before heading out to the National Opera to see Latvian a capella group Cosmos showcase their new album. The concert was a great end to a great weekend.

Good things about Stockholm:

-Wayne’s Coffee (a coffee CHAIN with coffee to go that uses lactose free milk. Excellent coffee in good sizes and somewhat decent prices)

- H&M (um, duh.)

- IKEA (loves the free transportation to and from)

- 7-11 (oh yes there IS! At least one 7-11 per block, sells anything your heart may desire)

- good coffee, in general.

- decently cool architecture

- lots of good things to photograph

- the people are society-nice. This means they’re not Minnesota or Iowa overly nice, but just actually nice people who are fond of helping out if needed.

Next time I head back I’ll be all about hitting up the museums – we didn't have enough time this trip, but next trip that's all I plan on doing :)

Aaah yes, and I get my new baby (a.k.a. computer) next week! I’ll be whole again!

Tallinn-Stockholm

2008-05-07T02:14:00.000-04:00

Since last post I’ve definitely been to Sweden and Estonia and back. We took the god-awful bus trip to Tallinn, arrived shortly before 5 a.m. and had too many hours to kill before the ferry to Stockholm would leave. We dragged ourselves to a Double Coffee, where we were immediately greeted with English “Hi! How are you?” from a younger guy sitting at a table with his friend, his friends girlfriend, and his own girlfriend, who was passed out in the chair next to him. It appeared they had been out all night taking advantage of the holiday, and were still recovering. Then another local sat down with us, showed us all of the phone numbers he had collected on his arms (his presence was funny in general, as my father had just sent an SMS saying “Tere, Kaija! Tik uzmanies no eesti poisod!” Regardless if I spelled it right or not, the SMS basically read “Hello, Kaija! Just watch out for Estonian boys!”

Thanks, dad. Just in time, too.

So our new friend attempted to talk to us through his half-hung over stupor and a cup of coffee (which Ilze and Julija, being smart, told the server was on a separate bill because the guy wasn’t with us), while we conversed in Latvian and tried to gently signal that we were too tired to socialize outside of our group. He eventually got the idea and left.

By 8 a.m. we had been approached by at least 4 people and I was ready to take down the next person who talked at us. Luckily for them (and us, I suppose), no one did. I have never been mildly harassed by locals when I’ve been abroad. It was an entirely new experience for me, and not one that I enjoyed. The worst one was some guy who, after trying to talk to a man on the sidewalk (who ignored him), threw up his arms in exasperation, then walked back toward where Ilze was sitting on a stone dove and where I was trying to photograph another stone dove. I figured the guy would come over and just hover until I had taken my picture but nooooooooo, instead he sits down right on the sculpture I was trying to photograph. And says nothing. As I huffily put my camera away he starts speaking in broken English, saying something like “Is it… eh, is it hard? Is it bad, for you?” I look to Ilze who’s ignoring him and feign non-English speaker. Then we start to leave because Julija was done with the ATM. Then the guy sighs again and says, “You are afraid.”

Buddy, what the hell? I’ve had 30 minutes of sleep, will be on my feet for 12 hours and you just sat down in my frame without any regard for what I was doing. Does my face read fear? Shortly thereafter when Ilze, Julija and I were nearing the mall for a breakfast hunt was when I threatened suffering to the next person who would come toward us. Then I did some stretches on the mall floor and felt better.

Tallinn was nice,overall, and that’s all I can say about it. The old town is very similar to parts of Riga and smaller German cities, so I wasn’t in awe of anything other than the more modern buildings leading up to the older part of the city. I had also had close to zero hours of sleep since 4 p.m. the previous day (power nap!) and was not looking forward to 12 hours of walking around with no purpose. I managed to take a few pictures, managed to be interested enough in some things we saw, and generally cared very little about the rest. As I said, Tallinn, while lovely, is similar to Riga – no real need to get freaked out about it.

Julija finally suggested that we catch a movie to kill a few hours – AMAZING plan. We did just that, managed to stay awake the entire time (we saw “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, which, although containing unnecessary nudity in places, was a light comedy and at least somewhat realistic). Then we had a hobo-ish picnic on some steps before dragging ourselves across a major road to the ferry. By this time we had no objections to showing up for the 2-hours-prior-to-boarding request. We got to our absolutely divine cabin (three foldy beds, a couch, a TV, and a toilet-shower) and crashed. When we woke up a few hours later we explored the ferry, tested some perfumes, ate the dinner we brought along (otherwise the ferry dinner buffet would cost 17 LVL or $34… I choose hunger), watched a movie on Julija’s computer and passed out again until morning when we were almost to Stockholm.

TBC with Stockholm details in a few days.

Post Valmiera, Pre Stockholm

2008-04-29T02:14:00.000-04:00

Exciting past few days, I’ll say that right off the bat.

Saturday I made a “latviesu maminu" dinner (Latvian mother dinner, as in the food kept coming and coming) and had two of my friends over in my "ghetto". One of them felt right at home, seeing as she lives in a similar apartment complex area about ?? minutes away, depending on the mode of public or non-public transportation you're using. We laughed, we ate, we drank some good wine I got on sale at Stockman (Gallo sauvignon?).

Sunday I drove with relatives to Valmiera to climb the Zilaiskalns (blue hill/mountain), which is called that due to the bluish haze or fog that often sits around its top. It was there a bit on Sunday, but the weather was once again gorgeous (jealous yet, Mid-West?), so not too much haze. The hill is a geological/sacred ground with all kinds of crazy energy flowing in and around it. There are 5 or so points marked out on the hill, one huge central one and at least 4 off to the sides, each marked with a circle and then with a centre point. You stand on the centre point of each circle and just sort of feel what’s going on. On the first spot we went to, “Imantas peak” or mound (not much peak there), I kind of felt my right arm start to raise, and the necklace my relative had definitely swung in circles when she held it over the centre point. I am well aware that we are influence not only by nature but also by the cosmos, blah blah blah, and I understand that the necklace wasn't moving on its own. Think of it like a subconscious energy movement. In the biggest circle under this watch-tower they have set up there, my relatives all felt "nice", their pains were alleviated, etc. I got a sickish pressure in my head and had to back up off of the thing. I refused to go near it for the rest of our stay on the top of the hill (which is, by the way, 66 m tall). A different side circle made me feel totally relaxed and like I didn't have a care in the world – definitely a good place to stand before finals week if you’re a student! The last circle sort of amplified everything about the nature around it; the birds sang clearer, you could smell the soil, and the wind seemed closer (if that’s possible). We decided that, even though it wasn’t the main circle, it was definitely the most powerful one. All in all a cool trip. On the way home we stopped at Diklu pils (Diklu palace - though it was more of a manor) for an expensive but tasty lunch. Then I slept on the way home, as I had promised to do.

Monday on the way home from work I stopped into Gastronome, this fancy deli-type place with a good salad bar and all kinds of delicious foods and spirits. I bee-lined it to the spirits. On Sunday I had learned that this absolutely to melt for after-dinner French wine could be bought there. So I bought a bottle, around 12 LVL. Basically, I bought a $25 bottle of after-dinner wine. I am SO adult now.

This week is a short week for most everyone in Latvia - Thursday and next Monday are holidays, making Wednesday kind of a half day (so one of my colleagues told me). Wednesday night my friends and I are taking the ferry to Stockholm! It's a 16-hour trip, but we're really excited for it. We really lucked out with the hotel, too. It’s right across from the Central metro station and a quality place. Normal prices are insane, but we managed to find a good deal on Priceline.com - the only issue was that Priceline would only let us book Thursday night, not Friday's as well. So we booked Thursday and I called the hotel to speak with the woman I had spoken to before. She asked why, again, had we done that, and I told her, then she put me on hold. When she came back she said she could give us the Priceline price so we could book the same room for Thursday and Friday and not have to switch floors. I assumed the Friday price would be their standard rate, but then she said, "Oh, no, I checked, it's okay. I can give you the Internet price.” HUZZAH!

***

From when I started to write this post to now, I’ve had lunch at a restaurant called "The Flying Frog", made a half-dozen phone calls, and re-organised the transportation to Stockholm. The game plan now is as such:

Take a bus from Riga to Tallinn;

Spend 12 in Tallinn doing something to make 12 hours pass bearably;

Take a ferry from Tallinn to Stockholm;

Get to Stockholm;

Spend one-point-five days in Stockholm;

Take a ferry from Stockholm back to Riga.

Confusing, no?

Anywho, at least we’re going to Stockholm (the reason all of this round-about-ness is taking place is because we waited a bit too long to book tickets for the Riga-Stockholm ferry, but managed to get spots on the Tallinn-Stockholm route. Genius!)!

The Truth About Cinderella

2008-04-25T02:13:00.000-04:00

So, that Cinderella ballet my friends and I saw? One of the friends sent me an SMS today informing me of what the following article will explain:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4204332.stm

Basically the ballet was banned two years ago. And

Outsiiiiide...

2008-04-23T02:12:00.000-04:00

I have the worst stir-crazies right now. It’s about 52ºF right now in Riga (I’m listening to MPR and they say it’ll be around 70 in the cities today), and some software is acting funny right now (making progress slower), and I’ve been getting WAY too much sleep lately. Because it's been so nice lately, it's been okay walking through the city from the train station to get to work, but it's more fun to take a mikrinsh (crazy mini-van thing I've mentioned before) and ride through all of the residential areas and see how spring has taken over.

After work I’m meeting up with some friends – our plan is to hit up Pelmeni (like a Russian ravioli, except it’s not pasta, and they're not pancakes...but little filled delicious things), take our dinner to go, then ride the train out to Jurmala and walk off the Pelmeni goodness. It's a good thing the beach is technically so close! Nothing else new has happened today, except that I seem to be accident prone in Riga. The room we sit in at the office makes me sneeze a lot (don’t know how that’s accident prone, but I just remembered the fact), and while trying to set up the GPRS settings for my phone, I turned it off then back on again (like the LMT site told me to), completely forgetting that I need a PIN for this SIM chip. So now I can’t use my phone until I find the little piece of paper with my PIN on it, or until (worst case) go buy a new SIM chip. Seriously, I’m losing my mind.

It’s my flatmate’s birthday today – happy birthday!

First Office Week Dun

2008-04-18T02:12:00.000-04:00

My first almost-complete week of work is almost over! I’ve just finished my day’s project. Tonight I'll most likely head over to an acquaintance's Name Day party - in a breach of Latvian social norms, I was invited (rather, she invited everyone), but in her defence, she's not Latvian and I suppose can't be blamed for not following norms :) Either way, that's what's up for tonight, but not too late because I can't miss my bus(es), whichever one I end up needing to take home.

This weekend will contain some more organisation of life, maybe even some pushing-around of furniture (if I can’t buy wires and fasten them into my plaster walls so that I can hang curtains on them to make room divisions, I might as well corner my bed off with the only two bookshelves in my room). I'll make it work.

Tuesday and Wednesday we had gorgeous weather – Wednesday my friend Ilze and I took advantage of the second-day-in-a-row-niceness and went out to the beach (oh yes, the very beach that runs along the Baltic Sea) and took a very long stroll, ate dinner at an actually good Asian cuisine restaurant, and walked back. It was hard to get off of the train once I got home because my hips felt broken. Walking in the sand is a job for an entirely different muscle group.

Let me tell you about what I did LAST night (Thursday). You’ll appreciate this. Thursday night I met up with some friends to see another ballet (we’ve got tickets to pretty much every show until Mat) – this week's show was "Cinderella". All day Thursday I was thinking about how cool it would be to see "Cinderella" as a ballet - I imagined lots of muted and pastel colours, flowing ballet costumes, a light-hearted and romantic story.

Take that image and add to it what YOU know of the Cinderella story. Do you have it in your mind? Now take that story and replace it with a strip-tease. We're talking Cinderella goes interpretive-Moulin-Rouging. WACKED. OUT. Words cannot describe how confusing the first 10 minutes of the ballet were, how disturbing the following 50 minutes were, and how, once the male pimp (the king, perhaps?) gave Cinderella (Cinderella) a couple of crumpled bills for sleeping with the main younger male character (um..Prince?), did we finally get what was going on. The wicked step-mother was the owner of a brothel, the stepsisters traded for six hookers, and the "kingdom" a large group of dandy-ish men in zebra print coat tails. It was... let's put it this way, the “half-time” glass of champagne was well deserved, and we more or less laughed the entire way through. We got some nasty looks from a woman sitting to the left of us, but as we decided during intermission, how are you NOT supposed to laugh? How else are you going to justify sitting through a ballet that, though essentially terrible (I don't think these people are used to interpretive movements... learn classical dance forever and then try to break-dance = FAIL), is bad enough plot wise to be hilarious.

The most heart breaking part was seeing small children running around the halls during intermission – these kids were brought to the ballet by their parents in hopes of seeing something reminiscent of Disney and got nothing but thongs, fishnets, and chaps. At least one of the little girls had on a zebra print dress. Maybe her parents knew one of the dancers?

My computer is still not functional – I can only lean on the left side of the track pad for so long before my hand goes numb. This is being written and posted from the office, but don't get worked up, I've finished my work for the day. I've already been cornered for a large job that will, as I'm told, take up all of Monday. At least I have something to look forward to; otherwise I get in in the mornings and sit for an hour before anything happens. Not that I’m complaining – too much.

First Day on the Job: Recap

2008-04-16T02:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we had sun in Riga. The weather was basically the best thing ever. I also had my first day in the office yesterday - I got a quick tour of the office area, learned some names I'd probably forget if it weren't for the past 5 months of working with these people – with their names, at least. So it was more of a name-to-face thing. Then I was seated at my new deskish area – a computer by a functioning wiiiindoooow (read that and think sing-song)- and then told to wait a bit. Then I got my first proofreading job of the day, then another, and then another. All due more or less by 5 p.m. that afternoon. I finished them all with time to spare (an hour and a half of idly sitting at my desk half afraid I'd get some gimongous project right before I intended to leave and half afraid someone would come in and yell at me for not doing anything)! I was asked by someone later how many people worked in the office - I guesstimated 20, give or take a few. Most of them seem to be project managers, and those seem to keep multiplying. I met one of the ones previously unknown to me yesterday when I was handed one of the jobs to proofread, bringing the total of project managers known to Kaija to nine. My first day in the office was "normal" (a popular Latvian answer to almost anything) - no drama, no overworkedness, no tears. When I was first brought around to meet some of the other employees already in for the day, a few of them were all "Kaija? Oh good, you're finally here! Nice to see you in person."

Recap of my day + what came after:

Come in to work at 9, work until 3:30, sit and wait for 5 to roll around, then after work head off across the street to Gastronome, an absolutely tasty gourmet deli-type place. They have an actual restaurant attached to the deli/store part, but I don't care about it. Picked up some Greek salad, penne pasta salad with duck (the duck tastes weird, but the pasta and veg bits are good), and small French bread rolls for some good eating later on. Then I went and visited with one of many relations on this side of the world and her kids (to those who know them, Amanda and Co.), and got home around 10 with an hour to do absolutely whatever my little heart desired until 11 when it's bedtime. I feel like an 8th grader. But hey, in bed by 11:30 the latest, up at 7:30 - I can't say I don't feel great in the mornings; I'm probably earning some health points along with walking almost everywhere.

As of now I’ve had two small jobs to do today: one about thealine, which is an amino acid found in tea leaves (most commonly green and black teas) that makes the alpha waves in the brain’s cortex go ooey-ooey, making the mind and body alert yet relaxed, and the other regarding some recording or taping studio and its service list. And then there’s nothing. It looks like I may be done for the day. That leaves…3.5 hours until I can go home without feeling guilty about whatever!

And yes, my computer’s still broken. I was able to get it running a bit last night and this morning by applying some pressure to the left side of the track pad, which apparently makes the connection between the motherboard and whatever existent. Other options for do-it-yourself fixes (which are invasive as opposed to pressure application) include (but are not limited to) placing a burning tea light+ some fuels on the motherboard once you've cracked your computer open. I'll pass.

Back for Round Two!

2008-04-14T02:10:00.000-04:00

For those of you who did not receive my succinct and detail-less e-mail, I've arrived back in Riga, ready for round two of "Can She Become a Temp. Resident?"

The flights were normal enough, save for the semi left-body-disabled Russian man sitting next to me from Chicago to Frankfurt. Because I was able to sleep more than usual on planes, I didn't have to ask him to let me out so I could use the toilets. And in a move not reciprocating my sensitivity to his physical situation, my bladder and I got to wait with him and the overly perky flight attendant until 95% of all people on board were off the aircraft and someone finally found his cane for him, which ended up being right next to his backpack where the flight attendant had placed and then forgotten about it.

I understand, I understand, the man was elderly and had physical difficulties. But I sat with my legs crossed for 8 hours respecting that; I guess I thought he'd at least shuffle over to the seat across the aisle and chill out there, letting me get past and on with my travels. No such luck.

Side note: between the evening I began to write this post and now, my computer crashed once more, and appears to be out of commission until i can find a trustworthy person on this side of the ocean to fix it. Sadness for me - but thanks to the goodness of my flatmate's heart, I can use her computer to take care of business.

My first half day in Riga I spent time running around the city looking for an LMT store, only to discover later that the mall 10 minutes from our apartment has a branch store located right in it. I didn't get a chance to meet up with my friends due partly to not having a working SIM chip for my phone, and partly because around 17:30 I was BEAT. I almost fell asleep on the bus ride back home. Then I got back in the evening and got my computer to work for at least two hours, during which time I was able to call my mother, my father, and my friends (to let them know I was done for the night and to ask what they were doing tomorrow - to which one of them answered, "Oh, you're coming to the ballet with us!" Many more ballets will be seen in the coming weeks, as it seems they bought tickets to all the shows running until May) via Skype. Skype - cheap telephony that works! Then I straightened up my room, actually put everything away, and went to bed.

Sunday I got up, made a dash for the mall, got a phone chip, let people know about it, and met my friends in the city centre for a late breakfast before the ballet. The ballet was a comedy, with elements of Shakespeare love triangles and concealed identities/dressing up as a member of the opposite sex to play tricks on people, and would have all probably made more sense if a) one of us had sprung for a programme or b) we could read the banner held up in the first scene of the ballet that had large white RUSSIAN words printed on it. At half-time we went to the refreshments room and half-jokingly I said we should get champagne (also as kind of a welcome-back-Kaija-celebratory-item) and they said "Why not, we've done it every other time we've come here!" WELL! So, 12 o'clock noon, let's say, and there we were, sipping champagne among other audience members doing the same and laughing like silly women.

I also learned that, while you can civilly sip your champagne during the intermission, when the bell dings for calling the audience back to the auditorium, it's time to CHUG. That was equally entertaining to the Trockadero-like part of the ballet - the bell goes 'ding' and the three of us stop sipping and stop chatting and just tip glasses back. The second half of the ballet was more amusing, and not just because of the champagne.

Today I got a hold of the person I was supposed to get a hold of and determined that today I'm going to spend some time trying to figure out a way to get my computer fixed, and that tomorrow I'll be going in to work. For the first. Time. Everrrrrrrrrr.