How it Feels

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!

Autumn ASAP

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.

Missing Riga

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.

Heat Wave

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

Ze donats/The Donuts

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.