Welcome to 2026
Forgive me! I have been busy working a full-time job and surviving the brutal Latvian winter. I have been feeling the urge to write ever since receiving Christmas letters from my sister and brother where they told the tales of their year in review. It is February, and this is long overdue.
From Hip Replacement to Today
First of all, I want to update you on my current situation in terms of my hip replacement. As you may recall, I had my left hip replaced at a Latvian hospital last October. I am a full 4 months into recovery, and things are going very well!
About 3 weeks after the replacement, I was having terrible pain as my muscles were realigning and learning how to work again. I did some physical therapy, and I have been doing regular exercises, and this seems to have helped. Most of the pain is gone other than my continuing battle with Plantar Fasciitis on my right side.
Today I noticed that all the pain I had been having in my left knee is gone. Almost every night, I would have this terrible knee pain. I felt like the left IT band was just pulling from my hip to my knee and it was just awful. It made it hard to sleep, and I was constantly trying to find a comfortable position. Now, that pain is gone completely.
So, while I have lots of body aches related to being a man in his 50s who did a lot of damage to his joints through stupidity and being overweight, I think I am doing pretty well. My goal now is to join some kind of league to play some sport.
Grand Canaria
Last year, Baiba’s good friend Marek’s proposed that we, along with his wife Ieva, take a trip somewhere tropical in the winter. I was amazed to see that our loosely laid plan actually came to fruition. Latvians don’t mess around!
Baiba did most of the hard work of planning our adventure to Grand Canaria Island, which is a Spanish island off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. I have learned so much about geography since living here. Basically, it is kind of like the Bahamas or Hawaii to the EU.
The trip was divided into 3 parts. We flew into Las Palmas (the 8th largest city in all of Spain), then taxied to the southern resort town of Puerto Rico (no relation). We spent 3 nights there, and then took a taxi into the mountains where we stayed in Tajeda (taHayda) for 3 nights. Finally, we spent the last few days back in Las Palmas.
Puerto Rico
Unfortunately, I had some bad yogurt before we left, and I had terrible food poisoning for the first 3 days of the trip. I was so sick that I almost passed out on the plane. The good news is that Baiba booked an absolute banger of a hotel for the first leg of our journey, so I was sweating and dying in luxury, able to look out of our bedroom window to see the most beautiful view of the ocean.
After I recovered, we were able to take a submarine trip which is something I had never done before. It was serene and beautiful to be under the water, and it was bright enough to see fish and features of the artificial reef that they have built.
The small town of Puerto Rico could be compared to a cruise ship on land. Most of the people we saw were elderly tourists from Scandinavia who seemed to be content just walking from place to place and getting food and drinks. But it sure had a beautiful sunrise and sunset!
Tejeda
An interesting feature of Grand Canaria is that there is one road that goes into the mountains. It is basically a one-lane winding strip of blacktop that is well-maintained, but terrifying. I don’t know what kind of traffic schools they have on that island, but thank God I didn’t have to drive.
We hired a taxi to take us the 40 kilometers from Puerto Rico to Tejeda. The driver was shocked that we wanted to go that far. It took about 2 hours as we wound our way through the rocky peaks. The views were incredible!
Tejeda is a sleepy village of a few hundred people where tourists from the coast come to visit in the afternoons. It is famous for its pastries of which we sampled many.
But the real reason we were there was to hike. We did two big hikes into the mountains, and the views and trails were incredible. I was very happy to report that my hip and overall conditioning was up to snuff, and I was able to keep up with the pack on our hikes. I even ate a ripe orange that I picked right off a tree.
My favorite thing was getting to the top of this rock, Roque Nublo, and seeing Tenerife, another island, which is about 100 kilometers away. It is home to Mt. Teide, the tallest mountain in Spain, which majestically rose from the ocean. It was stunning.
Las Palmas
We ended our trip in the main city on the island, Las Palmas. Even though we were there for four days, I can’t say I know the city well. We mostly walked along the beach which is absolutely gorgeous. In winter, the water is 19-21 degrees. If the sun was out, it felt like a nice summer day. I even laid out on the beach one day and got a wonderful surprise sunburn to end the trip. I don’t think I have had a real sunburn since I moved to Latvia! Baiba and I found a bar called Riga and had fun looking for the best coffee.
While staying in the city, we took a bus tour of the island with Ieva and Mareks, and it turned out to be absolutely fascinating. The Spanish conquistadors came to the island and conquered the natives. The way they did it was to convert people to Catholicism, then, once they were Catholic, they could just be regular Spanish citizens and help to advance the empire. They built canals through mountain rocks, various plantations, and a system of roads to connect everything together. This tiny island has a mix of climates from desert to rain forest, and it was incredible to see how people thrive.
One interesting thing was how I kept thinking back to the year of Spanish I had in high school. Some things still stick with me. I can’t speak Spanish, but I understand a bit, and I wonder how it is possible to remember all the words from La Bamba after learning them when I was 16, but I can’t keep track of Latvian that I am learning now? Oh well.
Back to Riga
When we got back to Riga, I was surprisingly happy to feel the “real” Latvian winter. Everyone here says how nice it is to have an actual winter again. For the past few years, it has been a grey rainy time with smatterings of snow and ice. But this year, we have had snow on the ground for months, and the temperature hasn’t even come close to zero. It has been so cold that the Daugava completely froze over to the point that people were walking on it! And one of those people was me (the other is Dallas).
Not only was the river frozen, but so was the Baltic Sea! Well, not technically the sea, but the Gulf of Riga. Dallas and I went out and walked on that too while making a little podcast, 2PK (2 Pastor’s Kids). The best part of the story is that Dallas had these two clip on mics that we were using for the recording. At one point toward the end of the walk, he realized that his mic had fallen off, and he had no idea where. This is on a frozen sea of ice and snow with dozens of people walking around. There are no landmarks, and no real way to know which way you have come from.
But we tried our best to retrace our steps, and as we had almost given up looking, I spotted a small black thing under the snow. It was, indeed, his microphone. He compared it to finding a single needle in a million haystacks! It was enough to make my day.
The sea and river were incredible to walk on. Dallas pointed out how this just created a huge chunk of public real estate. It is kind of like a whole new city park that is beautiful and empty and free of all obstruction. To see Riga’s old town while standing in the center of the river was truly spectacular. It was a bit frightening when you could see the ice and realize that if it breaks, we are dead.
The good news is that it did not break, and we did not die.
Life in General
I have finished my first year as English Editor for Klett Latvija. We are developing English-language learning materials for Latvian schools. It has been a huge learning curve, but the development seems to be going well.
Im still living with Baiba on Gertrudes iela here in lovely Riga. We have a wonderful new coffee shop next to our house called Livi. For much of my life, I wanted to have a place where I was a “regular” customer, and now I feel like I am getting there. The owner calls me “kaimiņš,” which means “neighbor.” They have amazing pastries and what may well be the best coffee in the city.
I haven’t been doing much stand-up comedy lately. I keep wanting to commit to doing one set a week, but it is sometimes hard to schedule when life gets in the way. I have, however, started a Latvian Language Learning club called “2 Drinks and Latvian.” My new buddy Jake from England and I wanted to make a safe space to practice speaking and listening to Latvian, so we have found a group life like-minded travelers. We meet once every two weeks, and the concept is that after a couple of drinks you are less self-conscious and more willing to just let go and speak a language even if it isn’t exactly right. So far, so good!
I hope you are all doing well! Comment or send a message if you have questions or just want to share something about yourself!
Side note:
The Winter Olympics have begun, and Latvia already has two medals. I had high hopes for the hockey team, but they lost to Denmark, and now they face Sweden to try to get into the medal round. By the time you read this, the results will be known, but I just want to put my hope here for a 2026 Miracle on Ice! Go Latvia!
More pictures:
