Driving in Latvia This is the third time I have been to Latvia, and I have driven all three times that I have been here, but this was the first time I was alone, navigating and fighting heavy traffic while trying to find a parking place in downtown Riga. Let me start by telling you what …
Latvia: December 26-27 The 26th of December was a Holiday. I am hoping you all spent it doing something memorable and wonderful! My cousin Gita invited me to see the Christmas show at the Kipsala Exposition Hall. We had planned to meet for coffee before the show, but my internal clock is still way off, and …
For this year, fate (or some other magical force) sent me to Latvia. I am here in Riga at Ausekla 2-7 (Bruno’s apartment) and I will soon transfer to Ansis’ home at Daugmales pagasts. I left on the 23rd and arrived on the 24th. It felt like I was in some kind of a time warp, …
The Departure Saturday morning came quickly. It was hard to get dad up, and he was a bit disoriented, but Bruno woke us all up at 4 a.m. and made sure we got to the taxi. He said he called for a van the night before, but the guy showed up in a station wagon. …
Vitauts in Latvia 17: Friday (piektdiena) I sort of woke up on Friday morning, but I was in a lot of pain. I promised myself that I would never drink enough to get sick again, but hey, it was Latvia. It was a bar crawl. There was absinthe. I had a slims gulva (sick head), …
UPDATE: Okay, you smug, self-satisfied TSA agent… show me where in this description it says that my liquor has to be in a clear bottle. I am no lawyer, but I can read. UPDATE #2: I took the rules below to the TSA agents and said there is nothing about clear bottles. His excuse? The …
Note: I apologize, but Vitauts plays a very small but fun role in this story. I’m publishing from the airport after a sleepless night, so if you see mistakes, let me know! Celebrating my Citizenship One of my goals in Riga was to go on a bar crawl, and this was the last night to …
The National Library of Latvia Gita Berzina, dad’s grandniece, invited him and I to go with her to the National Library of Latvia (NLL) to see the archives and then to her apartment to look through some photos. We found out later that she is actually making contributions to the library by giving them old …
Note: Okay, I finally got to it. If I hurry, I’ll still get four hours of sleep tonight before we fly back. But I can sleep on the plane, right? Enjoy… Smiltene: Vitauts’ Home I know I’m not spelling this right, but I’ll correct it later. Dad lived on a farm for sixteen years and …
Riga After an amazing weekend, we finally had a day to settle into our downtown apartment on Ausekļa (a Latvian poet) iela (street) near most of the foreign embassies and just a short walk from Old Town, the hub of the city. After a slow, lazy morning allowing us to catch up on sleep, we took …