Colorado to Chicago Welcome to Part 2 of the journey from Latvia to Ireland, America, London and back to Latvia. This post starts in Granby, Colorado a tiny mountain town. Quite frankly, I just need to publish this. There may be mistakes and not all the photos are perfect. June 5-7: Granby Instead of taking …
Rita and I took a trip from Latvia to America and back again by way of Ireland and England. I keep promising my brother Paul an itinerary. I figured I would do it by way of a blog post. In this post, I will attempt to share each place we traveled to with a few …
Labor Day: Latvian (and Lithuanian) Style In the United States, Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday of September, and it is typically the end of summer. However, in most other countries, May 1 is the traditional day to recognize the importance of labor movements throughout history. In Latvia, Rita, Anna and I had …
WARNING! This is likely to be the most boring thing I have ever written. DEDICATION: I dedicate this to my older brother, Paul, who loves data and odd collections of numbers and bits of information that others might not think twice about. I live a few blocks away from the Turgenev tram stop, and tram …
10.2.18 For those of you who don’t know, Daugavpils is Latvia’s second largest city and is sometimes thought of as the most Russian city in Latvia. According to Wikipedia, it is over 50% Russian. As I look at the Wikipedia page, I am struck by the complete desertion of the city from 1920-1950 when the …
Ziemā Pludmales 14 January 2018 After we arrived back in Riga this afternoon, I was making up new words to Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” and singing aloud on Gogoļa street past the cold people waiting for a bus, carrying a pussy willow branch and a bag of driftwood from the Gulf of Riga. I like …
1.11.17 Prologue: I have not written in awhile. I could blame this on many things—time, laziness, disinterest—but I have just been contemplating the reason that I am writing. I watched an episode of Bill Maher’s show and he was questioning why we share everything on social media. I decided to examine my posts to ask …
Piebalga August 19-20 This weekend, Rita invited me to join her for the last day of her folklore collecting project in the region of Latvia known as Piebalga which is right in the center of the country. This is a map of beer breweries throughout the country, and you can see Piebalga to the east. …
Time/Laiks After over a week in Latvia, I feel like I’m a bit of an expert on the whole thing. (Do I need to point out I’m kidding? Probably…) From what I can tell, time moves differently here than in Nebraska. Maybe it’s because it’s summer, and I don’t have a job, but the rhythm …
Week in Review 7 August 2017 I have been away from the United States for over a week, and tomorrow will mark my first full week in Latvia. I had been meaning to write a post per day, but time gets away from you when you are traveling the bumpy highways of Latvia! Last week …