Monday, September 3, 2007

The Invasion

So I went to see Harry Potter yesterday at the Coca Cola Plaza in Riga. One thing I have always noticed about going to movies is that me and the Americans that I go with are usually the only ones laughing at jokes. At first I thought it was because the subtitles didn't convey the joke effectively. But then walking around the streets and interacting with people I have noticed that I smile more than the average person here. And then I was standing in a group of people and I laughed and everyone turned and looked at me like what is wrong with that girl.

I felt like I was Nicole Kidman in her new movie The Invasion (of which I have only seen the preview). In the movie she cant show any emotion because otherwise the Aliens will know she is not one of them and take over her body. That is kind of how I feel living here in Latvia. If you smile at people and say please and thank you they know you are a foreigner and so to blend in you must show no emotion!

2 comments:

Marita said...

Great to read your blog. Sorry I couldn't make the going away party. Keep up the posts.

Unknown said...

This reminds me of when our Latvian family friend's son & his wife took me to see Knocked Up, or "Peksni stavokli." The people in the theatre were super reservered with the laughing, it made it very awkward. Especially the part where Seth Rogan is yelling on the phone to the doctor and saying extra hilarious things, he happened to be talking so fast that they didn't translate most of it into Latvian so i ended up being the only person in the theatre struggling so hard not to laugh hysterically. Another weird things about Latvians and movies: they all got up and left right when it was over. No one stayed to watch the credits, even while there was still movie running!