AABS

I was given the opportunity to speak at the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies conference in Bloomington Indiana and I jumped at the opportunity to come back to the US even if it was for a short time. I even got to stay with one of my good friends from college who went to law school at Indiana University. It was great because I didn't tell anyone I was coming home and so I surprised all of my friends and professors.

The gates of Indiana University
My thesis adviser giving the keynote address at the conference. In true Latvian/Guntis form he sang part of his speech. (He studies Folklore and used to make us memorize Latvian folk songs and sing them as part of our quiz every Friday during Second Year Latvian.)

Team America

When I got the Fulbright fellowship I decided that I wanted my first marathon to be in Latvia..well fate and a bad fall skiing in Switzerland intervened and I was relegated to the 5K race of the Riga Marathon. Luckily I got some of my friends and fellow Fulbrighters to run it with me! We decided that since we were not all Fulbrighters but all Americans that we should be called Team America and even invited some of the Embassy people to participate. This was race was quintessentially Latvian and I enjoyed every hilarious minute. People were wearing the craziest outfits completely inappropriate for running and there were so many people that we had to weave through puddles and the masses of crazy Latvians for the first 3 K. I was laughing so hard at my friends singing pump me up American songs and the people running that I thought I was going to have an asthma attack. In the end despite the soreness I had so much fun and did get a good time around 31 minutes (my goal was under 35 so I was pleasantly surprised). I even got a medal as a souvenir for running and (slightly more difficult) braving the crowds of smelly Latvians at the completely unorganized finish line.

Team America with our 5K medals
Jelena Prokopcuka, two time New York marathon winner and Latvian medaling the 5K winners.
Me and the finish line waiting for the marathoners

Night at the Museum

On Saturday night over 400 museums across Latvia participated in Museum Night..a night where the museums are free, stay open until 2:oo am, and have fun cultural things to do. My friends and I braved the masses of people to participate in this event, despite the early start we had the next morning. I could not believe just how many people participated in this event, they even served alcohol at some of the museums (drunk people and priceless works of art are not a good combination). While it was a little hard to see the works of art it was still interesting to participate in this event which apparently is a European phenomenon. This is a photo of all the people looking at the Socialist Realism art exhibit at Arsenals, the Latvian Modern Art Museum.

The Motherland

Ethnicity seems to play a big part in my life living in Latvia so I started referring to things ethnically and as a result call Ireland 'The Motherland'. I was able to finally visit the country of my forefathers this past weekend and had a blast. Not only was it great to visit a country I had heard about my whole life, it was also a nice reminder of home. They have many of the same restaurants and stores that we have in the US and everyone was so nice and said please and thank you...it was great. Here are some of the pictures from my trip.

Me and the River Liffey
This is Temple Bar the area of bars and restaurants by the river..we listened to traditional Irish music at the this pub.
Me enjoying food from home...McDonald's breakfast and a hot chocolate with marshmallows!
Dublin Castle
Trinity College
We wanted to see the Irish coast... so we went to Dalkey a cute little posh town where Bono from U2 lives. Unfortunately we didn't see him...
The island of Dalky with castle remnants in the background.
My friend Monika and I in front a M&L restaurant by our hostel.

May 9th

I have been looking forward to seeing this day since I arrived in Latvia. Today is the day when all the hard core communists come out to celebrate the end of World War II, because it was on this day that the Nazis surrendered on the Eastern front. For many Latvians this day is a just a reminder of their continued forced occupation under the Soviets and they do not celebrate it. In fact when I was asking almost everyone I knew about if they knew what types of activities went on today most had no idea. So my friends and I decided to head over to the other side of the river to the Victory Monument (built by the Soviets) to see what was happening. When we got there instead of hard core communists we found probably half the population of Riga. There were more people and more flowers at this event than there were last week for Latvian Independence. All of the speeches and most of the conversations I heard were Russian so I really cannot attest to what was said (made me wish I would have paid more attention in Russian class) but the event had a very upbeat and celebratory vibe to it. There was lots of singing, dancing, eating (the event was catered) and even a huge stage. People were handing out red flags and black and orange ribbons in remembrance of the day. All in all it was more of a day of celebration for many people than just a day for hard core communists.





People kept giving flowers and thanking medal wearing Veterans (or wives wearing what we assumed were their husbands medals). One such even displayed below.
Here are pictures of some of the people who died in the struggle against fascism (as the Soviets called it).

No Water

A couple of the girls I studied here with in 1999 found my blog on the internet (just one of the many perks of having this blog). One of them wanted to send me a photo of her daughter and asked if my e-mail accepted photos. And I thought Latvia is a developed country, member of the European Union and yes, of course we have internet access fast enough that it can download photos. Many thing have changed since we studied here in 1999, for example it no longer takes an hour to send one e-mail and now there are so many exchange students at the university that they actually created a department to deal with them (there were 13 of us in 1999).

But just when I think Latvia is becoming more western and developed....a day like today happens! I woke up this morning to find that the water didn't work. Now I have had the hot water turned off numerous times over my years spent in Latvia. It even happened this past October for like 2 weeks! But I have never had no water...and the people here act like it is the most normal thing in the world for all the water to be shut off. I mean this is the capital city of a European Union country and they just shut off the water! At first I thought it was just my block but then after asking one of my friends if I could shower at their house I learned its at least the entire city centre. And when I asked how long it would be until it is turned back on I was told maybe tomorrow. All I can say is I am flying to Ireland tomorrow and think its sad that I have to leave the country just to take a shower. There are fines for things like this in the US but in Latvia they are very nonchalant about basic necessities like having water. So Andrea I guess just when you think have changed here, they turn the water off and you realize just how backwards Latvia still is.

Independence Day...Again

Latvia has two independence days, the first is November 18 which is when they declared independence in 1918 from Imperial Russia and formed the first Republic of Latvia. Then May 4 is the day in 1990 that they declared independence from the Soviet Union. The government went all out for the independence day with celebrations on four stages of music and choirs performing throughout the parks in Riga. They even had a karaoke version of folk songs with the best choirs in Riga. It was a beautiful day and the highlight was when my friends and I got to shake the President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers' hand. After the flower laying ceremony he went around the crowd and wished everyone a Happy Independence Day. Here are the pictures from my exciting day.

Bands playing at the Freedom Monument
Flower laying ceremony at the Freedom Monument (during communist times this was illegal so now Latvians lay flowers there every chance they get)
President Zatlers fresh off a hand shake with me
This is how they announce city/country wide events with information printed on large posters displayed in public places.
Tribes of the City...a great Latvian Band
Flower map of Latvia..people could add their own flowers and then they put the pieces together at the Freedom Monument.
At 6:00 pm choirs from all over the country sang the Latvian national anthem Dievs, svētī Latviju (God Bless Latvia)!

Kuldiga

Today I went with Monika to visit her family in Kuldiga a city on the western part of Latvia. It was really great to speak Latvian the whole day and walk around the city. We even had authentic Latvian food and got yelled at in Latvian. It really was a truly Latvian day!

The town of Kuldiga
Me and the widest waterfall in Europe (allegedly)!
Fire lookout tower and the town again
Another waterfall
The shaming post..I guess they used to put people in stockades here.
Me and the waterfall again

Skate

Over the past couple of days there have been chorale tryouts (called Skates) in Riga for the Song and Dance Festival in July. Basically its a great chance to see the best choirs in Riga sing for free in really great venues. Plus the added bonus is that I got to see a bunch of my friends sing and dress up in really great costumes. Here are some of the photos.

Mārtiņkoris (the is the foreign choir) with Monika, Kristina, Kathrin, Whit and Tim.
Whit and his elitist 70's white suit white shoes wearing Kamēr choir.
My friend Mara and Austrums choir.
I don't know anyone is this choir I just liked their outfits!

May Day

This weekend is a five day holiday weekend in Latvia because of May Day on May 1 and Independence Day on May 4 (Latvians get May 5th off because the 4th falls on a Sunday). I was talking to my Latvian tutor and telling her that in the US we really don't celebrate this day at all and she said she doesn't either. To her May Day, the workers holiday, meant forced parades, no matter the weather, celebrating the glories of communism. I asked her then why this day was a holiday in Latvia and she said that it is an EU mandated holiday. She said that between independence and joining the EU this day was not a holiday in Latvia because to them it is a communist holiday. But then when they joined the EU in 2004 this holiday was sanctioned as a workers holiday to all countries in the EU. I said to her don't you think that's an interesting parallel, that you were forced to celebrate it during communist times and are forced to celebrate it now because of the EU. Needless to say on this supposed workers holiday almost every store I walked past yesterday in Riga was open. Kind of makes you think that even today Latvians are pretending to celebrate this day to appease someone else.