Independence Day.......American Style

I heard the entire year about the US Embassy's legendary Independence Day bash and I was very happy that it was scheduled for the end of June instead of actually on July 4th (because I will be in Spain then). It did live up to its reputation of free food, beer and a huge American birthday cake! There was McDonald's and gourmet hot dogs from the Raddisson hotel..but the longest line was not for American food but for šašliks, a skewered meat on a stick that is originally from the Caucuses but really popular in Latvia. It was such a huge event that I think I also saw almost every American I know living in Latvia so it was a great time to catch up with everyone before I leave. I also talked briefly with the US Ambassador who mentioned that he enjoyed reading my blog, so I guess I do have a dedicated (and famous) readership after all!

Happy Birthday America!
The Ambassador giving his Independence Day speech.
A balloon display that spelled out USA (if you can see it through the other person who was taking a photo).

Strategic Days

Right after my family left I went on a Strategic planning Retreat with my Marta Centre colleagues as a kind of a last hurrah before I leave to return to the states. It was in a very beautiful location on the Daugava River and nice to spend some time and relax with everyone before I had to say goodbye.

Lolita, Lena two of my colleagues and me.
Zanda and me (looking very tall!)

Jaņi

Jāņi is a Latvian festival held in the night from 23 June to 24 June to celebrate the summer solstice, the shortest night and longest day of the year. The day of Līgo (23 June) and the day of Jāņi (24 June) are public holidays in Latvia, people usually spend them in the countryside and Riga is empty. We decided to go to the seaside with a couple of my friends to check out the festivities there.

My sister and I and the beautiful sunset.
Lighting the fire
People jumping over the fire which traditionally people jump over to ensure prosperity and fertility.
My friend Kristina and I and lots of smoke!

Eugene Onegin

I took my mom and sister to see an opera of one of my most favorite Russian Stories (title above) by Alexander Puskin the Shakespeare of Russia. The opera was in Russian instead of Italian but they had both Latvian and English descriptions of the sings which made it much easier to understand. We drank Rigas Champagne and hung out on the balcony of the National Opera. It was all very glamorous!

My sister, my friend Jill and I with the Brivibas Monument in the background.
My sister and I
Me and the inside of the Opera.

Road Trip

Americans are really obsessed with palaces and castles. I think this is because we really don't have them and maybe because they are the quintessential sign of Europe. In order to fill my family's quota of necessary castles for the trip we rented a car and set off for the Latvian countryside. We visited Rundale Palace, constructed in the 1730s by Bartolomeo Rastrelli (the same person who designed the Winter Palace in Russia) as a summer residence of Ernst Johann von Biron, the duke of Courland. Then we went to Mežotne, built in 1797 as a gift from Russian Empress Catherine II to Charlotte von Liven, the tutor of her grandchildren. After that we went to Lithuania to see the Hill of Crosses, known as the Mecca of Lithuania, a pilgrimage site for catholics from all over the world, even Pope John Paul II visited here. After that we headed back to Latvia to see the Jelgava Palace, also by Rastrelli, which was the Duke of Courland's official residence. Here are the photos.....

My Mom, Sister and I at Rundale.
The gardens
Mežotne
The Hill of Crosses

The church next to the Hill of Crosses where the altar piece is a view of the hill.
The Latvian border and as always happy to be back in Latvia!
Jelgava Palace
My friend Monika and I..and the Riga sign.

Jaņi Market

On the Friday before Jaņi (Midsummers Eve) there is a green market in Dome Square where you can buy handicrafts and flowers from all over Latvia. I took my Mom and Sister and thank goodness we got to visit it before it started raining!

Dome Square
There is always signing in Latvia!

Gender Equality

Upon arrival in Riga, after a long a stressful journey, we went to the Gender Equality Award Ceremony. This award is sponsored by Marta Centre, the women's centre where I have volunteered all year, and the coalition of Latvian Women's NGOs. It is given to politicians, the media and other public figures who have worked for gender equality in Latvia over the past year. The symbol for the award (you can see it in the background) is a triangle with pink and blue lines trying to balance on it. This symbolizes the struggle and need for balance with respect to gender equality.

My boss giving a speech
The winners in the rocking chairs before they were rocked back and forth!

Tallinn

After staying in Helsinki for a night we took the boat back to Tallinn and stayed over night there. The city has changed significantly since I was there in 1999 and the old town was very medieval and touristy. Still it was nice to see just how western things were in this country that has the same history as Latvia. It just shows you what a little help from your Finno-Ugric neighbors can do! Here are some photos....

Me in town square
The city hall
The medieval gates with my mom in the background!
The walk to the upper part of old town..reminded of Prague without the people selling things.
The view from the top of Tallinn.

Helsinki

I took a bus to Estonia and then a ferry to Helsinki to meet my mom when she arrived for her visit to Latvia. Her flight ended up being delayed so I got a chance to walk around the city before she arrived. I knew that Finland was part of the Russian Empire but I didn't expect the architecture to remind me so much of St. Petersburg. Here are some the photos of my adventures..before it started down pouring!

Me on the boat from Estonia..it was really windy!
The main town square..eerily reminiscent of St. Petersburg with a statue of Alexander II.
Me and the Helsinki Cathedral (the city's most famous landmark).
The Helsinki harbor with an orthodox church in the background.

Laima

Laima in Latvian mean happiness and I was very happy today because I got to go and get a tour of the Laima Chocolate Factory where they make my favorite chocolate in the world..Laima! It was something I looked forward to all year and definitely lived up to my expectations. Not only did we get as much chocolate as we could eat we but we also got to see where the magic happens and learn about the process. They also gave us cute little Laima bears as a souvenir....

The factory was established by some German guy in 1870 and changed its name to Laima in 1921.

The US Embassy people eating all the chocolate they can!
We weren't supposed to take pictures but I managed to sneak this one of the chocolate coming off the line.
We had to wear these fashionable suits during the tour so we wouldn't contaminate the chocolate. Me and a Laima chocolate truck.

Skroderdienas Silmačos

Tonight I went and saw Skroderdienas Silmačos (Tailor Days in Silmači) a Latvian play about Midsummers Eve or St. John's Day in Latvia. I am happy to report that after almost five years of studying Latvian it is the first Latvian play I have seen or read where no dies and there is a happy ending. In fact normally when the description says comedy I expect it to be depressing and not funny at all. But I was pleasantly surprised not only did it have a happy ending everyone ended up with who they should have...it was great. This play was also quintessentially Latvian with singing, dancing, drinking, and eating. And the best part is I saw it all for less than a the price of a movie ticket at home!

The view from my seat

June 14th

Today was one of the Victims of Communism Genocide Memorial Days in Latvia (the other is March 25). On this day in 1941 15,424 deported on were deported to Siberia and other regions of the Soviet Union, of these 46.5 percent were women, and 10 percent were children below the age of 10. While this number might not seem very big to many Americans it was huge for a nation of 2 million people. Additionally, the people that were targeted during this deportation were the intelligentsia and other people considered to be unreliable or dangerous to the totalitarian Communist regime. I went to the Occupation Museum today to take part in the memorial. I was chatting with some of my former colleagues (I worked at the museum in the summer of 2005) in English and this lady came up to us and started telling us that she was deported at the age of 7 to Siberia. She asked my friend to translate and I said I spoke Latvian so she continued telling me her story and how some of her family members didn't survive the deportation. She said that because I was a foreigner it was important for me to understand what the Latvians had gone through. It was really one of those experiences that I will remember for the rest of the my life. Here are the pictures from the memorial day.



The president's speech
Flower laying

New York, New York

One of the perks of being a Fulbright is that we get invited to really cool US Embassy events with famous and politically important people. On Wednesday I got to go to the opening of an architectural exhibit on New York. It was especially cool because when I walked in I noticed the person playing the piano was none other than my fellow Fulbrighter Whit. It was really cool to hear him play songs about New York and see all the cool photos.

Here he is playing on the piano (my camera was almost out of batteries which is why it is so blurry).
The presentation with the photos in the background

Gadatirgus

This weekend at the Ethnographic Museum craftsmen from all over Latvia descended on Riga to sell their the handicrafts and cheap prices. I went on Saturday and didn't have time to see everything so I went again on Sunday. It was great there was Latvian food, singing, dancing and tons and tons of crafts. There were so many that when we tried to find stalls again to go back and but what we wanted we couldn't find them and ended up finding more and more stalls.

Here I am in the midst of it all...in Latvian craft heaven!

Tickets

Ripe with jet lag, I went the morning after I returned to Latvia to stand in line for Song Festival Tickets. The Song Festival is the culmination of Latvian culture and is a week long festival of singing and dancing. My friends and I went at 8:00 am to stand in line for tickets that went on sale at 11:00...of course the technology here isn't the best so it ended up taking another 1.5 hours to actually get the tickets despite the fact that we were 25th in line. So after 4 and half hours I am now able to attend the closing ceremony of the Latvian Song Festival!

Here we are waiting in line
The line at the National Theater
It was such a big event that the Latvian media came out