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

Seattle

On my way to and from the conference I got to stop by Seattle and say hello to Matt and goodbye to the city that I have called home for the last four years. Matt will move us to Kansas (where I will go for my PhD) before I come back from Latvia. It was great to see Matt but a little sad to say goodbye to Seattle.

For my birthday Matt took me to the Rick Steves' store to buy me a present. Having been a fan of his for years it was great to see this store. In addition to the store there was also a library where people could do research and book his tours.
We also decided that it was finally time to go to the Space Needle (yes we lived there for four you and never went).
The view from the top