Day trip to Segovia

So yesterday, Saturday, we went on a day trip to Segovia. Now, I have to admit something up front. How many of you saw the movie The Princess Diaries? Well, if you've seen this movie, you'd know that in the movie, what's her name finds out that she is the Princess of a (made-up, of course) land of Genovia. Well, all week as we heard about this trip, it's all I could think of... that we were going to the mythical land of Genovia/Segovia. Can you blame me? :)

Anyway... following is a short picture log of what we saw and did. (Fellow v*gans who might be reading this, if you are sensitive about pictures of the dead animal nature, stop before the last picture!)

In this first picture you can see the aqueduct that formerly supplied the city with water. I have to admit that I don't really understand how it works, but, it looked cool. I forget what year it was built, but it is certainly old (like it was built BC). And more impressively we were told that is it made of nothing other than stone...no mortar, no nothing. Looking at it up close you could actually see that the stones were just pretty much stacked together... it's amazing that building such a thing is possible.

This is the Cathedral of Segovia. It is massive. I didn't go inside, but sat at a cafe outside it and had a water and a sandwich. The intricacy of the building is amazing. I read on wikipedia.org that it is considered to be Europe's last great Gothic cathedral.

Now, I don't have a picture for this one, but, on the walk between the cathedral and the castle, we passed another church. The Dean, who was sort of playing tour guide just because he'd been there so many times, asked us if we saw anything peculiar about this church. We noted that it didn't seem to have any doors. So we walked a little further down the road, and came to the only outside door the church has. This door was open, and inside you could see a vestibule with another door. The Dean explained that this church is actually a cloistered convent, and that once a young woman or girl enters through the door that we could see inside, she will never come back out. She will never see outside the convent, and nobody, except those inside the convent will ever see her again. YIKES. He also added that of course, some women choose to join this way of life for purely religious reasons. However, some very rich families, who would be able to contribute generously to the convent, have been known to send off their physically or mentally handicapped daughters there, so as to keep them from view for life. Ouch.

This life is so very fully outside of my realm of possibility, that I cannot even imagine it. I can't even seem to choose one COUNTRY to live, much less one building for the rest of my life. I would have to admire women who consciously choose this kind of life.

On to the next picture... the Alcazar of Segovia. This castle has an impressive history (which seems to be the case with most castles). But, in short, it as been a castle, a military school, a prison, a museum, it's been burned down, rebuilt, burned down again, and rebuilt. It is now very nicely restored, and was interesting to look at. Most of the castles I have visited are either French or Latvian, and I have to say that the interior decor of this one was notably different. This area of Spain has a long history involving the Moors, whose religion apparently prohibits the use of images other than geometric designs on anything. So, the castle and other buildings we saw were decorated inside and out with intricate, beautiful geometric designs. It is rumored that this is one of the castles that was inspiration for Walt Disney in designing the Magic Kingdom. I can see the resemblance!

This is the view from the castle tower out towards the country side. Although not pictured in this photo, the church of Vera Cruz was just outside the city walls in near sight from the castle. The Dean also asked the "Do you notice anything odd?" question about this church. Well yeah, it was circular, or octagonal. It is a church of the Knights Templar. The Dean said that it is a church open to the public, but, as we could see from the castle, there was only one car in the parking lot. Apparently, the place is just plain spooky, you get chills when you enter, and people just avoid it. Based on all that, I thought it would have been very cool to visit it!

Here is a view of the city from the castle tower. Very pretty. That is the same cathedral as pictured before, but from the other side.

Ok now... that is all the sight-seeing pictures I have. After we walked around and saw all of these things it was time for lunch. The Dean had already earlier in the day made a reservation at a pretty expensive restaurant for himself and anyone who was interested in joining him. I hadn't signed up. However, I realized on the way out of the castle, that everyone that I was still with was going to lunch with the Dean. At this point I thought, I can either go with them, or end up alone. I'm not big on alone time, so I decided what the hey, and went with them. I quickly asked the Dean if he thought there might be anything vegetarian for me to eat on the menu, and he very dismissively answered that he didn't know (and obviously didn't care). I had a bad feeling in my gut about this... but I went against it, and went along anyway. Well, we entered the restaurant, and table after table, all I saw was this:

The specialty of this city/region is suckling pig. I tend not to be a very squeamish vegetarian, so I was actually willing to sit and look at the menu, to see if a place that serves this kind of horror, would also serve something without meat. There was one salad for like 12 euros (RIDICULOUS!) that was listed as lettuce, tomato and onion. Yeah, no. I quickly realized that I should have followed my gut instinct and not gone with them, because now I was going to feel even dumber leaving the restaurant. I got up and went, and had tears in my eyes on my way out. I felt bad for the poor little baby pigs who get to live only 21 days so that we can eat them up as such a delicacy. But more so, I was overwhelmed with the feeling of "I don't belong." This is a tough one as a vegetarian, because I know that to some extent it is a choice for me. (One might argue that the health problems that stopped once I stopped eating meat, make my being a vegetarian a necessity, not a choice.) But either way... I have mostly come to accept that being a vegetarian is my choice, and it's minority choice at that. But, I guess, I'm only human just the same...and that feeling of being the only one, the outsider, the one who has to leave, and search for something appropriate to eat is not a nice one. It is very lonely, and it hurts. It had, by some miracle started raining in Segovia (I'm telling you, I've barely seen a cloud since I was in Spain.), but the worst of it had passed. So I set out in the light rain, choking back my tears of not belonging, to find a place that I could sit, or even more hopefully, to run into someone I knew who wasn't eating baby pigs. What a sad sight I was. Thankfully, I was walking for no more than about 5-10 minutes when I ran into two women from my group who I've come to know pretty well, who were also just wandering, and I hooked up with them. We went into a very cute little wine bar, and instead of sampling the local food delicacies, we sampled the local wine. I have to say, it was pretty good! :)

So, all's well that ends well. The trip was good, and now I've seen more of Spain than I thought I would. There is another day trip planned next weekend, which I also plan to attend. I'll tell you about it then.

Now that I have washed my laundry today (yay, clean clothes!) and written this, I really need to get to finishing my reading for the technology class. But, maybe I'll take a shower first... :) I'm procrastinating. :)

P.S. I did not take any of these pictures. They were taken by Cindy, one of my new roommates. She was kind enough to share her pictures with me. Thanks Cindy!

End of week one

Well... here I am. It's Friday afternoon. My research proposal is done and handed in. Whew.

This week was intense, very intense. But, everyone says that this course, research methods, is the hardest one of the first summer...and I'm done now. I have not gotten much sleep this week and my eyes are blood shot from staring at the computer, but, it's the weekend now and I'll get a chance to recuperate.

Update on the landlady situation... we had found another apartment, which I think I mentioned before. It was all set up for us to go there. Well, things got a little sticky today because when my landlady found out that we were leaving she didn't want to hand back any of the money that I had mistakenly given to her (instead of paying through the school). From what I understand the housing lady from school got into a huge fight with the landlady, and when she reported back to our Dean (which is just the go between/translator for us) he said that she used words he has never heard coming out of her mouth before. She was pissed! At first, they told me that the landlady refused any refund, and that I had a choice to either stay for the rest of the month, or leave and lose my money, and pay for a new place. Needless to say I was not happy about this.

So I had another conversation with the Dean, and he saw where I was coming from, and in the end, it's all worked out. We'll be moving out of the apartment tonight then. Unfortunately, I will probably have to sleep on a matress on the floor in someone else's room tonight, until my room is ready tomorrow. But as far as I'm concerned, it's better than staying at the Nazi's. Oh and did I mention that the new place is something like six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kicthen with three refridgerators and a balcony off my room? There will be three of us women from the program living there, along with 4 men who are already there. I don't know who the men are, but, from what I understand they are all non-Spanish as well. And there is NO landlady! :)

There is one small downside to leaving this apartment. The other day when I was just outside the apartment, I looked across the road and thought I saw a health food store. I thought my eyes were deceiving me, so I went across the street to look. Lo and behold, a BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFULLY STOCKED, FULL OF YUMMY FOOD health food store right across the street. I went in last night and bought just a couple of things (including tempeh and seitan, neither of which you can get in Latvia). I was very excited. I even added it to the website happycow.org. So, it's too bad that I'm not going to live right across the street from it, but at the same time, at least now I know where it is, and I can stealthy (so as not to be seen by Crazy herself) go back any time I want. And, in my new place I'll actually be able to cook the yummy things that I can get there! :)

Tomorrow we're going on a field trip to Segovia. I'm not really sure where that is, or what is there... but from the pitch about the trip, I think I remember something about a castle, some of the best food in the world, and utterly delightful. So, it should be good. I'll try to take some pictures with my not so good camera...we'll see how it goes.

Also tomorrow, I just heard that the weather is supposed to turn into real Madrid summer weather. What does that mean? Between 35-45C/85-95F, and sun. Yeah... it'll be hot. But you know me... I love that shit. :) If it's going to be summer, it might as well be SUMMER. :) (Mental note to continue working on Joel about moving someplace warm...)

Sunday I'm just planning on relaxing... very possible that I will choose to sit at some outdoor sidewalk cafe drinking sangria all day. Very possible.

Next week we take on the technology course. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, but I'll let you know sooner or later how it goes. :)

That's it for now. Just wish me luck that the landlady is not home when we go home to pack up.

Oh, and that landlady? She is blacklisted by our school now. Works for me. :)

Things come in threes...

So I have three pieces of news, which I have to keep short, and you'll soon find out why. Two pieces of good news, and one of bad, but three pieces none the less.

Good news first...

1. When I walked out of my classroom today at the morning break, my backpack was just sitting there in the hallway. I screamed. I was so excited. The secretary jumped out of her chair. It was like being reunited with an old friend though... for all the REALLY valuable stuff that was in there (monetarily and need-wise) I was just so happy to see it. Serisously, I realized a little bit later that my heart was actually racing, because somewhere deep down I feared that I would never lay eyes on that bag again. I know, I shouldn't get so worked up...but I was. So now I have all my books, my make-up, my phone charger, hair-dryer, and Vegemite! :) And some other stuff...mostly school related. I am so happy. I feel complete.

2. Brenda went to visit a possible new apartment today, and came back with news that it was completely acceptable. Yay! We're moving by Saturday at the latest. Thank Goddess. I realized last night, when I was getting changed for bed, that landlady had actually been in my room that day, and had moved my stuff. Like, she put a pair of pants that I had neatly draped over my chair in my closet. And she made my bed nicer. I really don't mind having a maid, but, I like a maid who follows my directions, and I didn't give this lady any. I am not down with it. And I am glad I will not have to put up with it much longer.

Now, the bad news...

3. The class I am taking right now is called Research Methods. As you can imagine, we are learning about research, learning how to do effective research, learning to critique other people's research, etc. Well, our last assignment due on Friday is a research proposal which we will carry out during the fall semester of our online classes. I'm guessing the prof forgot to give us the actual information for this assignment, as the only stuff we had about it so far was titled "preliminary information about the research proposal". Well, for the last two days, but especially today, he has been dropping more and more random facts about this assignment that it seemed he expected us to know, but I didn't. So, being the courageous student that I am, I asked him if he could give us a full explanation of what should be included in this proposal. He said he'd have it to us in the morning. So, that is due Friday, and I'll start it tomorrow. But the really bad news? He reckons that we "won't be able to write it in less than 12 pages." Yeah...so, 12 page paper to complete between now and Friday (which really means Thursday night). That is why this has to be short, and I have to continue collecting articles that I can include in the literature review of my proposal. But, the one kind of cool thing, is that he says, if we complete this task up to a certain standard (well, that is the whole research project and paper) he'll do what he can to help us get published. It wouldn't be easy, and I'm not setting that as my goal...but if I happen to be a stellar researcher and research paper writer, then who knows, you might finally see my name in print. :)

Oh, and I have a quiz tomorrow in that class... can you remind me of the APA standard for citing a work in text, how to find the standard deviation of a raw set of scores, and how to diagram a true experimental design (as opposed to quasi-experimental) study?

Can you?

Ok, I'm just kidding... actually... I think I'll ace that quiz! I know all that stuff! :)

Anyway... back to the books...

And then there was psycho...

Ok... so my first couple of days in the hotel were, I now realize, bliss. My own room, my own bathroom, my own rules. Ok, I guess I had to follow some common decency rules, but nothing, oh NOTHING, like the rules at my new place. YIKES!!!

I have moved in with psycho landlady. See, Brenda (my roommate from the program) and I thought, according to what we'd been told, that we would be sharing a small apartment, just the two of us. Well, yesterday, I arrived at my apartment to check in, only to meet my landlady, who I realized, was not leaving. She lives here, with us, all the time. And not just that, three other girls (all undergrads studying Spanish) live here as well. And did I mention there is only one bathroom?

When I first arrived, I was met by Ms. M the housing lady from my school. I quickly realized that she spoke very little English. She brought me upstairs, to meet my landlady, who also speaks very minimal English. Ms. M left fairly quickly. I assume she'd been dropping off students such as myself all day, and was glad to be done.

As soon as Ms. M left though, my Spanish lessons started. I didn't sign up for this, but apparently, to live in this apartment, you have to become fluent in the Spanish of rules. I learned in a rather drawn out matter of time, that I am allowed one shower a day, and I must turn off the water while I am soaping up, and only have it on to get wet and rinse. Also I must make sure that the outer shower curtain remains outside the shower, and the inner inside the shower, and that I put the bathmat down while I shower, and replace it on the edge of the tub when I am done. I am to hang my clothes in the waredrobe, or fold them into the dresser, and to put my suitcase on top of the wardrobe when it is empty. I am to put dirty clothes in the bag provided, and landlady will wash them once a week, and no more. I am to close the window at night, but leave it open during the day for air. I am not to make or receive phone calls on the house phone. I am to close my bedroom door when I am home, and leave it open when I am gone. All this I learned in the first half an hour of being in this place.

I quickly unpacked, and got the fuck out of dodge.

I met Brenda when she got home late Sunday night. She was beside herself about this living arrangement. She is a married 37 year old woman, and has no need for a "OCD mom" watching her every step. Oh, and also, while my bedroom is a spacious 15 sq feet, hers is possibly 10. She was livid.

When I asked the landlady if I could have some space in the fridge to put my food, she cleared out exactly (ok, about) 12 inches. Joel can well attest that I need WAY more than 12 inches of space in the damn fridge.

Tonight Brenda and I cooked some pasta for ourselves for dinner. Thankfully, landlady was not home. We were very careful to use only what we needed in the way of dishes, and to completely clean up after ourselves afterwards. Seriously, we washed the dishes, wiped the counters and the stove, and put most things back where we got them.

Then, I went out to work at an outdoor cafe to do some reading, and write another paper. It was delightful. When I got home, landlady attacked. Brenda, bless her soul, seems to already be sleeping, but I'm wondering if she got the same schpiel (sp?) when the landlady got home. It was another full 20 minutes of rules in Spanish. I must use this sponge to wash dishes, and place it back EXACTLY in this spot when I am done. I must wipe the stove with this rag. I must wipe the counters with this one. I must sweep the floor if I use the kitchen. I must put garbage here, and recycling there. Our food must go here and here, and NOT here. When opening the fridge, I must open it using the handle, and not by grabbing the edge of the door. When I close the fridge, I must make sure that I hear the "shut" sound the fridge makes. In the mornings, I am not allowed to use the stove, and can heat up water in the microwave. When using the microwave, I must set it to 2 minutes. If I turn the microwave on, I must let it run for the duration of the time, and should not by any means turn the dial backwards. The dial is ONLY to be turned to the right. If my food or water is overheating, I am to take it out and let the microwave turn off on its own. I am to recycle every single thing that can possibly be recycled, including text books if I decide that I no longer need them. (Ok, this one is not so bad, but I didn't need 5 full minutes on the merits of recycling in Spanish.) If I was at all before, I am no longer comfortable cooking in this woman's kitchen.

When I got back to my room, I realized that I had a bottle and the leftovers of a muffin that needed to be thrown out. I was terrified to walk back into the kitchen, but managed to place everything in the appropriate spot (plastic bottle in the recycling bag, muffin in the garbage). Whew. Then I had to brush my teeth. Eek! I went into the bathroom, turned the water on for exactly 2.2 seconds to wet my toothbrush. I brushed for exactly 2 minutes, and then turned the water on for 20 seconds to rinse. I think she *might* have been standing at the door.

Brenda and I talked to Ms. M today. We want to move, and I don't think you can blame us. This lady has a clean house that is for sure. But we're adults, and we did not sign up for this. It's one thing to rent an apartment, or even a room... it's another to sign up for Spanish apartment-living boot camp.

If you think I am kidding about any of this, you should come visit, and find out for yourself. Oh, except, I am only allowed to have friends over if I first let the landlady know that you are coming, and exactly how long you will be here. I'm sorry, but it will have to be a short visit.

P.S. In other news, the first day of classes was good. I have the hardest class (Research Methods) first, but based on today, I feel much better about it. It will be hard, but actually having some face to face time with the instuctor made a huge difference. For as much as I was not looking forward to being a student again, I am surprised at how much I am enjoying it.

P.P.S. My second bag, the backpack full of books, etc is still MIA. I am borrowing make-up from Brenda, books from several classmates, and one of my other roommate's phone charger. The Dean of the program talked to the airport today on my behalf, gave them his phone number as a contact, and the school's address as a delivery point. I really hope I see this bag in the next few days. If not, I will be more than happy to receive no less than a $400 check from Lufthansa to cover the cost of the books, calculator, tube of Vegemite, make-up, hairdryer, towel and phone charger (not to mention $50 backpack) that is lost.

Ah... much better...

Ok, so this will be short, but, I finally forced myself out of my hotel room yesterday. I asked the guy at the front desk if I could walk to where I was going, he laughed and said, no, I should take the metro. So I bucked up, and even did that. I figured out how to buy a ticket (Joel, it was much easier, and clearer than on the tram in Germany!), and I found my way.
When I got to where I was going, I found an H&M and went in and bought a couple of shirts and a pair of pant, in case my luggage didn't arrive for another day. Then I met up with my group.

They are all awesome. I really had a good time. It was great to actually have someone to talk to, and they just all seem very cool. One guy is British, and one girl is from Cyprus, but everyone else (so far) is American or Canadian. We stayed out eating tapas and drinking the best sangria I've ever had until 1:30. It was fun.

Oh, and good news, when I got back to my hotel room, my suitcase was there waiting for me. My backpack is still missing, and my phone is still dead, so, I don't know what I will do. Figure something out....but at least I have my own shower supplies, and deoderant. It's hot here. I need it! :)

OK...I'm going out to meet some people again now... haven't met my roommate yet, but she should be arriving sometime soon.

Bienvenidos a Madrid!

Yeah... big fat welcome... I'm here, but my luggage isn't!!!

Friday, the day I flew out was going pretty well... I had shit sleep as I always do the night before I am travelling alone. But, I got up, took a long, hot shower, had a cup of tea, and tried to wake up. Got everything packed, even made a last minute trip to the bookstore to pick up a notebook and a folder for school (if I'll need it, who knows!).

Joel was going to escort me to the airport, and thank goodness he did. We took the bus (30 santimes vs the 7Ls cab ride), and really thought we were leaving early enough for the small Riga airport. Well, must be because it was a Friday or something, but the airport was packed!! Air Baltic had a line that wrapped and weaved and surpassed all the other lines.... and they only had 3 windows open!!! HELLOO?????? The KLM counter had three windows open for the ONE FLIGHT they were checking in. Grrr... anyway... after standing in line for about an hour, we get to the counter, and the guy just gets on the phone, won't tell me anything about what is going on, but isn't handing me any boarding passes either. Finally, the guy who was behind us in line (who had already gone to a different window, and was done) said that the flight was overbooked, and he was being bumped. I was hoping that this wouldn't be the case with me, because Munich was not my final desitnation. So, the guy manages to squeeze me onto the flight, putting me in "first class". Mind you, on Air Baltic, first class just means the first rows of the plane... the seats aren't any bigger, and you only get the preferential treatment if you've actually paid for the seat. So I was glad that Joel was with me through all of this, cause he kept his cool, and helped me keep my cool. If he hadn't been there I would have probably already been crying in line. Unfortunatley, because the line took so long, when I was finally checked in, I had to run to security and passport control, and had about two seconds to say goodbye to Joel. One quick kiss later, I was on the plane.

So, I tried to sleep on the plane. There was a kind of crazy Spanish lady (CSL) sitting next to me, and she started freaking out to the stewardess about not being able to make her connection to Madrid, because the flight from Riga to Munich had departed late. I said I was on the same flight. The stewardess took my ticket and went to talk to the captain. The Spanish lady insisted that SHE be allowed to talk to captain, but the stewardess turned her down. Anyway, she finally came back, told us which gate we had to go to, and told us to go straight there on landing, that we would get boarding passes at the gate.

Of course, the flight to Madrid was in a different terminal, from the one we landed in. Of course. So we walked as fast as we could. Got stuck with ornery security people. I abandoned crazy Spanish lady, because her bag got searched, and I wasn't sticking around for it. Finally made it to the right gate, and got on the plane. Breathe.

At this point I realized that I was STARVING. Usually you have some time at some airport to get a bite, a water, ANYTHING. Well, because I had run at the Riga airport and through Munich, I had had nothing more than a piece of toast and a cup of tea to eat that day. I haven't been very hungry lately in general, but, at this point in this particular day, it felt like my stomach was eating itself. I was HUNGRY!!!

Thank the goddess for Lufthansa. They served a proper meal, and it was vegetarian!!! I ate the whole damn thing and didn't leave a crumb. Oh, it felt so good to eat.

So, I thought things would be ok then... but then I got to the baggage claim, and me and crazy Spanish lady end up the last two just sitting there, watching an abandoned sleeping bag go around and around on the belt. Thankfully, CSL ended up being quite helpful, and taking me to the lost baggage people, and telling me what to do. So, I filed the lost baggage papers, and went to find the person who was supposed to be picking me up.

I had all the directions on where to go depending on which terminal I was in, but, then I realized that I didn't know which terminal I was in!! Thankfully, I heard some very obvious American being spoken up ahead, and speeded up to ask some girls if they knew. Turns out I was in terminal 1. And I was right where I was supposed to be to meet the Endicott person. It was a young woman, probably my age. She must have been Spanish, but her English was very good. She was obviously in a big hurry though, maybe she had to meet other arriving students or something, but she basically handed over some maps, and threw me in a cab. She didn't even ask why I didn't have bags. Ah well. Nothing against her, but I didn't feel very taken care of.

The cabbie took me to the hotel though, and I got in fine. I rested for a while....told Joel everything that had happened over text messages...and then finally, when I could no longer play solitaire on the computer or watch Spanish tv or Sky news, I went for a walk. I wasn't hungry, but I wanted some water. Going into the shop, and dealing with the guy, I totally understood everything... he asked how I was, asked if I wanted a cold water (since I had picked up a warm one), and then told me what I owed him, etc. I understood it all... but did I have the vocab to answer him? No. :( I've spent ever since then trying to recall some Spanish that I know, but I keep getting confused...is that French? Was that Italian? Am I making this shit up?

Now, it's Saturday... I'm still waiting for my luggage. And of course, I gave the luggage people my mobile phone number as a contact, and now the battery is dead. So I just called them, and they said to call back around 5 when another flight will come in from Munich, and maybe (but they don't know!) my bags will be on it. MAYBE??? Ah well, I gave them my hotel phone number. Hopefully, I will have clean clothes, soap, make-up, lotion, and did I mention CLEAN CLOTHES soon.

Tonight I'm supposed to be meeting some people from the program for a walking tour through central Madrid...we're supposed to meet at 6:30...I hope that I can call the airport at 5, and figure everything out with them, and then get to the place I'm supposed to meet them by 6:30. Cause, I don't have a phone to call anyone anymore!!! :(

It's 1:30 here now... I've washed myself, and my shirt, so hopefully I won't smell too bad. I'm not hungry, otherwise I would go out and find some food. Maybe it's better this way. Oh yeah, cause I forgot to say that last night when I was just walking around trying to stay very close to the hotel, I got lost anyway. I had to pull out the map, and figure out where I was. I was headed in the right direction, but hadn't gone far enough. Madrid's streets are crazy... they are small, and they go in all directions, I mean, they are not on like a grid at all, so far as I can tell. So anyway... trying to get to the city centre tonight has me freaked out... but I will try.

If this is the last you ever hear from me, know that I was kind of lonely and stinky on my last day. :) Ok, I'm just kidding... but seriously, I'm fine, but I am kind of lonely and stinky. What can you do?

Welcome to Madrid. It can only get better from here on out...

Jani, or mid-summer's eve... the shortest night of the year

It's the shortest night of the year, and in Latvia, that means really short! It was only truly dark from about 2am until 3:30 or 4. We celebrated this year out at Marianna and Jeremy's, or Marianna's parents country house out in Saldus, Latvia. You'll notice a theme of fire throughout the night... we do this to symbolize the sun. This is the night to worship the sun, as she is with us the longest on this day. But, for me, it is a day of mourning, as it means that from here on out, the days get shorter. :( Either way, it was a great time... here's a few shots of the night...

Singing and dancing round the big oak tree. Latvians sing and dance incessentaly this night (if not all nights).

As tradition requires, the Janu Mate (Jani Mother) offers Janu cheese to all her guests.

And the Janu Tevs (Janu Father) offers beer.

The ladies spent hours weighing down this table. Believe it or not, in 24 hours, we'd pretty much consumed all of this food.

Dig in!

As the night wore on (it's about 10pm in this picture) the kids started getting a wee bit tired. Here is a victory shot... Mikus, Joel's youngest nephew, seems to finally have accepted me, as he was willing to be in my arms as he barely hung on to consciousness. And yes, you can quit making fun, I am OBVIOUSLY delighted at the fact of having the kid in my arms!

Joel and Jeremy, and others, built this Jani torch and lit it with the help of the other men folk.

The campfire. The boys also built this, and were delighted to light it with a big "whoosh" as fire caught to gasoline and dry wood.


Around midnight or 1, maybe, we continue singing and dancing round the campfire. The picture looks dark, but I swear it wasn't pitch black out yet.

Around 2 we headed down to the lake to light a mini-fire on a raft. Joel leads the way bearing a torch. I told you, it was dark by then. The raft-fire wouldn't light and wouldn't go the right way, so, even though I was shivering dressed, Joel got in the water to save the day/night and re-lit the raft and pushed it out into deeper water.

Morning breaks. Due to a headache, I had gone to bed, but Joel stayed up to greet the sun.

more...

there were a few more good pics... and here they are in no order at all...

The trip... Bremen and Venice...

Here I am in Bremen.... this was in the city center...an old church. That night we just walked around and marveled at all the shops and all the variety of stuff. We had Chinese/Thai take-away for dinner. It was great because they actually had tofu on the menu, and it was delicious. (If you can't guess, the Chinese places in Riga don't have tofu on the menu.) I was pretty sick on this first day of our trip, so we stopped in a pharmacy and got me some drugs. I think I passed out in bed that night around, um, 7 or 8. And yes, I slept through the night. Very normal for the day after the last day of school though as well. :)

Here is Joel by a cool fountain in Bremen.

And we just couldn't pass up this picture. It was a gallery of some sort...I think it must have been that the artists name was Schmuck...but, it was just a photo op not to miss. :)

And here I am in Venice. This was the first big bridge we came to. Had to take the pic!

And here is the first picture of Joel on a bridge! :)

And here we are together!!! Gotta love the self-shot. We did a few of these, cause asking people to take pics of us was just too annoying. Also, just so you know, we walked without a map. Our purpose was to stay off the beaten path, and just find our way. It worked marvelously. We walked down so many tiny little walkways, through lots of areas that were obviously just residential streets...and we still found our way to all the big sights as well.

Here is me in front of St. Marc's catherdral. No, we did not go in... the line was about a mile long. And some girl at our camping place told us that she had stood in line for 3 hours to get in. Yeah, glad we didn't waste so much of the little time we had doing that. I'm sure it's fabulous on the inside, it was beautiful on the outside too.

You can see in this next picture that many of the buildings themselves were very dilapidated. I can imagine that trying to remodel or do external renovations would be very hard...there is no place to put scaffolding! But, even if the buildings are old and worn they have character, added to by the fact that almost all windows had window boxes full of big bright flowers and plants! Here is a great example.

This reminded me of China, but was cuter... they hang all their laundry in the air between buildings. This little alley had an adundance of laundry. Some of it was in snatching distance! :)

Here is the most famous of Venice bridges which crosses the grand canal, the Rialto.

Ah, now here we are at our "resort". It was actually called a camping place, as you'll see later. It was a pretty big place and had many kinds of accomodations. There were tents with cots, little trailers with two twin beds, a little bedside table, and a closet and a bathroom. There were bigger trailers that had more beds and I think an eating area. And there were cabanas. I have to admit, I wasn't overly impressed with our little trailer at first, but, it turned out to be great. The beds were easy to push together (get your mind out of the gutter, it was just more comfy for sleeping!), and it had air conditioning for cooling off after being in the sun all day. And I guess the fact that there certainly wasn't any tv was a good thing because it means we didn't spend any more time in there than we needed to. Anyway... the place was about a 20 min private (but cheap!) shuttle bus ride from Venice. But it had a nice pool (pictured below), a restaurant, a bar, a take-away food joint and a market. It was very nice.

Here I am reading by the pool on our third day there. This day we decided to hang out by the pool in the morning/early afternoon, and head into Venice later. Yes, I am several shades of red/pink from this laying by the pool...but it was awesome. :) I read two books on our five day trip, mostly pool side. Awesome.

This was Joel's favorite place. There were two hot tubs by the pool. But, Joel was telling me that in Oz hot tubs are called spas. In this case, I'll call it a spa, because truth be told, the water wasn't hot at all. But after 30C heat all day, it was nice to get into cooler water with bubbles. But Joel spent so much time in there that he got a silly burn just on the top of his shoulders/arms and top of his chest. His tummy is still white. :)

Here we are on our second day in town, doing another self-shot, with the Rialto bridge in the background.

Back in St. Marc's square, a picture with me and all the pigeons. You could buy seeds and feed them. Did I? NO! They are like dirty flying rats. Ew. Surpsingly, for as many pigeons as there were, there was little pigeon poo. We wondered if they were trained to do it elsewhere. :)

We went up to the top of the bell tower in St. Marc's square to get a "from up on top" view of Venice. It was amazing. All the buildings are so close together. You can't tell where there are walk-ways and where there are canals. The buildings all just look like they are squeezed one next to the other.

Here is a shot that shows really well how they make use of the space. The buildings literally go to the edge of the islands.

Ok, someone saw us trying to do a self-shot, and offered to take the pic. Here we are with Venice in the background.

The last thing we did in Venice was go on a gondola ride. It was something we'd been pondering for days, whether to do it or not, because it was quite expensive. But, as we were heading to the shuttle bus after our last dinner, we decided, what the hell...gotta do it. So here we are in the gondola. The gondolier (a cute one at that! Thanks Joel!) took this pic.

And here is the pic the gondolier insisted on himself. Thanks gondolier! How cute are we??? So romantic!

Since we took this ride at night, not many good shots were possible...but here's one that turned out ok.

As we were saying goodbye, we decided to take a couple of shot of our "resort".

From there, we left Italy, and headed back to Bremen for a night. That afternoon we found a vegetarian store, and I was able to stock up on some veggie products that you can't get in Riga. Whoo hoo!!! :) We also had tex-mex for dinner, and guess what, it was actually somewhat spicy! Yes!!!

It was, by far the best birthday present ever. See the next post for a little more blabber on the subject. :)


Thanks Joel!!!

The trip... a bit more...

Well, just got back to Riga this afternoon from the best birthday present ever. It was a wonderful trip. The weather forecast for our time in Venice was for thunderstorms the whole time. Well, someone made a big mistake, because not only was it not thunderstorming, we saw about one cloud a day. It was near 30C everyday. It was beautiful and wonderful and gorgreous! :)

Also, just before going, we'd heard from some people that their reactions of Venice were that it was crowded and smelly and dirty. Well, neither Joel nor I mind people, so although, of course, there were some crowds, they didn't bother us one bit. There were a couple of times that in our meandering walks we smelled sewer smells, but it certainly was no worse than Riga, or any other old city. And as for dirty... nah. Again, it's a historic city, and a tourist destination, so to some extent there was garbage and stuff, but our general feeling was not that it was a dirty city. In my opinion it was certainly more cheery than Riga, but, again, in my opinion, that's not hard to do. Of course there was all kinds of longed for things like customer service with a smile, people saying please and thank you, treating you like a valued customer, even if you are just a tourist, people walking around you in the street, instead of straight into you...ah, just a few of the small things...

As for the food... I found myself in the very unlikely position of not being hungry pretty much the whole time I was there. That kind of sucked. But, knowing that I would probably not be back in Venice, or Italy any time soon, I just had to eat some of the gorgeous food. Let me tell you again, that I love modern developed nations...everywhere we went there were choices abounding for a person like myself who eats a vegetarian diet. I had sandwiches (pre-made, deli style, just sitting in the window waiting to be eaten), I had pasta (Spaghetti pomodoro-just fresh tomato sauce...but you know what, it was GOOD, cause it wasn't and didn't taste like ketchup! Gnocchetti in a tomato cream sauce... YUM! Papardelle pasta in a mushroom cream sauce... again... YUM!), I had pizza (just cheese again, but oh so good! Oh and in my opinion it was more important to eat pasta than pizza most of the time, so I had this pizza in the airport when we were awaiting our departing flight...and it was STILL better than anything you can get in Riga!). So the food was good. Of course the gelato was yummy too. I only had it once, but I enjoyed every last lick. :) And the wine... I don't know anything about Italian wine as I usually buy Australian or South African wine... so while in Venice I just ordered the house reds... and they were all delicious! I was surprised that they were served cold...but, it didn't take away from the experience. I loved sitting in the outdoor cafes, watching people and sipping on some drink. I am a big fan of ginger...and at one afternoon stop off, I saw a drink called a Gingerino. I ordered it, and loved it. Now, I just have to figure out what you might call it in English/Latvian/Spanish and what is in it. :) Ok...

I got a haircut

And there it is. Short again! :)

Best Boyfriend Ever...and here's why...

It's my birthday today, and I was just presented with my present...

It was a clear cover folder with paper inside....titled Mara's Birthday Quiz.


With questions like:

Joel started hanging out with Mara because...
a) He was looking for a girlfriend
b) He was bored and had nothing else to do
c) He was looking for a good cook
d) She invited herself everywhere he went

and

In Joel's opinion the best thing about Mara is...
a) Her opinions about eating habits
b) Her ability to tell a story
c) Her cat
d) The amount of belongings she has

I had little chance of winning one of the three prizes.

There were 10 questions all together...I got 3 right according to Joel. Apparently I don't know "us" very well. But, as you can see by those questions it was a tough call on each question... for that first one for example, the real answer is probably (b). However, he said it was (d)...which is SO untrue, because HE was the one that invited me everywhere he went for the first week we hung out...which is why I ended up meeting his family that week, seeing his flat that week, etc.
And for the second question there, I circled (c) because it was obvious these were all the things that annoy him the most about me, and I chose the one that annoys him most. He ended up telling me that there was no answer to circle there, which means I got it wrong for circling an answer.

But in the end... he let me trade up from envelope A, to envelope B, and finally to envelope C. Envelope A contained the prize of spending the weekend at school with our old board. There is a lot of history there, but basically, I would actually rather slit my wrists. Envelope B's prize was a weekend in Daugavpils (the MOST Russian city in Latvia = ew, why would you want to). It included taking a bus there, camping in a tent for 4 nights, and then hitchhiking back. Envelope C, the final prize, was a 5 night trip with 2 nights in Bremen, Germany, and 3 in Venice, Italy!

My jaw dropped when I saw the word Venice. We recently watched a BBC show called Perfect Holiday about Venice. And it seemed perfect. Of course, we're not going to have quite the accomodations that the couple on Perfect Holiday had (I think they actually stayed somewhere that was USD$5,000 a night because the show pays for it all of course), but we'll have access to the city, and it'll be great.

So... there you go... I have the best boyfriend ever. :) I'm floating on air! We leave on Saturday! :)

How silly...

So... I leave for Madrid in....22 days! Yipes!

But why am I worried? I moved to China by myself... I moved to Latvia by myself... why would I be so anxiety ridden about going to Spain by myself?

Well, for starters, it's not like I'm just going for a vacation or a job... I'm going to study. It's been 4 years since I had to read text books, do research, write papers. It's been 4 years since I had to try to appear highly intelligent. I mean, come on, my Kindergarteners think I'm amazing for being able to print (as in write by hand) so fast (yes, they actually say that to me- "How can you write so fast Ms. P? Wow!")! So, although I am doing well with getting most of the pre-assigned reading done, and planning to start those pre-assigned writing assignments any day now (probably when school gets out) I'm still nervous about the actual academics. And just the other day I sent in a completed pre-course survey that one of my profs sent by email. Today I got an email from him saying that I have the distinct honor of being the first person to get it back to him. I have his compliments and his thanks. :) I guess I'm off to a good start, at least with him.

Ok, so school is worrisome, and will probably be stressful even once I get there and get into it, but as usual with school, I'm sure that as long as I stay in action and working, I'll be ok.

So why else am I anxiety ridden? Well, here is the scenario that keeps running through my head.... I get to Madrid, somebody from Endicott picks me up from the airport and takes me to my apartment. I am happy to have been taken so far, and probably equally happy that night to settle in, unpack, get comfortable. But then, Saturday comes. I wake up, and I'm hungry. But paralyzed with the fear that if I leave the apartment I will either get lost, or not be able to find a grocery store, or get mugged, or not be able to communicate effectively enough to buy anything, or not be able to find my way home, or not be able to get in my new flat on homecoming I sit in the apartment all day starving. When my roommate arrives Sunday afternoon, I am so happy to see her that I abandon all vegetarianism and civility and eat her. See why I'm nervous? In my own mind, I'm already a cannibal!

I found out yesterday that on Saturday the 30th (my first full say in Madrid) is the Gay Pride parade in Madrid, and they are expecting 2 million people in the streets that day. Sounds like LOTS of fun, if only I had someone with me. I'd love to go out and celebrate my "straight but not narrow" identity. Alone, the sound of that absolutely terrifies me.

I don't speak Spanish. I've heard that Madrid in summer time is like Riga in summer time, no locals, except the ones that are there to serve the tourists. So, it's possible that the lack of Spanish won't be a huge problem. But I also don't want to offend anyone, or commit any cultural faux pas.

But, this is an opportunity for growth. Because, lets face it... there is room to grow. Let's look back at previous experiences.... when I came to Latvia in 1999 to visit my then boyfriend, I didn't leave the house during the day, because I wasn't going to go out alone. I spent WAY too much time watching really bad Latvian/European tv. And what a sad way to spend 3 weeks in Latvia in summer time! Then, in China...I was so overwhelmed by the WHOLE experience that I literally did not go out of my apartment without an escort for the first couple of weeks. That first day, I didn't even know how to find my way out of the compound! Lord how overwhelm can cloud the brain. So really, it can only get better. I did much better when I came to Latvia this time, but I think I had the language skills on my side, upping my confidence.

The thing is that I know once I get to Madrid, and especially once my roommate gets there, I will be fine. I'll figure out where things are, how to work the locks, what I can and can't buy, and enough of the simple phrases needed not to mortally offend any locals.

But, see, this knowledge doesn't stop me from being anxiety riddled now. How silly.