Turtle in Latvia

We went to Estonia!  Tallinn is the capital, and they were having a jazz festival! We decided to hop on a bus, and in four hours we were there!  Our first stop was the Kiek in de Kok, or in English, Peek in the Kitchen.  It is a tower that was used to watch for [...]

For Easter, we went out to the Ethnographic Open Air Museum that has repositioned buildings from all the regions of Latvia.  We went to a Lutheran church from Western Latvia built in 1704.  It was beautiful and PACKED!  It was in Latvian, but it was Easter, so we got the general idea.  Our friend John [...]

Our friend Tina came to visit!  She is living in Amsterdam this year, so she hopped on a plane and came on over – AND she brought Stella a cello.  Now Stella has to practice, too  We did some fun tourist things and went to Trakas Dienas (Crazy Days) at the local department store.  We [...]

We took a walk to Daugava river and it was very pretty.  On our way back it got chilly and we decided to stop to warm up.  We found a little place called Tea & Coffee Garden.  It was lots of fun inside.  Olivia found a rocking horse to sit on.

We went to a wonderful musical with one of our apartment neighbors.  It was a Latvian folk tale about two devil boys who reincarnate as good little babies after they try to do bad deeds, but end up doing good instead.  We liked it so much we might go see it again!

We went to the very awesome Latvian Natural History Museum with tons of bugs, animals, plants, bones, and everything else!  One of my favorite parts of the museum was an earthquake model that you could stand on to feel the shake!  My other favorite exhibit was a giant turtle that Olivia was a little unsure [...]

We went to a very cool restaurant called Cili Pica(Pica is Latvian for Pizza)!  I had to go to the bathroom but unfortunately there were VERY odd pictures on the door.  I took a very educated guess and decided to open the door with the person not holding the spear.  Whew, I guessed correctly!  Then [...]

Olivia was a little excited about a new ride she found at the playground today!  Latvia is known for its roosters, and there was a rooster ride at the park.  It was a little seat inside of a rooster on top of a spring.  Olivia had a blast!  Here’s a picture, plus there are more [...]

Today I auditioned for an orchestra and I made it!  I’m guessing that the rehearsals will be in Latvian so I’m wondering how that will work out for me since my Latvian is not so good  To get to the Jazeps Medins Music School(where my audition was) you have to take a tram from the [...]

Here’s a picture of the money they use here.  The bills are called lats and the coins are called santimi.  They have coins that are worth 1 lat and some worth 2 also.  Each lat is equal to about 2 U.S dollars, so when we see a good deal we have to think twice(literally).

Isn’t this the most AWESOME car you’ve ever seen?!?!?!?!?

We went to a HUGE(!!!) mall yesterday!  My mom and sisters rode a train through the first floor while dad and I took pictures.  There were signs with ice cream cones slashed out on them in front of all the stores.  I thought that was funny so I took a picture of one.  There was [...]

Yesterday we went to a cafe for hot drinks.  My mom went for a latte while my sisters and I had Latvian hot chocolate.  It was delicious!  Here’s a picture!  There were also some legos at the cafe that we had fun with.  See the structures in the gallery under Cafe Pictures.

I have lots of pictures in the gallery of some of our strange appliances.  The washing machine for instance, is not just a washing machine but a dryer!  The dryer part does not work very well, so we have to hang things up to dry most of the time but it’s a cool idea.  The [...]

Some things here are just plain weird, but some of the other things are very cool.  The McDonalds walk up window is AWESOME.  I have not tried it yet, but if I perfect my Latvian, I might soon.  Here is a picture of it.

After our long 7 hour flight we ended up in the Copenhagen airport.  We only took a few pictures, but the airport was very cool!  There was lots of art on the walls.