Planning a wedding in LV

To say it nicely, the timeline for getting things done is just a little different here and the way things happen. Here are some fun examples:

We wanted to book the hall for the reception. You only have to book it three weeks in advance. We wanted to book it sooner and at least give some kind of a downpayment. We got as far as being penciled in for that date. It's on my to-do list to call the woman this month and try to force some kind of a downpayment, or at least something a bit more concrete.

I called the seamstress at the end of February. Her reaction: "When is the wedding - the end of June??? Why are you calling so soon?? Ok, call me back in a month, if you must do this so early....." I did call her back this week to set up an appointment, she says, "I'm at home all the time now. Just call or stop in any time. Yes, even on the weekend." I've been ringing her off the hook today, no answer....

KB and I each had to get documentation from our embassies, saying that we are not married in our countries of citizenship and are free to be married here. The letter (in response to this clearly odd Latvian request) reads - the US/Canadian embassy does not write such a letter, but if we did need to write such a letter, it would say that this and this person is ok to get married. Then we have to bring it to the Latvian consulate to get the document legalized (the Latvian government "okays" and accepts this document from the US/Canada), but first you have to go to the bank to pay money for this to happen and bring the receipt with you. Then we have to get these letters translated into Latvian. Then we have to get these translated letters notarized, accepting the translation as accurate. Then we have to go to an office which will tell us what our "Latvian" names will be (on all the documents we have so far, we haven't gotten to use our actual Latvian names with garumzimes and mikstinajumi because we are not Latvian citizens). Then we have to go with all of this documentation to apply to be married one month before the wedding date. I'm only assuming that they have to say yes at this point, because I could not accept any other answer.

By the way, all of these offices mentioned above have a very limited number of hours that they deal with people during the week (for example, 9-12 on Monday, 10-12 on Wednesday and 2-4 on Friday - note these are all within the hours that normal people work). And please don't interrupt at any other time. I called one office this week - the first time no response, then I tried back again 45 minutes later and the lady picked up the phone and screamed, "This office is on its lunch break right now! But speak, if you must!" D: "Um, ok, would you like me to call back later at a more convenient time or can I ask a quick question now?" Crabby lady: "Well, if I answered the phone then obviously you can talk now!" Ok.....

I'm sure I'll have many a fun story to continue to tell as the date gets closer - especially since everything is only allowed to happen at the last minute here. :) It's ok, the sunny and beautiful day of June 28th will be here before we know it!

Food for thought as the earth comes to life again...

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.
(Mother Teresa)

Easter! (Christmas?)

Easter Sunday started like this, pupoli which we had found and brought home from our work at Jaunvitagas and a bowl full of colored eggs, ready for the egg war!
Every war must have a winner and a loser. I won the majority of the battles, but this year, KB takes the crown as the one with the last egg soldier standing.

And the proper tradition is that the first broken egg must be shared equally among all family members so that the next year would be a nice one. Self-taken photo, makes us look like egg heads.... :)
Now you may ask... Easter? Christmas? For as much as we haven't had a winter this year, yes, this photo was taken on Easter day. We celebrated this year with a folklore group. This involved singing, dances, storytelling and games.
The biggest tradition for Latvians on Easter is swinging. You are swinging in the sun on her journey higher into the sky. Also, if you don't swing, the mosquitoes will bite you all summer long. Since this is the first year I have actually been on a swing at Easter, I am looking forward to testing out this theory - hopefully it will be an itch-free summer!

So this is the swing we braved. This picture was taken later, so it is not actually us, but KB and I were the first to swing this year. With a clay pot of fire between us (representing the sun), we stood on either side, and got to swinging so high that we were literally standing parallel to the ground. It was like a roller coaster, you could feel your stomach dropping!
We also took a horse-drawn buggy ride through the park! :)
And the grand finale of our Easter was pirts (Latvian sauna) in Burtnieki with IG! We ate lots of good food, drank lots of good beer, laughed a lot, and it really felt like the most relaxing way to spend the evening (plus your skin just glows the next day)! I got a good whipping with birch branches and here I am in between, cooling off in the snow. My nickname for the night was Pocahontas, with the big snow boots.
So there you have it - Easter Latvian style. And we did get our hot water back the day before Easter - if you were counting along, that means we were without for 10 days. I know it's not Thanksgiving, but this Easter, I am thankful for running hot water in our apartment, I will never take it for granted again.

Swinging in spring

All of Latvia is preparing for the spring equinox in more snow than we have experienced all winter long! This is a view of my walk to school on Wednesday, the last day of school before spring break. The preschool celebrated it's annual spring festival at the open air museum. The highlights were swinging on the big swing (to "swing in" spring), standing on hill and throwing snowballs and sticks at the winter to shoo it away (the kids LOVED this) and an Easter egg hunt in the snow. That's the picture below, priceless... :)
And for the record, still no hot water...

A weekend of work

This is what we will be doing every weekend until the end of June! We are planning our very small wedding outdoors on KB's property which is about an hour outside of Riga in Straupe. It's a beautiful piece of property with fields, woods and swamp, and we love to be there just to be. Nothing has been done on the land for 60 years, so needless to say, even though we want a totally laid back, natural outdoors experience, there is still a fair amount of work to be done. It has taken quite a bit of planning, revising ideas, and then planning some more, but we finally have a good idea of where the road will be put in and where we want to clear out an area for the ceremony, the bonfire, the cars and tents and of course the all-important outhouse.

This weekend we did some serious cleaning. We chose the small corner of woods that we want to clean out (leaving the largest birch trees and evergreen trees, but taking out the rest) as the hang out zone. In my mind, it was like cleaning house. But you have to imagine when your house has been at it's absolute messiest, and you're not even sure where to start so you just get in there and start doing. That's how it was for us.

Here's KB, getting the chainsaw ready. These are the three neighbor dogs - we are pretty sure they don't even have names, so we just call them Mazais (small one), Lielais (big one) and Vecais (old one). KB gave them each a pirags the last time he was there, so now they are our best friends.My main duty was "branch duty". As KB chopped things away, I got to make and move piles of wood. I tried to use the hand saw at first, but apparently I looked too dangerous doing it, so I got demoted to branch duty. It was ok. Possibly, still too dangerous for someone not-so-graceful as I (I'm lucky that I didn't poke out an eye - there were many close calls). It gets boring though, so I started singing all the Latvian folk songs that I know while I worked, after I got tired of singing my homemade "branch duty" song ("Don't poke out your eye, don't poke out the dog's eye...")

Finally, KB let me try my hand at chopping wood. I really wanted to learn to use the ax. The good news is I did not cut off my own foot. The bad news is, I think 29 may be too late to learn this skill. KB disagrees; he says with a smaller ax and 100 practice swings, I could learn. Don't be fooled by the picture below. It is totally posed. For the record, I did split one piece of wood (that means I was able to aim the ax to the center of the wood and then it took five more hits to actually get the ax through the whole piece of wood). The rest of my practice swings were just close calls....

And here is the master at work with the chainsaw. I did even ask KB to teach me to use the chainsaw. I'm pretty sure he just smiled and said, "You're cute". :)
So here is the "before" shot to give you an idea of how dense the woods are. Mazais stayed with us all day, even through the freezing rain and sleet. We must have been good entertainment.

At the end of yesterday, we had one area pretty well cleaned out. KB is back there today to try to finish this job. I'm in the city today doing homework and cleaning house (the city house, that is, not the country house). And for the record, we are on day four of no hot water. We showered at our neighbors' apartment yesterday (not the nice Russians below us, but our across-the-hall neighbors who are on vacation and left us the keys) and have started boiling water to wash the dishes. We're open to bets on how long it will be until we get the hot water back....we're not holding our breath!

Hot water, please

How great is this? Last night we got home and had no running water, without warning. Fairly regularly here, we are still without water at times, but usually with warning. This time, none.

Our neighbors below us are remodelling (as we have determined from the pounding at odd hours), and they cut our water. KB went down just to ask them how long it still might be (nevermind the fact that they couldn't have politely warned us) and the lady just went off on him in Russian. He asked for Latvian, please, and then he got a real earful. How dare we bother them with our own problems of not having water, right?

So finally at some point last night we got the cold water back, but still no hot water as of this evening. So the dishes are totally unwashed and showers have not been had. And the nutty thing is, there is no one here to complain to that would get a solution to this problem!

In other news, now that I am a whopping 29, I think I have officially turned into an old lady - at least as a teacher. I've been saying "kids these days......" and today I even threw toys into the garbage can today in front of a wide-eyed group of kids. Ok, they have been breaking toys left and right and are totally of the attitude that we can go out and just buy more. Well this was a favorite princess wand, not even in the classroom for a week and broken several times, so finally I pitched it and said no one is going to the store to buy a new one!

KB had a much more humane suggestion when we were talking about it last night, he said to tell the kids that they toys are scared of them because they are hurting the toys so much and the toys asked to be put away. I told the kids about this possibility after I was the meanie who threw the precious wand away, so we'll see how it works.

I toying with the theory that we are born with X amount of patience, and I may have used mine up in my early years. I hope it is not so, I plan to be around for a while longer and prefer being a kind and patient person. My co-teachers told me today, though, that I should get a special plaque after teaching this year's class. They also said I could write a book about it. It's a special, special bunch. :)

Studying....

Mima likes to study with me.....what can I say? This is one of her favorite places to hang out during the day. Too bad we both have a hard time keeping our eyes open during the studies.... :)

Another year.....

.....older (yes), wiser (????), goofier (for sure), more talented and beautiful (I hope so)! :)

This is one of the greatest things about living in Latvia - flowers, flowers and flowers for every occassion. Good thing we got the car just in time, I had to call KB to come pick me up at school today or I would've never made it home! (And I was greeted in the car with more flowers (!!!) and champagne - hooray!)

The greatest thing about a March birthday is that you never know what the weather is going to be, and I will say especially so since living in LV. Some years I have spent my birthday in shorts, other years probably building snowmen. Yesterday, the weather literally changed every moment you looked out the window - one minute it was sunny and birds were chirping, next moment blizzard snow. We just finished studying the seasons with our kids and had told them that March is a spring month - well, they have all been looking at me thinking what are you talking about lady. I told them that spring and winter were fighting to spend the day with me on my birthday. Today, spring totally won. It was the sunniest of sunny days, and we loved it!

And a little funny from the kids today.... C is walking around with a hotdog in her mouth at lunch time, and A tells her, "You better sit down or you're gonna croak!" (Choke, croak, close enough....) :)

Love and sunshine to all today!!!

The Batmobile

We bought a car! After two years, it was time to be independently mobile, and it's a great feeling. We bought the car a week ago, but today we finally get to take it into possession and take it out for a spin.

Like most things in Latvia, buying a car is not a simple undertaking. Start with the fact that there are no laws protecting the buyer. The seller of the car is fully free to roll back the odometer and pour whatever into the engine to make the car function for two weeks and then it's all over. The price of the car is not indication as to the shape it's in. Additionally, the used cars which are imported from other countries (mostly Germany, like ours)are the ones that typically get the sneaky makeover, so you have to be extra careful, but you can't even consider buying cars from Latvia, because the roads here are so bad that cars are totally worn out within the first couple of years.

Luckily, we have a close friend who was in the business for many years and was able to give each car we were considering a full inspection. While it was frustrating that for months he rejected any car that we looked at, it's finally satisfying to know that this one got the stamp of approval. (It's not perfect - in fact we had a good laugh that as soon as we had handed the money over and the seller stepped out of the car, the handle popped out of the door as I tried to get out of the backseat - no worries, it popped back in and I was able to get out. It's got a sound engine, and that's what matters - in fact, we will be getting approximately 60 miles to the gallon!)

But we couldn't take the car home right away because of this lovely scam where the seller just lets his friends know who he sold the car to and they come and steal the car back on the first night. So the car has been at the shop getting some crazy state of the art car alarm (I think we are not even going to be able to use keys to open the car) and it's finally ready for us.

In other news, KB passed his theoretical test to get his license here the day before we bought the car! Not an easy undertaking as well. This stack of flashcards I made are all the roadsigns he had to learn, and that was just one small part of the necessary knowledge....
If you're thinking this makes Latvians better drivers, think again. What they may know in driving theory, they are totally lacking on the roads. Every day you see drivers pull moves that you would never predict or even consider for half a moment in the States. That's why KB will be driving the batmobile. Way to go, soferiti!

My Many Colored Days

Being an early childhood teacher, I take lots of wisdom from the many wonderful children's books I own. (Just ask my dad, where others in college were insuring their CD and electronics collections, he once suggested I take out an insurance policy on my children's book collection). In Latvia, I am living in the pages of Dr. Seuss's book "My Many Colored Days". Ok, it might be true that the darker days are really piled up in one part of the year and the knock-you-socks-off bright days stick to another part, but I can promise you that the range and depth of color I have seen here in two years, is really something. For me at least, rainbows like this (quite literally and figuratively) have been a regular part of my life here! You've gotta put up with the rain, if you want the rainbow...

Some time after I moved here, my very good friend IG asked me where I really consider my home. I surprised both of us I think with my answer - my roots will always be where my family is, but my heart has always been at home here. And so I go about carving out my place in the universe, surrounded by the good, the bad, the ugly, and the breathtakingly beautiful. It's a real and constand reminder of the stuff that life is (should be) made of. I need a place to document it - so here it goes! Enjoy the reading.... :)

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it turned into a butterfly." That was me two years ago. That's the whole of Latvia every spring. We are gaining five minutes of sunlight a day now - wonderfully noticeable! I'm ready for the brighter days ahead.