A seriously needed weekend away :)

I think that any couple who is planning a wedding - big or small, summer or winter, fancy or out-in-the-country - reaches a point of saying, let's just elope. For many a reason, we were very much there. Thanks to our very thoughtful and caring friends, who decided to give us a pre-wedding present, we took a pre-honeymoon. A weekend away, just to have fun, to think and talk about nothing serious, and try to remember why we are doing all of this anyway. ;)

That weekend was strategically planned for this weekend - the 28th is still far enough away that we can start cracking down and really get stuff done now, but not far enough away so that we can still hang on to the great memories from this weekend if the going gets tough again. And mother nature certainly sent her wishes of support this weekend as well, as the weather was absolutely perfect (as KB calls it "zero weather").

We actually started out with a picnic on the beach on Friday night. No photos of this, but KB picked me up straight away after school and off we went. Then on Saturday morning we "slept in" (yes, 7.30am is sleeping in for us when it is already light as day at 3.30am and regular wake up time is 5.30am) and got a nice start before 10am.

Our first stop was "Lacu maizinca", arguably the very best bread bakers in Latvia. We had breakfast/lunch there and then stocked up on fresh bread and "grauzdini" (rye bread sticks fried in oil and coated with fresh garlic) for the trip. Yum....happy tummies make happy campers, so this was definitely a great start. Here is where we ate out on the terrace and me eating "rupmaizes zupa", a sweet rye bread "soup". Not bad, but I still prefer rupmaizes ice cream. :)
Next stop was Kuldiga. We stopped for beers at a beer garden just beside Ventas Rumba - the widest waterfall in Latvia. We took a venture out on the waterfall and just sat in the sun and chatted for a while. (Unfortunately, there are no pictures of us together from this weekend.) It was wonderful and refreshing.

Then we headed to the Sauleskalni Bed and Breakfast just outside of Kuldiga. We had found this place on the internet and it looked like just what we were looking for. A guest house with its own dendrological park and pond for fishing. So that is what we did - we walked around and sat out in the beautiful garden...






I decided that my luck with fishing was going to be the following morning, but KB wanted try it out the first day already. So he fished and I set up camp just next to him reading in the sun....

And this shot is just for AW - snacking on two different types of grauzdini....love you! I think I ate enough for you too! My stomach was not so happy at the end of the weekend....
We also got ourselves a portable grill! Even though it is not a Weber, as we wanted for sentimental reasons (those suckers are too ridiculously expensive here!), we will still call it Webbie the grill. We cooked up "sasliki" (LV kebabs) and they were so delicious. By the way, this photo is taken around 10pm....
Up at 5am the next day for fishing! My feeling was right - KB hadn't even thrown his line in and I already had caught my first fish!! I will attribute it to the fact that I had remembered the Sesame Street episode where Ernie and Bert called out "Here, fishy, fishy, fishy!" Well, anyway, it did work for me! Don't worry, Krix, the bait of choice was corn from a can. Here is the proud fisherwoman! We were 3 and 3 for that morning; unfortunately, none big enough to keep (though this is truly the biggest fish I've ever caught). At least we are back in the game again!
Around 8am we went in for our breakfast. I realized how truly addicted I have become to coffee on this morning, because my day did not really start until that first cup, even with all the fish excitement. We checked out and decided to take a leisurely drive back to Riga, checking out different places along the way. This was a fun place that we discovered called Mara kambari (Mara's chambers). It's a place to hike out a few kilometers to see these ancient cult caves. The walk out was absolutely beautiful.



Please do not let me lead anymore hikes. As we know that I got lost on the mountains of Austria with two friends in high schol while the rest of the group managed to follow the simple path up.....so I got us lost on the way back from the caves. I do not know how we could've missed the main path, but somehow we ended up on a crazy, clearly very old, nearly non-existant path back. Of course, being in Latvia, we were never sure if we had actually missed the path or if this just really was the path, but we kept thinking it would get better in a moment. The two pictures below are at just a few of the wackier moments on the path (that is - when we were able to see each other enough to take the photos, because most of it was just fighting through trees and thick brush) - here we are "hopping" over fallen logs and scaling down fallen trees to get over ravines. :)

After about fifteen minutes of blind wandering, we finally stumbled upon a pretty nice boardwalk (we entered in the middle of the boardwalk) and had a pretty good laugh about our hike through "erce express" (tick express). I picked one off my arm, we gave ourselves a good shakedown to get rid of the rest, and continued on our way. Beautiful......the Abava River.

And finally, we drove a bit further and ended up on the beach. While we have appreciated the convenience of being able to take the train to the beach the last few summers, so also does half of Riga's population. It is a much different experience to have you own car and find a beach with a bit of breathing room. We laid out, read and slept (and ate more grauzdini) for a couple of hours. Let me reiterate how absolutely ideal the weather was....


In the second photo of me, if you look very very closely, you can see 16 swans gracefully swimming by - going on vacation in the ocean. We took that as a good sign to the end of a great weekend. Also, KB ended up looking like the flag of Latvia, so it was a very good idea that we headed back to Riga before the rush of traffic, just to hang out at home. (For those of you wondering....Latvia's flag is maroon, small strip of white and maroon, so you can imagine how a guy at the beach could end up looking like that.....) :)