Happy Sunday from Riga!

It's another gloomy, chilly day here in Riga.  I'm beginning to think that I should have brought different clothes than what I brought.  When we arrived, the temperatures were in the 70s, so I thought I did well by bringing lots of capris and short-sleeve shirts.  Unfortunately, it has been in the 50s and low 60s for the last several days, so I'm glad that I did bring some long pants.  We did go out and buy ourselves sweatshirts, and we have certainly gotten a lot of use out of them.

Since today is Sunday, we definitely wanted to attend church somewhere.  We have been in three of the biggest and oldest churches here in Riga, and they are all Lutheran.  I had been a music director in two Lutheran churches, where I spent 10 years between the two of them.  I love the Lutheran service, but not when I can't understand it.  As we were walking around yesterday, we discovered an Anglican church by the River Daugava -- St. Savior's Anglican Church.  A sign at the front door said "Service in English Sundays at 11:00." At last, a service we could understand!  We decided that we would go there today.

The church is not in as nice a shape on the outside as some of the other churches.  It suffered from neglect during the Soviet reign when it was used as a discotheque.  (Its inside walls were painted purple!)  Here are some pictures of the church.

In the second picture, you can see some trees that are growing out of the gutters and some broken slats in one of the windows.  As I said, it didn't fare as well as some of the other churches.  I don't know if they have any plans to do some construction on it or not.

It turns out that an Anglican service is very much like a Lutheran church service.  I knew the tunes in the liturgy, and it brought back fond memories of my time at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Muncie. A group of about 30 people were there from England visiting the church, and their pastor was the one who gave the message.  It was a good message about the ascension, and it was wonderful to be able to understand what was being said.  We had a nice time talking to the people after the service was over.  The lady who runs the music store/publishing house that we visited attends there, so it was nice to see her again.  I imagine we will attend there a lot while we are here.

The organ at the church is not the original one.  The original one -- which was said to be quite beautiful -- was ripped out during the Soviet occupation.  The one they have now was donated to them from a church in New York.  It was built in 1892 and was refurbished either right before they got it or right after.  It is a very small pipe organ, but it works, and that's what counts.  Below are some pictures.

We spent part of yesterday at the Botanical Gardens of the University of Latvia.  We went there specifically to see a sound exhibit that was supposed to be there.  We were able to see three of the five exhibits, and they were rather strange.  One was a bunch of strings holding some broken pieces of pottery and other items.  It was attached to some type of sound system, and, supposedly, the sound would change as a result of people standing in the room.  It was weird.  The second one we saw was called "Untamed Choir," and it consisted of several small speakers hanging from the ceiling.  Some of them were in a circle in the middle, while the others were scattered randomly around the room.  The description of it is too complicated to put here, but, basically, it consisted of the human voice singing on the syllable "ah" in three different octaves, and those sounds were supposedly connected together by a screaming voice, although we never heard the screaming voice.  The sound would change as you walked around the room due to the placement of the speakers.  Again, it was weird.

While we were a bit disappointed in the sound exhibit, the grounds of the Botanical Garden were beautiful.  It was so peaceful walking through them.  The flowers, especially the rhododendrons and azaleas, were absolutely beautiful.  They were huge, too.  You will notice in one of the pictures below that I am standing in front of one of the bushes, and it is taller than I am.  You will also see all the different colors that there were.

Ignore me.  I just stood in the picture so you could see how big the rhododendrons were.

Another nice thing about the Botanical Gardens was the trees.  There was a bit of a paved road in the gardens, and it was lined with these really tall trees.  It created this beautiful overhead canopy of green.

We have spent a lot of time walking the last couple of days, so I thought I would show you some other random things.

There is a canal that flows through Riga, and these are some boats in which you can take a ride on the canal.  We haven't done it yet, but we definitely want to.

The top picture above shows a small bridge on the canal.  You will notice what looks like some design on the railings.  Well, when you get up close, the "design" is actually a bunch of padlocks, shown in the bottom picture.  There is a tradition in Riga where brides and grooms come to the bridge, put a padlock on one of the spokes, and then throw the key into the canal. This supposedly symbolizes that they are now "locked" together and will remain that way forever.  I guess the city officials hate it, but when they have cut the locks off, more appear, so they have given up.

Below is a picture of an old tower.  It is one of the well known spots in Riga.  (It is just a half block down from our apartment, so when we first came, we used it as a landmark to let us know we were almost home.  It is called the "Powder Tower" because it was originally built to store gun powder. When it was no longer needed, it fell to ruin.  A "fraternity" (not like the fraternities today) evidently saw some use for the tower.  By the time they got it, the bottom of it was full of pigeon and other bird droppings.  They decided to sell the droppings for fertilizer, and they supposedly got very wealthy doing so.  That's the story, anyway.  Here's the picture:

This is a rather humorous picture.  I'm not sure how you say the name of this store in Latvian, but in English, it sure makes you want to stay away.

The last thing I want to show you is a clock that sits on Freedom Street.  The letters on the side of the clock spell "Laima," which is a very well-known and raved-about chocolate maker here in Latvia.  I have tested some of it, and, believe me, it doesn't hold a candle to Lowry's chocolates.  Boy, how I would love to have a box of them right now!  I wonder if they ship all over the world?

Un rezdēšnos!