The City of Riga, Latvia

I want to show you some pictures that I have taken since we have gotten here.  I hope they give you an idea of what the city is like.

Riga is split into two parts -- Old Town and New Town.  "New" Town really isn't an appropriate word, because the buildings in that part of the city are still very old -- they are just not as old as the ones in Old Town.  Some of the buildings in Old Town have been there since the 15th century.

Here is the view of the street from the window of the hotel where we stayed the first night.  We were on the 5th floor, so we got a really good view.

Here is a view of one of the narrow streets.  Cars actually drive down these streets, and you'd better get out of their way!

Here is a view of another street.  Notice the cobblestones.  They make walking difficult, though a lot of Latvian women do it in spike heels.

Riga is known as the "City of 1,000 Faces" because of all of their Art Nouveau architecture.  Here are some examples of the faces that you see.  Some of them are okay, but some of them are downright scary.

Here is what is called the "Cat House."  The story is that the man who originally built the house was angry about not getting into some type of organization, so he put the cats on the top of the house and turned their tails toward the organization's building.  However, city authorities eventually made him turn the cats the other direction so they'd be less offensive.

You see these type of openings everywhere.  They are called "gates."  At one time, there was a wall around the city to protect it from invaders.  The wall is still there, but buildings have been built onto the front and the back of the wall.  This opening was one way that people could cross through the wall.  Now they add a picturesque effect to the city.

This is the Riga Dome Church.  It is one of the largest churches in the city.  Its structure is once again very old.  It is a Lutheran Church, and I want to attend it this Sunday.  It is right in the center of the town.  There are organ concerts held here all the time.  I hope to get to one of them.

Notice how there are lots of people in the picture above?  Most of the restaurants have outdoor seating areas, and people definitely take advantage of them.  Here are two more pictures that illustrate the popularity of the restaurants and their outdoor seating.

The Freedom Monument is a special monument in the city.  It was opened in 1935 and honors the soldiers killed during the Latvian War of Independence. It is considered an important symbol of the freedom, independence, and sovereignty.  It is truly a sight to see.  You can't tell it from the picture, but it is a very tall structure that really reaches into the sky.

Although it's not the same as being here, I hope these pictures give you a feel for what the city is like.  It's a beautiful place.

I'll add more pictures later!

We made it!

It's May 22, we've been here three days -- and what an eventful three days it's been.  It started even before we came:

We got a call on Saturday morning from Mike, our landlord in Riga.  He started out the conversation with, "Hi, Chris.  Do you know Murphy's Law?"  I knew right then and there that something was up. The water heater in our soon-to-be apartment had caught fire that morning, so the apartment was not going to be available for a week.  Fine, no problem -- we'll just go to a hotel for the first week.  I made the reservations without a hitch.  We got to the airport, Mike met us and took us to the hotel.  After checking things out, Mike discovered that the fire was caused by a problem in the chimney, not in the water heater.  Consequently, his apartment wasn't going to be available for two to three months -- a real problem for us.  He was able to find us another apartment (a lot cheaper than his!), and we moved in yesterday.

It's a nice, roomy apartment that is located in "Old Town,"which is the oldest part of Riga. it is a lot different from American apartments.  It's not "cozy" -- there are wood floors, three bedrooms (although one has a love seat in it), and no true sitting room -- but it's big and roomy.  I'd like to take the bed out of the biggest bedroom (it would make a great sitting room!) that has a TV in it to the room with the loveseat and take the loveseat into the other room.   I'm hoping it will fit and that the landlord won't mind.  Now we just need to find a way to come up with some chairs so that we can have seats for everyone.

Our adventure continued this morning when I decided to take a shower.  When I stepped out, there was water all over the floor.  I had some clothes laying out to put on, and they were dripping wet.  We threw some towels down and got the water dried up.  Don contacted the landlord, and she got a plumber over here right away.  Nothing major was wrong -- just a hose that had come unhooked. Hopefully, my shower tomorrow morning will be rather uneventful.

Then, to top things off, we did not have wireless internet in the apartment.  We can't function without it, because we need to be able to get to our email and contact our kids.  I also can't do this blog!  I finally ended up calling Deanna on the mobile phone that was provided by our contact and given to us when we first got here.  I'm sure it was expensive, but, at that point, I didn't care.  I needed to contact them and let them know that our living situation had changed.  Our contact came over last night and installed the wireless internet for us, so we are going strong at this point.

I visited a secondary school today.  It covers grades 6-12.  I observed a couple of choirs, a music history class, and a couple of other classes.  I don't know what I expected -- things looked about the same as they do in any American school.  They sure didn't sound the same, though.  The 5th through 9th grade girls' choir I heard was wonderful!  They had full, mature voices and sang 3- to 4-part literature.  I was really impressed.  When the Soviets were in control of Latvia, they instituted an excellent music education program in the schools.  The high quality of music education today is largely due to that fact.  The students all know how to sight-sing, which helps immensely when it comes to learning new music.  That's something that I want to really work on next year -- teaching sight-singing techniques to my choir students.  I'm not sure how to go about it, because I have beginning students up to advanced students, but I need to come up with a plan of some kind.

I like adventure, but I really hope that tomorrow is a boring, uneventful day.  I am visiting a music publishing house tomorrow morning, and then Don and I are going on a tour of the area with a great guide tomorrow afternoon.  We are truly enjoying ourselves.  Don is itching to get some fishing done -- our landlord absolutely loves fishing, so he may end up going with her sometime.  There is nowhere in Riga to fish, but there are a lot of places throughout the rest of the country.  I'm sure he'll find them before we leave.

I have some pictures, but I haven't figured out how to add them here yet.  I will try and do that before long so that you can see what we see every day.   Well, I'll sign off for now.  I think we'll go out and take a walk and try and find some ice cream.  It won't be Graeter's, but at least it will be ice cream!