Photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/tantespook/RigaErasmus?authkey=kdc_b409FEk#

Summary of the past weeks

I wasn't in the mood to write a new blog entry... but here it is. The last weeks were good. My dad, my brother and his girlfriend came to visit me mid-november. We did the usual things: skyline bar, belgian pub, lido, walking around Old Riga and shopping. We also did some unusual things: drinking vodka-cola whilst playing card games and swimming in the aquapark of jurmala. We had a good time! I definitely enjoyed that extra long weekend... thank you national holiday!

My mother came on 5/12 for a couple of days. We did the usual things: skyline bar, lido, walking around Old Riga, shopping, shopping and shopping. We also did some unusual things: trip to Cesis, watching opera on TV and going to the Nutcracker. I think we visited over 20 shoe stores... :) In the end I found 2 pairs of shoes! Hooray! We even saw snow in Cesis. Luckily there is no more snow in Riga! I hope it stays this way... I'm not really fond of slippery pavements. We had a wonderful time together!

The third module is already finished. I had enough time to relax because I had no short module. I wrote my final essays, went to the final lectures and enjoyed my spare time :) Today I had a presentation about Belgium in Latvian. According to the teacher it was perfect. Ha! Friday we have an exam for Latvian, written and oral. I mostly fear the oral part! I think the language is way too difficult :) Apparently we would be able to speak Latvian fluently after another 6 months... Sure! Wednesday 17/12 I have my last exam in International Political Economy. I hope I will pass... I'm not a fan of open questions and lots of materials to read :) After that I have HOLIDAYS till 9/2/09! Woot!

What do I still have to do: pack my bags, go shopping, watch the final episode of popstars, get drunk, go shopping, get drunk :)

I'll be so glad when I get on the plane and fly home :) I enjoyed my time in Riga, but it was a difficult period. Moreover, it was definitely not a new experience... I learnt more during my 11 months in Australia. Anyhow, it's about time that i'm going home. I finally start to miss my boyfriend :) All I want for Christmas is a big hug from him and lots of presents of course :)

So what have I learnt in Latvia:

• I have great respect for students at the Riga Stradins University. The uni is not really known, but the students there work like crazy!
• 'Sorry' or 'excuse me' don't exist in the vocabulary of Latvians. They rather like pushing in crowed trams or in shops.
• I like public transport in Riga: it's so frequent and so cheap! Belgian public transport can definitely learn something from the Latvians! It is also necessary to buy a ticket, because there is a lot of ticket control...
• Movies, opera, ballet and food are cheap in Latvia, which is nice of course.
• Riga is shopping heaven! I think there are more than 7 shopping centres, which have more shops than the whole of Leuven (which is not so big, but anyways.

Sooooo, that's it! I think this might be my last blog entry :) I don't think someone will regret it!
Uz redzesanos!

The past weeks...

were rather boring. I spent my days reading chapter after chapter and writing several essays. I did not really have the time to go out and enjoy myself. Besides, I also had an exam coming up. This exam turned out to be very difficult. The questions were mainly aimed at little details, which I should have read in one of the 800 pages I had for this course… of course. When I handed in my exam the professor said: ‘you did good… it’s all over now’. That day was one of the happiest days in my life! I could finally start enjoying my Erasmus. No more short module, no more intensive reading and writing… I chose to do an extra language instead. This module I will therefore only have Latvian, German, English and International Political Economy, which only requires another 3 small essays of 500 words and 1 big essay of 3500 words. And because I have no short module, I will have an entire week at the end of the module to prepare for my exam of International Political Economy, which then implies that I can merely relax during the duration of the module. Heavenly!

After I handed in my exam, I went to the airport to pick up Zuzana. For you who don’t know who Zuzana is: She is one of my colleagues at COST (European Cooperation for Science and Technology) in Brussels, where I work as a job student during the year. After her arrival we went to my apartment to drop off her luggage. Then we headed off to Old Riga, were we had lunch in Double Coffee. After our delicious lunch, we did a quick tour through Old Riga. Because of the cold and the darkness, we went back to my apartment for a relaxing evening in front of the television (Thursday night still is Popstars night :)). I will not mention the piano debacle, I will not mention the piano debacle…

On Friday morning I had to go to my Latvian language course. Zuzana was left on her own for a few hours, but she enjoyed herself by walking around Old Riga and taking pictures of the pretty buildings. After my Latvian course we met in town and headed off to the Central Markets. After strolling around, we took the tram to the big Lido. I enjoyed my crumbed pangasius filet with cooked vegetables. The evening was filled with going to the opera and to the Skyline bar. Together with Nadia and Julija we went to see a modern version of the Magic Flute, once composed by Mozart of course. It was great! Our evening in the Skyline bar was also amazing. Although I drank the same amount as the previous time, I managed to keep my hands safe from getting stuck between the door. I think it was around 2AM when I finally got Zuzana and Julija off the dance floor! Ha!

Getting up on Saturday morning was rather painful, but it was for a good cause. Zuzana and I would go to Sigulda, which is also known as the Switzerland of Latvia. We took the train to Sigulda, which was also a good experience. Getting in the train is not so easy, compare it to climbing a steep mountain. I don’t understand how all those old people get on the train… Taking the train in Latvia is really cheap; we paid maybe 3LVL each for a return ticket. After an hour or so we finally arrived in Sigulda. My first impression: Sigulda is empty, empty, empty. Without going to the tourist info first (which we better should have done :)), we started walking in the direction of a castle.

Our day in Sigulda can be described as a day in which we mainly took the wrong decisions! It all went wrong when we took ‘some thing I cannot name in English’ down the hill. We should have taken the cable lift instead, but we kind of didn’t see it immediately. So, we took ‘the thing I cannot name in English’ and we asked a guy working there where to find the castle we were looking for. He gave us some directions, but he didn’t really have the same castle in mind. So, we followed his directions. We crossed the Gauja river and ended up in some kind of forest. We nicely followed the arrow which said something about a caste. On the way up to the castle, we had to take a lot of stairs, which was amazingly tiring. When we finally reached the top of the mountain, we thought ‘what a **** hole’. The **** hole even had a name: Krimulda. There was nothing, except for one shop/bar and a building that once was a castle, although it didn’t even look like a castle. We decided to have a drink chez Milly. Zuzana’s coffee was all right, but my coke came out of bottle which probably stood there for a very long time…

Anyhow, we wanted to go to the pink castle, which we saw in the distance during our walk up to Krimulda. But how? Luckily there were 3 Krimuldian men chez Milly, standing around a freezer containing ice-cream (it is definitely something different than standing around a bar). Zuzana asked them kindly how to get to this pink castle. Surprisingly one of the guys spoke English and explained to us, well he mainly explained to Zuzana, how to get there: you go down and you go back upstairs, it’s a long walk, about 5 kilometres. The guy really invaded the personal space of Zuzana, at one point he came really close. But it was for a good cause :)

We left Krimulda and left for Turaida, where the pink castle is situated. It was a long walk :) We went down the serpentine way and walked in the right direction this time. On the way we even saw a cave, which is told to have healing water. There was also a lady selling gingerbread cookies and cones with caramel inside. The lady was really friendly and surprisingly also spoke English. We continued our way to Turaida, but this time with something nice to eat in our hands. The way up to Turaida was rather steep and we discovered that the pink castle is actually made of red bricks :) We were glad to have reached the top. In Turaida is some sort of open-air museum which contains old houses, an old church and an old castle. After having paid an enormous entrance fee, like 1.5LVL, we visited the open-air museum. The main thing we wanted to see was the castle and we even ended up climbing the tower. At the top of the tower we had a great view over the area, so it was definitely worth the hassle.

After that, we were hungry. There was only one funny shop/bar in the neighbourhood and we had to wait too long for the bus, so Zuzana bought something small to eat and we decided to walk back to Sigulda. Gosh, that was a long trip :) Instead of taking the cable lift back to Sigulda, which was one of the decisions we could have taken on the way back, we walked back into the direction of the ‘thing I cannot name in English’. But Zuzana had the amazing idea of taking some staircase which was built ages ago on a hill. The way up was extremely long and painful (I might be over-exaggerating a little :)). We eventually ended up where we had started in the morning. If the end is good, all is good! We headed back in the direction of the train station and took the train back to Riga. We were still hungry, so we went to the Lido in town. The food there is always great... To celebrate her final evening in Riga, we went back to the Skyline bar and enjoyed another cocktail. We were very tired, so we didn’t stay too long this time. I was glad to be in bed, because I was freezing during the day… it getting really cold in Latvia.

The next morning we set our alarm clocks at 6.45AM, which is very painful on a Sunday morning. We wanted to go to Jurmala, the Ostend of Latvia. We took the train and ended up once again in a **** hole. Jurmala was empty, empty, empty. Luckily, it was worth the trip. The beach was really calm and it just looked great. We had a little stroll along the beach and then we had to hide for the rain. I warmed myself by drinking a nice hot chocolate. We took the train back to Jurmala because the weather was too bad. Once back in Riga, we visited the National Museum of Art and surprisingly we went back to the Lido in town :) Then it was time for Zuzana to pack her bags and go to the airport. At the airport we had a final drink and then it was time to say goodbye. We had a great time together! So Zuzana, if you read this, thanks once more ;) Unfortunately in the evening I still had to write an essay for the next day. At 11PM I finally turned off the lights and went to sleep… and I still need sleep :) The weekend was great but very tiring.

So yeah, that was my adventure of the past weeks. On Friday my dad, my brother and his girlfriend are coming to Riga. That will be another adventure! I’m already looking forward to it, especially since I now have the time to enjoy their visit.

Some other thingies:

• Handshoes are really useful when it is cold :p:p:p
• Ticket controllers in the train are scary people; you wouldn’t want to mess with them.
• It is cold, cold, cold, cold!!!
• I found a studio in Lanaken for next year! Hooray!
• Did I already mention that it is really cold here?
• I’m glad that my exchange is nearly over. Riga is a nice city, the university is difficult but okay. However, I’m extremely annoyed by something... and this I can't name in any language.
• I should become a cleaning lady. I always seem to be ending up cleaning up after everyone else. Cleaning ladies at least get paid for their work.

That’s it for now! Hope you didn’t fall asleep whilst reading this huge blog entry :)

Visit!

Another week has come to an end :) I had a great week, because Andy was here! Whilst I'm writing this blog entry, he's floating in the air... I kind of already mis him :D

So... Saskia's parents were here last weekend. I joined them on Saturday evening to the Skyline Bar and on Sunday evening to the Lido. On Saturday I discovered a huge shopping centre near my apartment! Nadja and I found a shopping heaven :) There is even a bowling alley!

On Sunday night Andy arrived! Hooray! We could spend a whole week together... On Monday morning Saskia officially left Riga... And on Monday evening I was getting drunk with Andy in the Skyline Bar :) I only had two long islands ice teas, but the effects were drastic :D I managed to hurt my hand by leaving it between the door and the door post :) Luckily I didn't have a hang over and I didn't feel my hand the next day! I have no idea what we did on Tuesday. I only remember having a lecture in the afternoon... Oh yeah, I managed to be too early in school, because I changed the actual time on my mobile phone instead of changing the time on my alarm clock... After my lecture we went to eat something in the big Lido. Hm, the food is so nice there!

What else have we done? On Wednesday we went to the movies with Julija, a Canadian-Latvian girl who studies full time sat the Riga Stradins University. We saw a 3D movie called A Journey Through the Earth, based on a story of Jules Verne. It was great! Afterwards we went for a drink in Double Coffee and for something to eat in the Lido in town. In the afternoon I had a lecture. I don't think we did anything useful in the evening. I had to finish an essay...

On Thursday we went to the shopping centre :) But we didn't buy anything, we only had something nice to eat... We didn't do anything in the evening, because Thursday night is popstars night! Popstars is my favourite show :D Afterwards I also have to watch 'Wir sind schwanger', which is about a singer and a fashion designer who are having a baby... Haha :) Interesting!

On Friday I spent most of my time at school. After school we went to the movies with Nadja and Birthe. We saw some strange movie with Brad Pitt and George Clooney. It was worth the money, which luckily wasn't much :) In the evening we went out with Julija, Lelde (who is coming to Maastricht in February), Nadja and Birthe. We started in the French Bar for a shot of wodka, apple juice and cinnamon. Then we visited Tequila Boom, a tequila bar of course :) We ordered a meter of tequila, which basically meant two tequila's each... I learnt that there also is brown tequila which you have consume with an orange slice and cinnamon... After the Tequila Boom we took the girls to the Belgian pub, where they could discover true beer! We also visited a Czech bar, but we didn't stay long there. Too crowded and too smelly :) We ended up in the pub of a hostel, where we spoke with a guy from Moldova... Unfortunately he was not really interesting :D Before taking a taxi home, we went to eat something at Pelmini... At 4 o'clock we finally went to sleeeeeeeep...

On Saturday we went to Domina, the shopping centre, again :D This time we, I mean Andy, bought a lot of things :) I have a new pair of shoes, 2 new jackets and 1 sweater. Andy found a new jacket as well. Ieha! And today he left again :( But in two months I will see him again :D

Tomorrow I have a mid-term exam. I better start studying :D Sooo, that's it for now! Ciaaao!

Module 2

I survived my exam! However, I don't know yet if I have passed it. Anyhow, I won't have a 10 :) I'll already be glad to have passed the course! The first week of the second module is already finished... Time flies! But I have still a bunch of work ahead of me: for my new course 'European Politics, Economics and Constitution' if have 4 more essays to write, good for another 34 pages, and around 600 pages to read. For International Political Economy I have to write another 3 essays and I also have a mid-term exam in 2 weeks. For German and Latvian I only have to do my homework... I definitely won't be bored in the coming weeks :)

What happened in the past week? So, last weekend I went for a drink with Nadia on Saturday. On Sunday I went to play frisbee... the wind also played along with us :) Gosh, frisbee and strong wind don't really go together. In the evening I was invited at Nadia's place to eat some real Italian pizza. After we prepared the ingredients together (there were 3 other German Erasmus students and 1 French one), an Italian Erasmus student made us some nice pizza... It was an adventure :) But it was a good opportunity to meet some new people!

That wasn't the only adventure on Sunday. I took the bus to get to Nadia's place. It was not enough that I took the wrong bus... I ended up right, but it took a different route... No, 4 guys, of which 3 were totally drunk, had to get on my bus as well. One of the guys started talking to me in Latvian. So, I said to him: I don't speak Latvian, hoping he would leave me alone. Unfortunately his sober brother started talking to me in English. This is how our conversation went: (guy) So, where are you from? (me) Hm... Germany. (guy) And how long have you been in Riga? (me) Like a week or so... (guy) That's my brother you know... whilst pointing at one of the drunks (me) Oh, nice... (guy) He's a bit drunk, you see (me) Really? I haven't noticed... of course I said this in a very sarcastic manner :) Then they finally got off the bus... The final words of the sober guy were: Welcome to Latvia :) Jee, thanks :D

The rest of the week was quite dull. I started a new course (the European thingy one), got annoyed about the amount of work we have to do and I slept, ate, read and wrote some stuff :) Very interesting... The weather was really good! Although it wasn't really warm, the sun shone practically every day! Heavenly! The sun shining above the Daugava is the prettiest thing to see in Riga! It is really picture material... Of course, I don't have a picture of it :)

I saw a miracle on Tuesday :) Picture Jesus splitting the water in order to get to the other side of the land... I guess on Tuesday he came back to split the fog... There was a huge amount of fog; you could barely see a thing. When the tram drove over the bridge, I could not see the Daugava on either side of the bridge! Maybe it was playing hide-and-go-seek. Anyways, it was a really strange sight :)

Some big news: Saskia is going home... She is leaving me behind in cruel Riga :) She decided to go back home, because she is too homesick... Noooo, it's not my fault :p It's sad, but she made up her mind. Bad luck, I'm not coming home yet ;) I will return in December... after my exams are finished. Ieha! I can't wait... HOLIDAYS!!!

Some thingies I've learned recently:

• You cannot sit on two toilet seats at the same time (a professor trying to explain the situation of Latvia regarding Russia and the European Union)
• 'Prot' means 'know' in Latvian... strange people! So mummy, from now on I will call you knowz ;)
• Walking around in Old Riga on high heels is dangerous :) There are too many 'kasseien' (for an English translation please visit http://www.mijnwoordenboek.nl/)

That's it for now... Uz redzesanos mani draugi!

Oh oh oh... Andy is coming on Sunday!!!!!!!!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!!! Zuzana is coming in less than a month... double hooray!!! My daddy, brothery and his girlfriendy are coming in a little bit more than a month... tripple hooray!!! Finally, my mumsie is coming in 2 months... fourple hooray???

PS: don't mind spelling and grammar mistakes :D Oh another funny thing... I explained English grammar to a Canadian girl... what a funny world?!

HOLIDAYS... NOOOOT!!!

My task for this week: pass my exam on Friday! I don't really feel like studying, but a woman's got to do, what a woman's got to do! 621 pages of interesting reading material to go through and hopefully remember something along the way! Apparently my short-term memory can only store 5 to 7 items... So, why even bother? :D Luckily the exam only counts for 25 percent of the grade!

We can cook! Hooray! We have an oven, but that one obviously doesn't work. We are not that lucky you know :) However, thanks to my wonderful cooking talent we figured out how to bake pizza in a pan... I just attempted to make my spaghetti sauce à la mama... it turned out to be delicious, of course :)

The past week we had approximately 7 times ticket control. We managed, knowing our luck, to get a fine! Another 2LVL down the drain... The real controllers don't really look at the back of your ticket (where you have to fill out your name and student number) and they are already satisfied if you show your ticket and your student card. The not so real ones always have to look at the back of your ticket (I guess it's a way to earn more money... which they did in our case). We didn't fill in our student number, so bad luck! Payé! The controller himself wasn't too smart, because he was pointing at the wrong number on our student card... He wanted us to fill in the start date of our student card :O I don't speak Latvian, but I could at least figure out immediately which number he actually meant... I eventually just pushed the 2LVL into his hands, so he would stop talking (he kept trying to explain things in Latvian although he knew that we didn't speak a word of his beautiful language)

We had a nice weekend. On Saturday there was something going on in town… it was some sort of festival to celebrate autumn. There were several food and souvenir stalls and there was Latvian folk dancing. It surprised me that so many handsome boys were dancing ;) I can’t imagine Andy hopping around like that :D Saskia, Nadia and I definitely enjoyed ourselves there for a couple of hours. On Sunday we went to another opera: Madame Butterfly. The beginning was a bit lame, but the end nearly moved me to tears. It was actually a sad story… If you want to know the story, Google it ;)

A peculiarity: Finding herbs and grated cheese in a supermarket is difficult, but finding alcohol is no problem at all. In every supermarket there are at least 3 rows filled with all sorts of alcholol.

That’s it for now! So long…

The sequel...

Frisbeeing on Sunday was great, but afterwards I was aching everywhere :) I never knew frisbeeing could be so intense! It's not only throwing the disk around, but you also have to run like crazy! The goal of the game: the first team who reaches 10 points wins! The rules are a mix of rugby, basketball and handball. It was fun and we are definitely going back on Sunday! We will also see our second opera on Sunday: Madame Butterfly. Hopefully it will be as good as the one we saw last time...

Tuesday morning Saskia went to the office to find out what was wrong with our alarm system. She came back with the owner of the apartment to take a look at it and after a few calls he told us that the battery was low and needed to be replaced. Before he left, he told Saskia that we could always find another apartment if we weren't pleased with it. He was probably annoyed because Saskia mentioned our kitchen again, in which we still couldn't cook a decent meal! He did say they were coming to fix it on Monday, so we decided to wait until it was fixed before taking any decision. But later that afternoon I received a message from the office: With alarm system all is ok now. I supposed to give you an information that at 25th at 12 the agreement is finishing and Sveta do not want to prolong it, you should call the agency they do find some other option for you. Sorry! We were being kicked out of our apartment and we were only given 3 days to find a new one! Really funny... Luckily we weren't completely on our own, because many people offered to help us in our search for a new apartment.

We already found a new apartment yesterday! We now live together with Ellen, a full-time medical student from Norway. The place is bigger and the rent is much cheaper! So, we are very pleased with it! Hopefully we can stay in this apartment until the end of our Erasmus. If not, we know now that we can pack our bags in less than 2 hours :) I will take some pictures of the place soon! This is our new address: Brivibas iela 183 – 9, LV-1012 Rīga, Latvia.

We handed in the keys of our old apartment today. They wanted us to be there on Thursday morning for inspection, but they can stick that... Afterwards I went with Saskia to her new employers: the second important guy of the Italian embassy in Riga and his wife. Saskia is being asked to babysit their 14 year old daughter, because they have to go to Lithuania for a couple of days. So, I accompanied Saskia to their apartment: wow! It would be perfect for one of those interior design magazines :) She'll enjoy herself there for sure!

Module 1 is nearly finished… only 3 more days to go! My exam of Foreign Policy Analysis will be on 3/10 at 10h00. Wish me luck! My first essays of International Political Economy were ‘really very good’ Funny guy!

That’s it for now! Atā!