Holiday experiences

Hello friends of the declining Occident,

well - it can happen so fast - I have summer vacation and have had it for two weeks already. During the first week, I enjoyed Liepaja, went cycling to the Baltic Sea every day for a swim, and in the following week, I ventured more into the northeast of Latvia (as far as I could manage the directions). Already on Friday evening, I drove to Lielvarde with Gertners, my family, to visit relatives, as I had to travel to Riga in the morning and the journey from Lielvarde is much more pleasant. So, on Saturday morning, I got on an old train (originally from Germany), had a nice trip, and met my exchange friends in Riga, with whom I continued by train to Cesis. We had a seminar under the theme "Paldies-Diena", to thank all the supporters of our exchange year, especially our host families. For this reason, we studied a song, the Cup-Song, but with a self-written text, one stanza in Latvian, the other in German. Otherwise, we wrote letters to beloved people, broke almost all YFU rules with the permission of the teamers, and relaxed in our artist residency, preferably on the great old oak and by the campfire ;).

After very little sleep, we finally rehearsed our song until the families gradually arrived. With them, we visited a castle in Cesis and visited an artist café. Cesis has a certain small-town-historical-vintage flair, which I thought was mega cool. We all returned to Rucka, our accommodation, and played group rock-paper-scissors with thirty-two groups, with the prize being a box of Ferrero Rocher. DRUM ROLLS: I made it to the final!!!!! AAAAND: I lost. But it was exciting. I won the first round, the second round was a tie, and in the third round, my final opponent, which meant there was a fourth round. But when it was time for "rock-paper-scissors" for the last time, Frieda's host sister ultimately won. The advantage of that: I visited Frieda after the meeting, so I did get a Ferrero after all. Finally, we performed our song, although I messed up the clapping every time, but as long as people think it's a nonverbal canon, everything is fine. The host families received certificates and sweets, we didn't get anything, but we had a great time. In the evening, I drove with Frieda's lovely family to their place in Baldone, where I petted their cat, Goldbergs, and had dinner on the terrace in the evening light.

Then my trip with Fiona and Frieda began: We spent Monday in Baldone, Frieda had a certificate ceremony at the art school, so I took the opportunity to look at the works of the students, which honestly impressed me considering that the students are usually between 11 and 13 years old. The students were supposed to draw their teachers together, although I didn't know anyone, but I drew some plants on the paper. Together with Fiona, we went for a bike ride since our original plan was to go climbing. When we arrived at the forest with our bikes, we realized that the climbing park was closed, but that was not a problem for us. We cycled around the area a bit more, sang, and Frieda baked a chocolate-cherry cake for her siblings, which apparently tasted very good to them ;). Fiona went back to Bauska, I stayed at Frieda's place and on Tuesday we went to Bauska. There we went to a castle, but only visited the park. Due to the scorching heat, we made ourselves comfortable in the shade of a hedge on a meadow, had a picnic, and chatted about all sorts of things. After this outing, Frieda returned to Baldone, I stayed with Fiona and Mudite, her super lovely host grandmother. In the evening, Fifi, Fiona, and I discovered a nice bathing spot by the river, not the Baltic Sea, but a good way to cool off after 33 degrees during the day. Our last stop was Riga, where we played cards in the park, received strawberries as gifts, ate some and gave some away, and went to the German embassy because Frieda needed a certificate of good conduct. Everything went faster than planned, so we still had time to go out for a meal, and afterward, we sat back in the park and relaxed. We went to our respective bus stops together and said goodbye. Strange feeling, I won't see Fiönchen again until the flight home... Fortunately, Frieda will visit Liepaja once more, and then Johanna, who unfortunately was not at Paldies-Diena because she had to work as a model for her designer host mother :). On a cool express bus to Liepaja, I let the time we spent together sink in and got off at Grobina.