Life in Latvia

If you go to www.schmap.com and check out their Rome map and pictures — specifically the section about Palatine — you’ll find one of my shots from my 2009 Rome trip. The photo is one of many the Schmap people chose from Flickr.com members. Woot. My picture is now one of hundreds of others for the Rome guide:

http://www.schmap.com/rome/toppicks_attractions/#r=none&mapview=Map&tab=Places&p=9457&topleft=41.89177,12.48413&bottomright=41.88723,12.48715&i=9457_71.jpg

Look around by clicking the right or left arrow of the Palatine pictures on the right side of the screen. Eventually you may find mine

This week has been fairly gruelling health-wise. It’s amazing how something small like an accidental bite to the inner lip can result in a canker sore so painful I have to literally go home after work and sleep. It’s hard to eat, drink, talk, laugh. Sometimes it’s just painful to sit and do nothing. Seems like the “injury” is located at a kind of nerve centre, so the pain shoots up through my jaw and into my ears. GREAT times.

This is just a short entry to showcase the absolute absurdity or universal greatness (depending on how you look at it) that is Medicine in Latvia.

I’ve received recommendations from almost everyone as to what I should do/administer/not do regarding this canker sore. I am not allowed to drink juice, eat fruits, or spicy, hard or abrasive foods. Basically, anything with real flavour is off limits. If you know me, you know how miserable this has made me the past five days.

After realising that obsessively applying a numbing agent meant for teething children (the alcohol in the ingredients may actually be doing more harm than good), I have turned to other remedies. Baking soda, salt water, black tea bags, hydrogen peroxide. Ouch, blech, ouch and nothing.

After my numerous “consultations”, I have decided that doing nothing that will make the canker sore hurt will be the best course of action. I understand that it may take the sore a full two weeks to heal, but COME ON. I can’t do this that much longer.

Now I’m down to using something called “Faringo Spray”, which is basically a mixture of seabuckthorn and calendula oils. Faringo Spray is first and foremost intended to be used as a throat spray for sore or infected throats, but per instruction leaflet extends to uses related to general infections of the mouth and (here comes the absurd/great part) is even listed as being good for outer injuries such as cuts, burns and rashes.

I understand that natural oils have many purposes, but I can’t get over the fact that the spectrum of things this medicine is supposed to heal is SO WIDE. And random. Burns? Seriously.

This morning I stopped off at the pharmacy before work and picked up something called “Kanistad N”, which is usually recommended for people with dental prosthetics to heal mouth sores and irritations. According to my relatives AND the lady at the pharmacy, this stuff is supposed to be ace. I read something online about a kind of paste or liquid meant to heal mouth sores that turns your teeth blue — so I’m glad I wasn’t recommended this stuff.

Another thing recommended (and heeded) was to take Ibuprofen. Since my “big stash” is at work, I picked up a smaller pack for a whopping LVL 0.25 (that’s USD 0.50). I was about to buy more, but this Latvian Ibuprofen has an expiry date in March. MARCH. This medicine will be good for the next MONTH, at best. Which leads me to wonder — what the crap is in this stuff that renders it useless in such a short amount of time?

My grandmother recommended that I simply chew or suck on Tums tablets (many websites recommend swishing Malox around your mouth for a few minutes) to neutralise the pH level in my mouth. I ate my last calcium-fortified Tums tablet over four months ago, but had a pack of Gas-X chewable tablets my mother had sent me. I will say this once: GAS-X IS NOT THE SAME AS TUMS. Oh, God, is it ever not the same. That was a burning, unholy mistake I will never, ever make again.

Other simple at-home remedies include drinking chamomile tea. Which I’m not a huge fan of doing, but let me tell you, was I EVER chilled out last night. Whoa, man. Whoa.

Next time I will write about the whole repatriation business. So until then I’m going to keep trying to nurse my poor mouth back to health with these Latvian wonder-meds.

I’m feeling entirely unmotivated right now. Maybe it’s certain factors that aren’t really working to my advantage that are making it more difficult to BECOME motivated. For example, I was fully prepared to book an instructor to go start learning how to snowboard tomorrow. But the place I was looking at is not easy to get to with public transportation and doesn’t have a bus stop anywhere near it, although buses do drive by it. So now I don’t know what to do. I guess wait, maybe rent a car and go? But even that would end up being too expensive.

This just feels like a week that will take a while to get through.

Saturday I took my god-daughter to see “The Princess and the Frog”. It was the first time I had been to an animated movie that had complete and “professional” Latvian language dubbing. For the most part it was tolerable, except that most of the male-sung songs sounded more like schlager music than Disney music. But it was a good experience. I might borrow my cousin’s kids again this weekend to go see “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”. Of course it will be great to spend more time with immediate family, but let’s be serious, I don’t want to be that lone, creepy adult sitting in on a kids’ film.

My back and neck seem to have be almost entirely recovered. This is fantastic news to me, considering it only took three 30-minute sessions to undo 3 weeks of pain.

It’s snowing again today in Riga. This means more days spent traversing the different barriers put up on sidewalks so roof cleaners can push the pounds and pounds of snow off the buildings and onto the street. This is something I didn’t see or just plain missed last winter. It’s kind of neat to see people up on the roofs shovelling snow, and people standing on the opposite side of the street with their heads tipped back to watch them do so. It’s the winter equivalent of gathering to watch someone repair their car or motorcycle.

Ugh. I even lack the motivation to make connections throughout this post. Next one will be an enlightening update about repatriation vs. residential permits!

Today I went in for two consultations.

The first one was a form of physical therapy cum massage, during which I basically got a massage. The woman I went to see was recommended to me by a co-worker who has known the woman for some time. Though the better part of the consultation (pretty great that the consultations are so hands-on some of the time) was mostly trying to work out the ridiculous stiffness in my right shoulder and shoulder blade, a tiny part at the beginning was spent with my head being suspended with the help of a strap, then turned this way and that. This ended up being to make sure the problem wasn’t in my spine. The best part of all of it? Massages like this are (rightly) considered a medical procedure, in my case is most likely a result of my working conditions and is covered by my insurance. Which I paid for, I know, but still.

The goal is to get me in for another 9 sessions to knock this thing out of my park, so to speak.

The second consultation was with a dentist, to determine if the apparent upward-crescent shaped wear in the bottom of my right front tooth (hah, seems as if the entire right side of my body is having troubles) was actually a wear, or a chip, and if it could be fixed. It’s pretty widely known that Latvian dentists have good reputations for being skilled, efficient, and inexpensive. Many practices advertise to tourists who are looking for “medical vacation” options. Anyway, I went to the consultation and was told by the dentist that I had a few options for fixing what he determined was a chip in the enamel of my tooth. One was to fill it in with the same stuff used for filling cavities, but which would probably fall out within a week to a month later. Another option was to get ceramic caps, I guess they would be, which would be the most drastic option. Then he remembered he could always kind of “buff down” the corner of the chipped tooth to make it look even. When he said “buff”, I heard “file”. I said it seemed to make more sense than a filling.

So I’m sitting in the patient’s chair, thinking about how I’m going to have to decide on what to do, then make another appointment, when the back of my chair is moving down and the dentist takes the buffer/filer and I have just enough time to realise what is about to happen and open my mouth. Water droplets fly everywhere to the whir of the buffer. I’m handed a mirror, and then I lose it. I laugh so hard form the bottom of my stomach up that the dentist and his assistant just look at me for a few moments before nervously laughing with and asking what is going on. But I’m laughing too hard to accurately explain that something like that would NEVER happen in America; there would be questions, new appointments made, lots of murmuring and thinking… I manage to say something about how everything looks good and it’s great, but it’s just so damn funny to come in for a consultation and next thing you know your teeth are being filed down.

The dentist stopped me there and said it wasn’t “filing”, but “buffing”. So I kept laughing, this time with him and the assistant laughing with me. Then the dentist says “Well, there’s nothing really for me to do here”, then tells me I can go see the hygienist if I want, so my trip here isn’t wasted. And I did. I waited 30 minutes, but I had thought to bring a book and wasn’t bothered. All in all… a very good day for medical visits. I have yet to be disappointed by dentists in Latvia, though I’ve only seen three specialists to date.

I also think I did well enough on the written and analogies part of the GRE to make up for how shameful the math section will turn out

For the shortest month, February is going to take a really long time.

I’m scheduled to take the GRE exam this coming Saturday, will be performing for about an hour the Friday after that with some of the members from a folk group “Saviesi” at a European youth association meeting. Or something. We’ll be playing some “danchi”, or dances, which are something between “rotaljas” (games) and folk dances. It’s a bit hard to explain it. The easiest thing is to just see what “danchi” are and then put the word to the action.

At some point I also really really REALLY want to make it out to Sigulda to start learning how to snowboard. My learner-in-crime was sick this past weekend, so that fell through. This weekend is filled with tests and farewell parties for a few close friends and the weekend after at least two of my friends, if not three or four, will be heading for their “ski break” to Egypt. They’re planning on Sharm el-Sheik and just basking in the sun. I can’t say I’m entirely bummed out about this; I don’t think I’d  be ready for Egypt again so soon.

If absolutely everyone leaves Latvia during that time, I’m just going to go learn how to snowboard myself. The weather has been excellent for this the past two days — we’ve gotten many much snow (6″+ or ~20cm+) in the past day, and a bit more overnight yesterday. It’s enough to make me literally stop in my tracks and wonder if I shouldn’t fake sick and just go roll in the snow in another city.

I have other things on my mind that will keep me busy during the month as well. One is putting together goodies for birthdays Others are things I don’t quite yet want to write about because I’d rather not get people prematurely excited.

On another note, a few of us might go check out the last Dinamo Riga (hockey) game of the month. Against Moscow. Wooooot.

January is almost done! Wow. I thought I wrote something a week ago, or at least had a draft going, but it turns out that was all in my head. Like one of those dreams you have right after your alarm goes off where you think “Well, time to get dressed” and physically feel like you’re getting out of bed and are putting clothes on and are just about to go out the bedroom door when… the alarm goes off again and you realise you’re still in bed, in your pajamas and with your shirt magically turned around completely backwards.

I’m a restless sleeper.

Anyway, January has been an interesting month in Riga. My dad was here visiting and taking care of research until mid-month. While he was here we spent time with relatives, did a bit of visiting away from Riga, watched some fish be fed, saw a few plays/shows and generally hung out and exchanged knowledge of memes and viral videos.

The two plays we saw were both put on by the Jaunais Rigas Teatris (New Riga Theatre), respectively “Klusuma skanas” (The Sound of Silence) and “Vectevs” (Grandfather). Both were fantastic, as is to be expected. If you’re ever in Riga and are looking for a good theatre performance, check in with JRT first. If you’re lucky enough to land some tickets (buy them online in advance if possible; they sell out fast), almost every show comes highly recommended. As an added bonus for those tourists who DON’T speak or understand Latvian, JRT has two plays that I know of where knowledge of the national language is not necessary. “Gara dzive” (A Long Life) and “Klusuma skanas” are both directed by Alvis Hermanis (a genius of a man, if I may say so.) and are entirely dialogue-less plays. Emphasis is placed on actions, and it is truly amazing to see that words really aren’t that needed all the time. “Gara dzive” is a look at older Latvians and the daily lives they lead, most likely as retirees. “Klusuma skanas” was a later production but counts as the “prequel” to “Gara dzive” and takes the audience through the hippie movement in Latvia. Also fascinating. There are very well timed moments of laughter, seriousness, heartache, etc. And again, both highly, HIGHLY recommended.

Now I’m back to work, have taken two sick days, have continued with my Rosetta Stone Japanese lessons and have been to two of my three trial lessons in Russian language offered through the company I work for. I’m not sure if I’ll keep up with the Russian lessons, as knowing the language isn’t required for my position and doesn’t change my position, and because I’m not able to understand the simple commands the teacher gives the others (some of my co-workers) in the class. They’ve grown up in Latvia and if they haven’t spoken Russian now and then since they were little, they’ve at least heard it on a subconscious level. I, on the other hand, just stare blankly at the teacher when she says something as simple as “Kaija, will you please read the next sentence?” I recognise my name, the word please and the formal “you”. Instead I think I’ll just keep up with one-on-one lessons with one of my Russian co-workers who has been kind enough and excited enough to give me lessons on an as-possible basis.

The Rosetta Stone is an interesting product… I’ve learned some sentences (like “The little boy(s)/girls(s)/woman(en)/man(en) is/are drinking water”) that I would never really use on a daily basis, but the point is that I can say them. I am aware that the point is to introduce simple vocabulary and sentence structure, and I kind of like it! Using that structure, I can input any variety of animate objects and subjects receiving action to get an entirely new sentence. Such as: “Neko wa mizu wo nondeimasu!” or “The cat is drinking water!” Which is a sentence that I clearly WOULD use on a daily basis. Now all I need to learn is “The cat is peeing on your bag” or “The cat is pretending to rip your face off in the middle of the night”. One step at a time, this language acquisition business.

Yesterday, after an almost solid 48 hours of sleeping and sitting in one place to pre-combat this coughing cold sinus thing, a group of friends and I went to the Riga zoo. At night. Oh yes, at night. They’re having some kind of deal until the end of the month: from 4-6 p.m., tickets are only LVL 1 and the zoo is open until 8 p.m. Camels in the dark! Outside was horrifically cold, but the indoor exhibits were a welcome change and it was feeding time for most of the animals, so we got to see them standing in one place instead of hiding from people. Some of the animals seemed to be affected by the cold, but when there’s a bin of apples and carrots in front of you, seriously, who cares!?

It’s supposed to get warmer by the end of next week and snow, as well. This will be a nice change considering the entire country has been hovering near -20 to -30ºC all week/end. It will be around -5ºC by this coming Friday, which means I get to officially drag people out to Sigulda to do some snowboarding. Sorry, that makes me sound too cool. To LEARN how to do some snowboarding. Yes, much better. I’m sure I’ll have some kind of story for that…

Riga has been nicely frosted over the past two days. I’m excited to take my new tripod out for its first outdoor spin today after work. I’ve been waiting all day to get back outside and get some shots of the parks while they look this nice and fairytale-like.

I’ve also had the iTunes free download of the week, “This is a New Year” by Ian Axel, featuring Chad Vaccarino, on loop for the past 48 hours. It’s a great, simple, upbeat and hope-filled song that I can’t seem to get enough of. 2010 has had a bit of a stressful start for me, and a rocky and crap-filled start for others; this track seems to be herald something everyone could use a little bit of right about now.

Anyway, because there are only (based on Google.com search results) about 4 or 5 websites that list the entire lyrics to the song, I thought I’d jump on that bandwagon to up the hit count. Lo and behold, “This is a New Year”:

Another year you made a promise
Another chance to turn it all around
And do not save this for tomorrow
Embrace the past and you can live for now
And I will give the world to you

Speak louder than the words before you
And give them meaning no one else has found
The role we play is so important
We are the voices of the underground
And I will give the world to you

Say everything you’ve always wanted
Be not afraid of who you really are
‘Cause in the end we have each other
And that’s at least one thing worth living for
And I would give the world to you

A million suns that shine upon me
A million eyes you are the brightest blue
Let’s tear the walls down that divide us
And build a statue strong enough for two

I pass it back to you
And I will wait for you
‘Cause I would give the world
And I would give the world
And I would give the world to you

This is a new year
A new beginning
You made a promise
You are the brightest
We are the voices
This is a new year
We are the voices
This is a new year

Epic fail for me this morning.

Last night I went with a friend as a guest to the gym she goes to. Quite the Eastern European experience. Other than a few guys working out, I think I was the only woman in the place wearing running shorts. There was one woman with a kind of onesie tennis skirt thing and leggings that looked like the spandex delivery guys wear in the winter as they bike across the city. I can’t imagine working out indoors with long pants, unless the place is highly air-conditioned.

The gym was decent as far as gyms go. I was glad to see they even have the unmarked bottles of “disenfectant”, which could be a combination of any number of abrasive and clear cleaning liquids, used to wipe down the machines after use.

Anyway, after a good 30 minute run and lots of post stretching at the gym, I went home and slept wonderfully. So wonderfully, in fact, that I got to work 1.5 hours late. My alarm went off at 08.00, I hit snooze twice, and all of a sudden it was 09.30. I checked two other clocks, including my father’s mobile phone, before I was convinced I was not hallucinating.

I called in to tell one project manager about my fail, and to have him send a project due at 10.00 to my home computer, and he laughed. Then proceeded to tell the rest of the office of my fail. At least everyone else got to start their Friday in-office with a chuckle.

The real reason behind this post, however, is that I just discovered it IS possible to pre-order bus tickets on the Internets! Bezrindas.lv, literally “No lines”, is a dandy little website that lets you order tickets and have them sent to your e-mail in .pdf format, OR (I’m getting giddy) sent to your mobile phone! How green is that?

Happy New Year to everyone! New Year’s Eve in Riga was pretty fantastic. I was lucky enough to be able to combine friends and family; people came over to the apartment, where we visited, snacked, melted and poured lead to “predict our 2010 fortunes” and drank some pre-2010 champagne. At 23.30 we pulled on our coats and shoes and rushed to the square in front of the Freedom Monument, making it there literally 10 seconds before the New Year. 2010 arrived with fireworks, more champagne, part poppers and lots of picture-taking. Again, I felt really blessed to have been able to spend the evening with some great, close friends and family, my father included. We managed to eventually call through to the States, wish my grandparents all the best, and my mom all the best in the New Year (through my mother I got to speak to my aunt, too, since I caught my mother at church right before she was to go give the first reading). After taking pictures of people dressed as nuns, chickens and rabbits, we all headed to the Dome Square for some mulled wine and, and, AND! sledding down the small hill to the lower yard in front of the Dome Cathedral. I hadn’t been sledding in YEARS and even though I was wearing a skirt I was more than thrilled to get the chance to do so again. The sled was a kind of lacquered plywood about 7′ long. Very… minimalistic, but it got the job done. My father and I finally made it back home around 03.00, at which time we deemed it far enough into the New Year to open a sort of “New Year’s present” from one of our relatives. We knew the present was books and we’re book people, so waiting much longer to look at what they were wouldn’t have happened anyway.

One of the books is this absolutely fantastic “The Big Guide to Riga Architecture“. It describes a great deal of buildings around the city, both in the centre and out of it, showing a modern picture, a small copy of the original blueprint and a short write-up of what the building is/was meant to be. Many of these buildings are buildings I’ve passed on a daily or weekly basis and have had no idea what their deal was. It’s a bunch of mini history lessons in a very non-boring format. I plan on stocking up on copies and gifting them to people.

This week is the first full week of the New Year. It was nice having two back-to-back three-day work weeks, and I’m surprised that I don’t feel like it should be Friday today.

Last night my father and I went to see “Klusuma skanjas” (The Sounds of Silence) at the Muzeum of Art and Theatre. The funny thing about that was that we thought the play was going to be at the New Riga Theatre in the city centre, but at 10 minutes to show time figured out that the venue was NOT the New Riga Theatre and that the actual venue was across the river in some previously unknown location. But since the play is based off of movement and expression alone (that’s right, ZERO) dialogue, it is not only a brilliant play to see (and take non-Latvian speaking people to), but it is also less of a big deal if you miss the first 20 minutes of it. I’m a fan of the director, Alvis Hermanis, and have seen his original “no-dialogue” play “Gara dziive” (A Long Life). I recommend both.

And now for the reason this post seemed important: we had dinner at the Theatre Bar Restaurant (through the courtyard behind the actual New Riga Theatre; there’s a regular Theatre Bar across the street), which has a very unique menu and has a very kitschy yet not annoying interior. The food is also good. If you end up in the area of the New Riga Theatre (on Lacplesu Street), pop in for a quick bite or drink. The prices are decent, and their cauliflower-eggplant cream soup with pumpkin seeds is absolutely mouth-watering.

Oooh, happy 3/4 of the holiday season!  I spent Christmas eve with my cousin and her lovely family. We ate goose, listened to poems recited and songs sung to earn the joy of opening presents and watched the tree warily to make sure it didn’t light on fire. Some of the ornaments did, but the tree itself stayed safe all night. Toward the end of the evening I got socked in the mouth by my goddaughter’s head and got to stand in the kitchen with an ice pack to my face and spitting blood for a few minutes. I still have all my teeth, but the cuts on the bottom part of my mouth still hurt a bit. This was probably subconscious payback for that time she hit her face on my knee and got a bloody nose. So we’re even, right? RIGHT?!! I am now being teased that I am incapable of walking away from a visiting session with my cousin’s family without any blood having been shed. We’re full of talent like that.

I got home just past midnight, I think, stayed awake for 3 more hours, then slept for an hour before waking myself up to call back to the States to wish people there a Merry Christmas. I got a little video-chat time in with the festivities going on at my mom’s house, and a surround-sound speaker phone effect when calling my dad and grandparents (I called my dad via Skype, then my grandparents called me on my cell phone…and no one thought to hang up one of the two calls. I don’t know what happened there…). Christmas morning — or day, since I slept in until 13.00 — I hauled myself out to my friend Ilze’s house (while Ilze is outside the country, I’m making sure her cat survives the winter) where I kept her cat some holiday company and continued to relax.

People, I did so much sleeping in those four days it was DELICIOUS.  Three day weeks should happen more often. This week is another three day week; today I drove out with a few colleagues to Malpils, where we were scheduled to go spend some time with residents at an assisted living centre. But then the girl who was supposed to sing them some songs got sick. And then when we got to Malpils (an hour’s drive from Riga) we were told by the administrator that the majority of the residents and some staff were sick with this nasty flu+vomiting+diarrhea virus that’s spreading around faster than H1N1 on horseback through a wildfire. It took a few moments of deliberation, but we decided it would be best to just leave the dessert pretzel, mandarins and candies at the front desk, have the administrator say “Hello” to the residents for us, and left. It was too bad we weren’t able to visit, but I had a similar virus two years ago and would rather miss an opportunity to do a good deed than be stuck halfway between my bed and the toilet for a week and a half. Thanks, but no thanks.

On a slight side note, I will mention that the assisted living centre in Malpils looked really nice from the outside. The one we went to in Riga with the Martin choir wasn’t that pleasant to look at and it’s all I can do to hope that both places treat their residents (and as such, clients) with the respect and care they need and deserve.

Now I’m just a short while from another four day weekend. Tonight I’m going to a year-end concert with my dad (who is in Latvia now, HURRAH!) and some relatives. Last year’s concert blew my mind, so I’m extremely excited for this one. After tonight, sleep, glorious sleep! Then off to the store tomorrow morning to prepare for our New Year’s party tomorrow night. My first time with family PLUS friends. I have butterflies in my stomach. Will all go well? Will people enjoy themselves? Oh, the suspense!

Once more, happy new year to everyone! I’ll be hitting 2010 approximately 7 - 8 hours before most of you. I’ll let you know how it starts out