November 18, 2010

So yesterday, we had an assembly at school. It was for Latvijas dzimšanas diena, the 18th of November (today). And basically, there were two different choirs from our school, a couple of solo singers, and four girls dressed in traditional Latvian dresses saying stuff about Latvia and two other speakers. Then at the end, we played "Dzimtā Valoda" by Līvi. The first assembly was for the 7th and 8th graders, then the 9th and 10th graders, then the 11th and 12th graders. Personally, the best assembly was the 11th and 12th graders. Much more responsive to all of the performances made by everybody. One guy who was a really good singer, sang an apparently really popular song and then a second song for the last one. When we played for the final performance, it went really well. After we finished, they wanted us to play more, and so we did. The drummer started out with an average speed tempo, then we both looked at each other and said that we should play something fast. It was great!! Deeply satisfied. :D But I noticed that nobody filmed the entire assembly! There was a photographer, but nobody filming. Oh well, it was reallyy fun. :D

Today, is Latvia's birthday, and there is going to be fireworks at night, and light shows all around Rīga. I'm going to go to Rīga, visit Allie in the hospital, again, and then go to see "Shining Rīga" (the light shows). It will be cool. :D And there is already a Christmas tree in front of Origo, the train station. The tradition of having and decorating a Christmas tree started here in Rīga. :D

November 13, 2010

On Monday, my class went on an excursion to a place where there was a battle on Christmas Eve, if I remember correctly. The entire excursion was really fun and at one point, the tour guide person dude asked me my name in Latvian, but I couldn't answer. Nor did I understand what he said. It was so basic that I should have understood, but no... :/ Anyways, at one point, we all put on WWII gas masks and had a small competition of the Latvians against the Germans. I was on the German team. The competition was to put on the gas mask, and then run through a little course and beat the other team. Nobody knew who won. In the latter part of the excursion, we took torches and walked a good little time into the swamp to a monument. The monument was a large wooden sword and though nobody translated this part of the excursion, I know that it was something really important, cause there was no laughing and atmosphere had a sense of import to it. After the man finished speaking, a bunch of  fireworks shot up from behind the monument. It was cool.

On Tuesday in choir, we were given a song in English to sing!! It was the "One Horse Open Sleigh". I got all excited, then the choir teacher said, "now we will translate the lyrics to Latvian." while looking at me haha. Then he wondered if I could say a certain word in Latvian. I found it was similar to the word "Šķiņķis", which means ham. It's also my favorite word in Latvian, it's just fun to say! But its still fun despite the fact that its translated to Latvian and not in the original melody. The other song we were given is called "Ak Svēti Nakts" and it sounds like a really calm song.

On Wednesday, the people in my class wanted me to bring my football (not soccer ball :P) to sports class so we could throw around a bit. Not much happened on Wednesday...It's a lazy day. Classes start at 10:00 for class 11E and it's just really short.

Thursday, the choir teachers weren't there because they were in New York for their job. They both sing in a professional choir, go figure. So no choir that I knew of. So I hung out with Artūrs and threw the football with another guy from our school, Rihards. We went to the park, it is like Central Park, except small, and in Rīga. That's what I think of it at least. When we were there, there were these seventh graders who were REALLY annoying. They kept repeating everything we said, and I noticed that right when the National Guard went to the top of the hill, they left, immediately. Artūrs threw the ball off the hill once by accident, so did I, and we had to chase the ball down the hill having to jump down a couple places cause the hill was made more or less like a terrace. It was fairly close to the moat (yes there is a legit moat!!) So we ran to get it before the ball bounced into it. But it never did. It was a fun day. :D

Friday was band practice day and I also had to give a presentation in the freshman English class. It went well and this one kid, who was very curious about America and Thailand, asked many questions, as you can imagine. During band practice, I had the four-string fretless bass that my neighbor let me borrow. The practice went well and afterward, me and the drummer, Nils, I think, had a good jam session and it was set at a fast pace. So it was really fun. We have a concert on the 17th of November and I am excited. :D It's going great.

:D

November 6, 2010

I had a choir concert on Thursday the 4th. It went really well! Two nights before the concert was the last rehearsal before the concert and that went well cause we only did a certain amount of the songs that we actually sang. But that night, after the rehearsal, the choir teacher gave me about five-six songs to learn... I ended up not looking at them until the warm-up on the day of the concert. :/ But despite that, I was able to sing the songs!!! to some degree at least... and another choir came and joined us. That was what the other songs were for, singing in a collaborated choir. The songs we sang were: "Latvju Zeme Vaļā Stāv", "Miķeļa Tirgus", "Lačabērni", "Tiltu Zvani Dunēt Sāk", "Zida Sparniem, Vienos Pelnos", "Mosties, Celies, Strādā", "Mana Dziesma", "Saule, Pērkons, Daugava", "Tā Dziedāja Martiņš", "Septiņi Brīnumi", "Daugavas Kraustā", and "Garais Starpbrīdis". They were all fun to sing. :D The director of the school was surprised to see me in the choir. I don't know why, I told him that I joined the choir. Oh well. After the concert, there was a party in the concert hall. I went to that and it was fun.

On Wednesday the 3rd, Fabiola, Allie and I had to go to the Immigration Department to get our Residency Permits. It took a while, but at least I got to leave school early that day. I also brought my football to the school and threw it around a bit in the hallway on the fourth floor. At the Immigration Department, I noticed that the Missionaries walked in. They were from Idaho and Oregon, and they were getting a residency permit for their new companion from Alberta, Canada. So i started up a conversation with them, and then Ieva and Allie noticed, Allie got excited, and then when I had to get the residency permit, Allie started to barrage them with questions. Then, when the missionaries were leaving, the most senior companion gave Allie his personal copy of the Book of Mormon, in Latvian. So now she has one! :D

Yesterday, I went to a school rock band thingy's practice. Like i said last time, I am going to play bass for them. We are playing Dzimtā Valoda by Līvi. I didn't practice with them yesterday becuase I didn't know when we were going to practice and therefore didn't have the bass. I think Im going to use the four-string fret-less bass, cause Kirils needed the five-string fretted to record a song. (He is my neighbor who is letting my borrow a bass) But I just got finished learning the song today. It's very easy for bass. And next friday or anytime sooner, we have another practice. It will be fun. :D

Halloween and such. (11.01.2010)

So last week I had a break in school. So me and Allie decided to go on vacation and we chose to go to Liepāja. It's in the west of Latvia. It was fun. In the middle of Liepāja there is a giant guitar and near it, hand-prints of famous Latvian musicians. By some park, there was a giant drum set! It was cool to see. And the leaves on the trees there were all changing colors and most of them were a brilliant yellow color. We went walking around at night, just going places, and there was this one car that zipped around the corner really fast. It scared the heck out of us. I think it was a BMW too! The hotel we stayed in was the Fontaine Hotel. We were allowed to make anything we wanted in the kitchen, so we did. One night, we made some weird bread thing that I thought looked like a tortilla. Then Allie was complaining about having a sore throat, and eventually, on the last day, she went to the hospital.

On the day before Halloween, I went with a couple friends, Ieva Slišāne, Anna Bluķe, another Ieva (I forget her last name), to a party. There, we met up with Jānis Ruško and his friend (whose name escapes me...), Martiņš, Gustars Šulcs, Napon Suzuki and Mint. We were there until 3am or so. There we danced, and played a card game called "We Will Rock You". It was basically a game of rhythm, obviously to the beat of We Will Rock You. You had to perform hand motions on beat to the rhythm, and if you missed it, the you would get a bomb card. If you messed up, you had to give all you action cards to someone else and then they'd have to perform their original action AND the actions of the cards you gave them. We piled them onto Gustars at one point and it was fun. After the party, we all went our ways. Aija said that it would be better to stay at someones house, and Ieva said that it was no problem staying at hers. So went there along with the other Ieva, made pizza, and tea, talked until 5am, and then went to bed. That same day, we woke up at about 11 or so, made breakfast and hung around for awhile. Then i decided to go home, after looking at Ieva's paintings and drawings (which were really good) at about 2. I wasn't home until about 5 or 6 pm. When I got home, i had thirty minutes or so to eat, get cleaned up, look formal-ish, and then go to another house for a dinner. We went to the flat of one of the acquaintances of my host-family. The flat was amazingly lavished! So yeah there we had dinner (obviously) and after, we played Uno after a little bit of playing on the drum-set their son had. I learned how to play the drum-line to "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Starlight" by Muse (just the intro/main part). So that was fun too. :D

When I went to pick up the package that my family sent me, I forgo to grab my passport...I realized this on the train to Carnikava... But I wrote down my number on a card that my dad gave me when he handed me my passport. So it was all good. Getting the package took like twenty minutes and I was using like three different forms of ID that I had with me, my California ID, Passport number card thingy, and my ISIC (International Student Identification Card). I got it, then waited like an hour to catch the next train to Kalngale. It is something I do not look forward to doing again in the future.

In school, some dude asked me to play in the school band. Not an orchestral band, but a rock band. This school doesn't have a school team, but has a school rock band?? Forši. So they told me to learn Dzimtā Valoda by Līvi. I will eventually. I just haven't found a good tab for it. So that's kinda it.

Update finally! (08.10.2010)

So I have a lot to update about...I kinda forgot to do it and when I set time to do it, I got sick... yeah. So Basically there was an International Dialogue Day on September 30th. It was fun. The opening part was kinda boring only cause I couldn't understand what they were saying. It was basically Karlina Vīksna and Ieva Vīksna opening it, with some other speakers like Tachy Cazal, who is the AFS International President. He's a funny guy. They asked where everybody was from, by blurting out countries names. Since Allie and I were the only Americans, I decided to yell out a bit. It was good. It felt tense in the room, to me, and it kinda let things down. After the opening part, we went across a street into another building where the party would soon start. But before that, we had to make presentations and do a couple activities and draw circles. The presentations went well and was basically about what we thought is where the most intercultural learning is taking place from the perspective of the exchange students. Then was the circles. Yes, we literally sat there drawing circles for five to ten minutes. It was to get only the positive thoughts into out minds and don't worry, 500 other people around Europe did the same...not just us crazy people over here in Latvia. After the circles, a band started playing and the party started. I gave my camera to Artūrs...He goes crazy with pictures if you give him one. So that night we were all just kinda meeting people and making new friends, except for the dancers, they were dancing...

AFS 20th Anniversary Events (October 1st-3rd)
The next day, October 1st, was AFS Latvia's 20th anniversary. We met at the Brīvdabas Musejs (Open-Air Museum) and we saw all the AFS people dressed in traditional Latvian costumes. We had to slow run around a building for a piece of Rupjmaize, which is Latvian Bread. It's black and is made only in Latvia. I still don't understand why we had to slow run, nobody ever explained. But after, we had lunch. WE went on a small little walk to another area where they served more traditional Latvian foods. It's actually really good. The food we ate were some kind of bean (I don't know the name) with what looked like quinoa, with a sauce on top. It was good, but I till don't know what was in the sauce. Then we walked back to the place that we began. There was the Rīgas Sarkan Koirs that came and sang somewhere in the day. They were good!:D We did a bunch of workshops, and Artūrs told me to provide music. So I did. I decided to bring Eva's guitar last minute and it apparently was a good idea. So I sat alone, while everyone else was working, with the exception of a few people coming over to say hi, like Madara, Katherine, and Gustars. Gustars was confused at what I was doing...It was kinda  obvious as to what I was doing...I was playing. After the workshops, there was dancing! Traditional Latvian dances of course. They were both partner dances, and the first one was really simple and kinda slow paced, and the second one, I think it was called the Tūdaliņ Tāgadiņ, was faster paced and a group dance. Four people in a circle (two guys and two girls) and dance. I don't really know how to explain it though...there was a shortage of dancers, so I was in a circle with three other girls. Later that night we went to a dinner at a restaurant which was actually a really cool place. It was underground and looked cool. We just sat around talking there. There was this dude from Finland (his accent was cool!) there too. Someone approached him and said that he forgot who they were at some other event. And there he was, sitting there and trying to explain himself and apologizing. It was funny, but you would have to have been there.
The next day was a formal event. We met at the Rīgas Latvian Society House and the beginning, opening part was quite boring, again. Again Karlina introduced who was there. After that, we broke off into two groups: English Speaking, and Latvian Speaking. WE basically worked the time we were in those two groups. We were changing the Call for Action. It's about intercultural learning and how we can get more people to do it. We made it more efficient(?) and more interesting to the younger audiences. I found it quite boring to read at first though. Then was a coffee break (water break in my case) and then basically home. Later that night we went to a formal "ball" they called it, but I didn't see it so much as a ball. It was similar to the Mormon New Year's Dance except rather than dance/pop music, there was a live band playing jazzy music. Towards the beginning, there was a choir that came and sing, I forget the name of the choir but they were famous around Latvia. And there was this dude in the choir, he was hilarious to watch! He reminded me of the Will Ferrell from Blades of Glory. He was very entertaining to watch because of the facial expressions he made while singing! Then there was this other women in the choir who looked angry while singing...like she absolutely hated the director! It was entertaining. Then the ball started people started talking or dancing, or eating. It was fun. We got Eva online but nobody wanted to talk to her on Skype except me, Agnese and Aija. I didn't see Edgars during the ball. So it was kinda disappointing that nobody spoke to her about Costa Rica and her time down there. When we left, they gave us jars of medus (honey) which I had to help tie along with Ieva Slišāne and Rebeka (something) and there were a lot. So I'm glad that they were given to us for free. The next day was a guided tour around Old Rīga. I go to school in Old Rīga so I didn't need to go, but I went anyways. Karlina was our tour guide and she told us that she doesn't really know the history of Rīga. Later she told me that half the things she was saying were lies. hahah it was funny. So, when Karlina didn't want to talk, she told the Danish woman who was with us to explain it. She happened to be a historian. Bur she couln't explain it all in English, so she said it in Danish. It was cool to hear. There are a lot of cool places in Old Rīga and a lot of cool back-ways into little, secret, old fashioned looking places. Including a Black Magic restaurant!!

So on tuesday, I wasn't well at school so I went home straight after school. Apparently I got a virus that my neighbor had the week before. It sucks. I still have it but  I feel wayyy better. So I just sit in my bed and play guitar, and such. And sleeeeeeeppppp. It's good to catch up on some sleep.

Teachers' Day
Oh! So on September 1st, it was teachers' day at my school. So i decided to teach English (go figure) along with my friends Niks and Diāna. This was the same day that I brought the guitar to the AFS thing. If I had not done so, then we would be sitting in the class asking the American questions about the US. It got quiet at some points. There was this kid, who I found very creepy, staring at me the entire time, with a blank expression on his face, and the first time he speaks, he asks: "Do you have Skype?" I said yeah why? and he asked: "Can I have it." it didn't even sound like a question. More like a statement. That's the only thing he said the entire time. I didn't answer him but he then continued to stare at me the same exact way, blankly.

School
School here is going well! For some reason, I only receive marks in three of my classes: English, Biology, and Math. English, I'm top of the class. Biology I understand, many of the Latvian words are the same in English. Math I have a four. It's on a 10 point scale. This is because he math here is different the American math, when I figured it'd be the same. My skolotaj looks as if she is doing whatever she pleases to the equation. She doesn't accept some of my methods of solving some things. On a test, I rationalized the denominator cause I had a Square root down there. It was marked wrong and my teacher wrote "Kapec?? Tas nevari darīt." Basically means "Why? You can't do that." I hate the Math here. Last year, I switched from the easier class to honors. Now, I want to switch from the only math class, to an easier one. hahaha But she doesn't speak English. Only my Latvian Language teacher, psychology teacher, the director speak. Everyone else does not outside of saying Good Morning. So all my other classes are great, just not Math. I know Mr. Chrispeels sent this blog to the Poway high teachers so I figured I'd post something for them.

So that's it! If you want to know something, ask! :)

Today's excursion (22,09,2010)

So today our class went on a "learning" excursion. We went to the Mežaparks in Rīga. There we first played football for a while, and then ate lunch. BUT AFTER, we went to what was called Mežakaķis (forest cat) and that was a high COPE course. I thought that we were going to go rock climbing, but no...but this was great! First we had a little training exercise which basically taught us how to use the equipment and the proper safety procedures. Then we went to the green course, the easiest course and lowest to the ground. That consisted of some cool little things like having to walk through a net, walk on moving platforms 9they were planks of wood attached to ropes) and a zip line at the end. Then was the silver course. That one was I think the same height as the Green course, but was harder and longer, and with some different obstacles. I dont remember exactly which though. The silver course ended with another zip line, except it was longer. Then was the gold(?) course. It was harder, twice as high, and with the strong winds we were getting, quite wobbly. Oh yeah, and longer. The first thing we had to do was climb a ladder, then cross a gap, then climb another ladder. After the second ladder, we had to cross a gap by means of a barrel hanging from wires. After the barrel, we had to walk across a thin blue piece of what looked like tarp material. It was about 6-7 inches wide, so really nothing scary. Somewhere along the way, one classmate, Jolanta, got stuck on an obstacle somehow. It was the planks of wood hanging by two ropes and organized in a way that they were like a walkway with two foot gaps in between each other. But they were hanging and so they were now solid and quite hard to cross. She got stuck on this. So one of the guides, I guess, they weren't really guide-ish people, had to completely beast his way through to Jolanta to help her. When he finished helping her, everybody else started moving again. At this point, I had to zip line across a gap to a platform where we "Tarzan" jumped to a net. By the way, the platforms were about 3 feet long with a tree going through the center, so about a foot or so of walking space. The Tarzan jump was fun. There was a rope that you connected your carabeeners to, and swung to a net. it wasn't a long distance, but it wasn't a short distance either. When you hit the net, you had to climb up it to the next platform. That platform was where Jolanta got stuck. The next courses where basically different variations of one another, all having to walk across a wire with yourself connected to one wire and walk across. One variant made you step either on or over some small barrels. Nothing really difficult. Then you had to walk on those planks like those that Jolanta got stuck on, except they  were connected to one another at a pivot point and they could turn when you stood on them, like in a zig-zag formation. Then climb down a ladder to another zip line. This zip line was longer. :D I was able to flip upside down on this one. :) But, when i had to grab the net at the end, I lost my grip and went to the middle and got stuck. I tried to pull myself back, which was 25-30 feet, but could not. One of the girls below me yelled: "Yeah show us how Americans do things!" I almost made it there but my fingers just could not hold...i went back to the middle. Frustrated, I hung there...upside down of course hehe :D. After that course was the Black course...the hardest and second shortest. The green course was the shortest. I was too tired to do the Black course, but Arnolds, Niks, Romija, Toms, Ansis, Pēteris, and some others did it and said it was intense. I went to the first platform for it, but then backed down cause my arms weren't with me in this decision. It was fun. Yeah thats basically the COPE course. :)

This Friday is a science night at the medical university where Aija works. I am going to it along with one of Eva's friends, Erika.Artūrs will come too, I'm pretty sure. We are just going to hang out there and look at everything, and try to avoid the cadaver room...That's creepy at night...Eva knows. One time, Eva was at Aija's work for something and she was alone for a bit. Then she had to use the bathroom, and had to walk by the room where they kept these cadavers. She told me it was one of the creepiest things ever. XD

Next Friday is Teacher's Day at our school. So some of the students teach during some classes rather than the teachers. I chose to help teach English along with Niks and Diāna. We have to teach the Freshman. It should be fun. So that's what's new! :D

Update...

So recently, I was assigned the task of giving a presentation about the USA. It went well and was highly informal. I basically said stuff about the government, food, Superbowl, football, California, Poway, and oher stuff you would expect to be in a presentation about your home country. But then I decided to throw in the word "Dude". I basically said it was how we address one another, usually between friends. But my English teacher looked at me with a surprised look...A look that looked like she was about to send me out of class....I wasn't sent out, but she told Artūrs and then he told me that in British English, its a verrryyy bad word...new thing learned? So yeah...that went well. XD

I think AFS requires me and the other exchange students to have an after school activity. So today after school I went to choir class. The Audition went well and they speak ENGLISH!!!!!! :D I was happy about that. But the lessons during practices are in Latvian, naturally. There are four girls from my class in choir and two or three boys from my class in it as well. Arnolds, who is in my class, was happy that there is one more boy cause there are apparently 8 boys to about 25-35 girls...they were not heard really well at some concerts as you can imagine... So yeah this will be fun! But I will most likely do a sport after school as well. I don't know which yet; I have to go to the Olympic center for sports cause my school doesn't even have a team...and the pool is 12 Meters long, compared to Poway's 25 meter pool. And same with the gym. MUCH smaller than Poway's...there are no bleachers.

Other stuff...I found Mormons!!!!! There is a small branch in old Rīga. The first time I was there, two people were being blessed because the day before, they were baptized. And they just sustained a 1st and 2nd counselor to the branch leadership.


The Saturday before going to church, I met up with Allie in Rīga. That day we just walked around Old Rīga and we eventually got lost. We noticed that we were lost near the Mormons, which, that the next day, I discovered where it was. Just got to remember big Catholic church with a road that circles around the building and then I know that I'm near the Mormons. But we did not see any Mormon church because its in a building  and the only way to know what your looking for is to look for this sign that they put out on a plaque. It's small... But I didn't recognize the BIG Catholic church and that's when we realized that we were lost. So we tried to avoid using the map as much as we could....ok, I didn't want to use it. She did. But we eventually did and it was useful. Who would've thought that a map could be useful?? It was fun. Old Rīga is a fun place to walk around.

Last Friday, Artūrs (my contact-person), and I went to where Aija works. At the Medical University. That meant skipping my last lesson, Ķimija (Chemistry), which worked out because I had a test. Don't worry, I don't get marks the First Semester in that class. But on the way, we saw the Polish President (he was in his car). When we got to the university, our neighbor, Julija, joined us. She was looking for new ideas for designs for her Porcelain-making business. We had to wear lab coats and play the role of the student, cause apparently they don't allow non-students in the area that we went. But Aija basically showed us all these different cells, from Bone and bone marrow cells, to the cells in the cerebellum. It was cool. And she showed us the part of the university that taught about conjoined twins. The specimens in the jars were nasty...Why were we there, in the university? Cause Artūrs is going to be studying medicine and I came along cause I have an interest in biology. It was fun but as you can imagine, some of the stuff was nasty.

So yeah, if there is anything specific about Latvia you want to know, comment. If anything else comes to mind, I'll post it. :)

We got lost for a little bit...

So just yesterday Aija, Agnese, her father, Ericks, and I all went mushroom picking in a secret place where absolutely no one goes. We found so much mushrooms! All very large at that! it was fun too cause we had to expedition  through the forest where there really isn't any real trail. After a while, we filled our buckets with mushrooms and the majority of them were the best kind. :) But then we found ourselves lost for a bit... It was...awesome. Really fun...once we got out. But we had to go through really tall plants where there was an infestation of spiders and other insects liked to reside. At some point along the way my foot slipped all the way into some water. All the way meaning inside the tall rain boot I was wearing. Was it really worth a couple buckets full of mushrooms?? Yes, it was. We never hike through anything like that in scouts. We always stuck to the trails. So a little trail-blazing was quite nice. The forests, everyone says, are small, but really, they are quite big. But the scenery was amazing. A seemingly untouched forest with bright green grass/moss covering the ground, tall trees that are nice and green, mushrooms of many colors: yellow, golden, orange, red (poisonous, but cool to look at), brown, and some had speckles on the top... they were deadly poisonous but I still think they looked cool. Some of them grow in perfect rings, one such ring circled a tree and looked cool. But when we got out, everyone was relieved to see the power-lines in the distance and the hunter's tower near the car, not to mention the car itself. So yeah we then went home but stopped to pick some fresh apples. It was fun. When we got home, we spent all night cleaning and cutting the mushrooms...and of course impersonating Bear Grylls (Spelling??) because of the abundance of spiders, worms and other insects we found in the bucket. :) It was fun. After this day, I officially dub Latvians "Crazy".

School!

The schools here in Latvia are really different than in California. One day can consist of a small amount of lessons and therefore ending earlier, or can have many lessons and end at 16:00. (4:00). Yeah...that was the way it was for me on the second day...:/ But the first day of school was only ONE hour long! :) It was basically a free day to meet your classmates and main teacher. The director asked me to give an introductory "speech", but was just and intro. That went well. I am in grade 11, track E. Basically, the science line. I have a great bunch of classes which are: Latvian Literature (don't have to go! :D), Math, Biology, Chemistry, Russian Foreign language, English (muahahaha!), Psychology, and a Latvian Language class. There may be others but I think that's it. It looks like a lot, but I don't have all the classes everyday like in Poway. In California, the students are given a class schedule which is the same throughout the year, and subject to change in between semesters. Here, at least to my understanding, I have a list of classes, and my schedule changes everyday. So you see how it can be confusing. The grading scale is on a scale of 1-10 as opposed to the A-F scale in America. A mark of 10 is achieved when the teacher feels that the student has surpassed the teacher. Like me in my English class. XD That's going to be my easiest class. Yeah, that's the main difference between Latvian and American schools, and the fact that you dress formally and bring the teacher flowers on the first day.

The first week or so.

So, I arrived in Latvia on the 20th of August and met my hostfamily on the 21st or so. Well, let's start from the minute I got started in Latvia. When Allie and I, Allie is the other American who is studying abroad in Latvia, arrived in Rīga, we got our baggage and met up with an AFS Latvia contact person, Silvija. She then took us to get our Temporary Residency permits at a school in Rīga. It turns out that i am attending this school for the normal school year, Rīgas pilsētas 3. ģimnāsija. After filling out a document for the permits, we were taken to a restaurant to eat some food. We met, somewhere along the way, some German AFS students and some Thai students as well. That night we played a game to become acquainted with the other exchange students. The next day, we met our hostfamilies in the afternoon. When we did, we gave flowers to them because giving flowers at important meeting is a traditional custom here. Our names were called one by one only increasing the suspense even further. when I met my family, not much words were spoken and I have no clue why. It wasn't until the car ride home that the questions were asked.

The Hostfamily

My hostfamily members are Edgars (hostfather), Aija (hostmother), Olna (hostgrandmother), Agnese (13yr old hostsister), and Ericks 7yr old hostbrother). There is also Eva who is my 16 yr old hostsister, but she is on her exchange year in Costa Rica. she has been there for about a month now.  I got the chance to speak to her via skype and she is hilarious! And she kept worrying about her hair haha. But yeah the family is a pretty crazy family. It's fun so far though.

Other?

In school, I  am in calss 11E. basically, grade 11, track E which is the science based track. Everyone says I'm crazy to choose the science track, but science is easy. I also have an English class (the British dialect), Math, sports, a Russian foregin language class and a Latvian language class. The direktor said tat I have the option of giving a mini intoduction speech at the beginning of the year, but I thought that he wwas only joking...I agreed to that and apparently i have to give a little speech which really isn't a speech...more like a talk.
A reporter called Aija and said that she qould like to interview me for the paper or something. That's never happened before haha. I guess I shouldn't be surprised cause a Thai student last year was in a photo op and a music video for a Latvian band to help promote acceptance of other cultures. The video was cool!
On the second day in my host family we went mushroom picking with our neighbor Julija. It was fun and we picked many Gailenes, a very tasty little golden mushroom. there were many kinds of mushrooms but the most that I pointed out were poisonous. but now I know which are poisonous or lethally poisonous! That was a fun experience. :)
When wego to Julija and Kirils' house, we usually play a game called Saboteur, a fun game where if you are a saboteur, you must stop the other team, the dwarves from getting to the gold. It was a fun game especially when everybody gets into it. 
But yeah that's a little bit of what I have been doing here in Latvia! :)