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! :)
