February 9th, 2011

So, quite a bit has happened since the last time I updated. Snowboarding, firefighting museum, the TV tower (I know, doesn't sound too interesting :P ) and some other stuff. :D So the snowboarding...It's actually not hard at all. This is the first time that I have ever snowboarded. Two weeks ago (?) on a thursday, the Junior class went to the hill for snowboarding or skiing. The hill  we went to was Riekstukalns (acorn hill?). (People call it a mountain...there's no word for mountain so they use Kalns for hill and mountain. Latvia has no mountains.) My friend Niks said that he doesn't know why the hill was named that cause he has never seen an acorn on that hill, not even an oak tree. So we got there and I was still undecided as to whether I should snowboard or not. (In Latvian its snovot, and so people say they go "Snowing") :D When we were in the lobby to pay for the equipment and get ready to go "snowing", they asked us (Par and I) If we wanted to snowboard or ski. I said "I don't know" and then instantaneously changed that to a "YES!! AHH!" They did a good job of talking me into it. :D I got my stuff, got dressed, and then when I had gotten the boots on, I felt like I was trying to walk after I biking 10 miles. It didn't burn or anything, it was just weird to walk in them. Then we went outside to the hill and then put on foot on the board and then proceeded to walk toward the lift like the undead. :D The lift we used was easy to use. Just stand there and put the little black bar behind your back. SO we got up to the top and then my friend Toms, my first instructor, helped me to learn how to find my balance and learn how to go down by sliding on the back side of the board (facing away from the slope and leaning backwards). This also helps you to learn how to control speed. Then when we made it down, we went up only half way with the other lift. It was just a green rope that cut off at some point because of a ditch. I was thinking, "What if someone didn't let go..?" Anyways, this time, Niks began to instruct. So he just had me do the same thing as what Toms had me do. But then we switched sides. I went down while having to slide on the forward side. (facing the mountain leaning forward) But yeah we progressed more and more to the point where I didn't need to hold onto anyone for support. Then we moved to a different slope. I was told that it was just longer, not steeper. So I agreed to it. The lift just to get up it was difficult...you had to put a bar with a circle on the end between you legs and hold on as it took you up. I fell off this thing 3 times before getting up. :/ When we got up, I didn't really take notice of the the slope. So we went and I found out that it was longer AND steeper. So I started a tad too fast. :P But I only fell twice. And when we had to go back up, it was the same lift. I fell three times, again, and then went to another lift in hopes of success. This one was designed for two people, so me and Niks went up with this one. When we were half way, snow caught up on my board and made us both fall. Then, as if to mock me even further, it hit me in the nose. :P So we walked up the steeeeeeep hill and went to the first one. :P haha It was fun. :)

I forget which day, but, my host-family, my neighbors, and I went to the TV Tower and the Firefighting Museum in Rīga. The first was the TV tower. It's 100 meters tall they said. :O And so we went in, *cough*camerabatterydied*cough*, ahem. Excuse me. We went up to a highh point, and took pictures of what you could see from that height. The ONE staff worker that we saw gave each of us a postcard with a picture of some place in Rīga for us to find. I couldn't find my place cause it was far away, but we could find every other place. One of them was the Saint Peter's Church, another one as a statue in front of the Saint Peter's Church, and the third, a church in Doma Laukums, not far from the Saint Peter's Church. :D So that was pretty cool to see the city from that point.
Then we went to the Firefighting Museum. It wasn't too far and on the way back to Kalngale so we stopped by it. We had to wear these little shoe covers on our feet and I could not find a pair that fit. It gets really annoying when you are walking then have to fix your shoe covers every 5 seconds. At some point, I got sick of it and just slid my feet everywhere. :P But yeah there were all these fancy uniforms that I thought could be used for the military dress uniforms. There were the old fire engines, their helmets and other stuff they used, and the bells.. Oh yes. They let us ring the bells and sirens. :D They weer kinda loud. :P Then there was this one room that had a shower looking area with old water pumps and hoses to put out fires. You were allowed to use those and shoot at a tennis ball to push it into a hole, or shoot into a target. It was pretty cool to use. :D Then, we were taken to a room with a TV where they had us watch a five minute video of how a house could room could catch fire in five minutes from a candle falling on the couch. The next video was a cartoon from Russia(?) and was about this dog, which joins the firefighting force. It was interesting to say the least. :D Then was Mickey's Fire Brigade! :D Funny little shows. :)

But on other notes, everything is going well. Getting grades in more of my classes, and they're all passing. Took a test in History, got an eight, and took a test in Economics, got a seven, then one in Chem. No idea what the grade was. But I'm passing all my tests and its all going great! :D

Ice Skating... Oh gosh. :D

So, today, I went Ice Skating with Erik and Edgars. There is a frozen pond not too far from the house and people shovel the snow off so they can play hockey and whatnot. So we went, nobody was there (thank goodness!) and then skated. -Note, this is the first legitimate time I have ever ice skated. Meaning, theres no siderail to hold on to like when i was little and on a field trip to the indoor ice rink.- Edgars said that he would teach me. So i got up and stood there. I was like, "How do I go?" I knew it was like rollerblading, I did that earlier in the year, and as you can imagine (especially my parents) it was a fail. A fail from the minute I put the rollerblades on. But ice skating, is different! :D Its easier!! and so I as able to move, didnt fall within the first ten minutes! Accomplishment achieved. Anyways, I was curious to see ho well Edgars could skate. Aija told me earlier in the year that he was good at this. So I tool off the skates, gave them to Edgars, and watched. Hes good. If you can go backwards, you're good. So yeah. When he finished, he gave them back to me and said lesson 2. It was basically going faster. It didnt work out too well. When your seven-year-old hostbrother teaches you how to have better control of it, you KNOW you're a beginner. :P But i am proud to say that it was a success. I made great improvement since the beginning of the hour.

Ansis' Birthday Party/Australian friend tour :D

So my friend Ansis invites me to his Birthday party. I was at some sauna and yeah. pretty cool place. The party started at 7:30pm and ended at 7:00am the next day. We (Allie was invited too) got there at 9 or something close to that, I dont really remember..And it was cool. We met two other Americans there, Peter Tirado and Hayden Eller. At some point in the party, Allie pushed me into the pool. But there was a metal thing that jutted out behind me. I didnt want to hit it, so I tried to duck down. It worked! But there were rocks right behind me and I hit those hard. Right on the tailbone. Thanks Allie. 
When the party was over, Allie had to meet up with a contact that she had who arranged to meet her in Rīga for her long layover before flying to Jordan. So I was invited to that. This contact, Laura Konneman, is from Australia and just recently finished her exchange year in Spain. The first thing we did hen we got to Rīga was find somewhere warm that we could get away with sleeping a bit. So we went to McDonald's by the Freedom Monument. We ordered a little something to eat, and then went upstairs to try and sleep. I dont know how, but the Manager or someone, found out that we were up there trying to sleep (well Allie was.) and came upstairs to basically kick us out. He poked Allie, took our tray and then we went on our way. At 9, we met up with Laura, and went somewhere for her to eat. At some point, we went to the Museum of Occupation near the House of Blackheads. Laura said that she was there back in September and went Geocaching with her father. The cache was hidden in the gulag exhibit in some metal barrel. So we grabbed it and wrote our names in it. Then we went to another one. It was near a river opening to the Baltic Sea I think. And so the little path was covered in snow and therefore ice. It was slippery and we were afraid of falling into the foul smelling mini river thing. But we found it and there was a video recorded of it. I dont know if it was uploaded by Laura or not. We wrote our names in it of course.  After that we went to get some food. Later on, we took her to meet our friend Niks Gulbis. So we had some tea there and talked for a while. then Laura had to go back  to the airport. so she caught a cab and went back. 

And thats about it. And that tomorrow, Monday, I will go with my contact person, Artūrs, to tell all my teachers that i will receive a grade in their classes this semester. Thats right. All 15 of them.

2011...!!

So yeah I havent updated this for a lonnnngggg time. Since last year!! :D So yeah there's a lot that I wont include. And I'll keep it short. But anyways... to start is all off, I saw Prāta Vētra in concert. Allie had an extra ticket so she invited me to go. They picked me at some corner and I thought the dude taking us was her hostbrother or something, but it turned out to be her hostfather. Cool guy. But yeah the concert was awesome. Allie pointed out that a LOT of Latvian songs have lalala or something like that for sing-alongs. And Prāta Vētra put in a mourning  period for their bassist that died in a car accident 5 years ago? I thought that was interesting. But they could have used a better picture at the end. Just saying. During the entire concert, we could just tell that Rēnars knows that he is the coolest person in Latvia. Great concert.

Then AFS Christmas ball was quite boring. And to be honest, I dislike the fact that they make us give presentations at every meeting. It gets old. Especially when you already had to give presentations for school. OH well. They were funny though. Laughed at the dance the Latvians did: they grabbed each others feet and jumped around a bunch. TRADITIONAL Latvian dance. XD

Christmas had a very empty feel to me. It felt like another day really. I missed all the traditions that me and my family did every Christmas like snowman soup. That was always one of my favorites. And I miss my family and friends, and Ozzy :). Allie felt similarly and apparently so did the Badgers in Finland. But it was still a good day. Here, they open their presents on Christmas Eve and they sing or dance or do something before getting their present. They do something for each present. It was fun to say the least. :D

For New Year's, I went to a party with Allie. I got the notice about the party quite late so I asked asked Aija to take me up. Aija agreed to drive me up there despite the very short notice (20 minutes notice and I'm grateful for that :D) and then after a bit, we went to the party. When we got there, there was only 40(?) or so minutes until midnight. We went on the balcony at New Year and looked at the fireworks that people were shooting off. Oh! and on the way there, People were shooting fireworks off and they were going into the street. It was cool! It was like we were in some action movie cause they were all coming really close to us but never hitting us. :D Awesome. Anyways, at the party, nothing really happened..we were all just talking.  it was boring i thought. Then Allie said that there was sushi waiting for us at her house. We went but Allie forgot her scarf... so we went back and talked some more, got locked in...then left. No big deal :D

On other notes, I was sick yesterday but today (Jan 4th, 2011) I am feeling much better. I also figured that I need to start speaking in Latvian. I can understand a lot, but when I need to speak, I cant. I freeze up in front of people I know. I can talk just fine with strangers. So I am going to talk to Aija about talking to me in Latvian more. And to slow down hahaha :D And I am still waiting for the Post Office to send me the notification that they have my package and i can go get it. They are so SLOW!!!! ayayay. Im starting to wonder about the money that was in it...

Sorry for the long delay in the Update!!! :D