Čau zēni un meitenes! Or for the non-Latvian speakers amongst us, Hi boys and girls! It’s time to fill you in on another few weeks.

After my last post, the cold I was feeling coming up did actually make it’s appearance. No worries, I tested negative on COVID, so it was just your lovely normal cold. But the timing is never right with these kind of things, because we had a full program at school with the Polish exchange teachers. I did go to school on Monday and Tuesday, because they needed my help, and the Polish guys wanted to chat with me about my Montessori experience. So that was fun, but Wednesday it just got worse. In the morning, I was invited to come along with some of the Latvian teachers to go to the forest, with two of the Polish teachers. They’re a married couple who have a lot of experience with teaching outdoors, and with them we did all kinds of assignments to apply in school.

But after we went back to school for lunch, my cough started to get a bit worse, and I got some looks from Aija and Liene. Some background information about me in the ‘sickness department’, working as a hairdresser for the past some years, you’re used to work through these kinds of issues, because time is money, so you don’t stay home unless you’re dying basically. Maybe a bit much, but that’s how it felt most of the time. Working now in a completely different environment, Aija and Liene looked at me and were like, ‘girl, you need some rest, so go home, get some sleep and we will see you when you feel better!’ Totally flabbergasted, that’s exactly what I did, so the rest of the week was quite uneventful, besides the little walks I went on to get some fresh air. But it felt really good that the people you spend your time with here, do care about you, even if we only know each other for a short amount of time.

The next week, after a worthless boxing training session on Monday, which is called being too eager, I went back to school, because I was just to fed up with being stuck at home. It was Julia’s last week at school, and we also said goodbye to the Polish couple, Ewa and Adam and their daughters. With the oldest girl, Madzia, we had quite a nice, but short time together, and we clicked really well! Madzia joined Rasa and me at training, and she killed it. Goodbyes are never fun, so we just said ‘see ya later!’

Because it was Julia’s final weekend in Latvia, we went together to Daugavpils, to go to the Mark Rothko Centre. It took us a bit over an hour to get to Daugavpils by bus, but the scenery was a sight to the eyes, so I didn’t mind! It’s the second city of Latvia, and very Russian orientated, so with our perfect communication skills in Latvian/Russian, quite the adventure! We managed to find the busstop to the centre just in time, and for just €0,50 it took us there. My first touristic experience in Latvia! The centre is situated in an old fort, so that was also pretty cool. There were about 4/5 exhibitions we could visit, mostly some other abstract paintings, which is not really my cup of tea, but cool nonetheless. I expected the Rothko section to be a bit more extensive, because there were only 5 paintings. I secretly took a photo of one of them, because I just had too, you know!
We explored a bit of Daugavpils afterwards, and took the bus back home.

On Sunday, Rasa and Tina took me to the stables they work at, to show me around and started to give me a little horse riding lesson. It was the first time for me on a horse, and my brother already made fun of me before I even got there. But all went well, so take that ;).
Whilst I was at the stables, they rightfully so took advantage of me, by letting me cut the manes of one of the horses, so now you can call me a horse hairstylist too!

Julia left on Wednesday morning for Riga, so on Tuesday she said goodbye at school, with little treats and some bubbles. It is kind of weird to be alone in the house and at school now, but not necessarily in a bad way.

On Friday, I was invited by Raimonds, my boxing trainer, to spend some time at our training area. It was a weekend of celebrations, and I am not sure, but it had something to do with the birthday of Preiļi, so there were all kinds of projects and events during the weekend.
The project on Friday was to give the walls of the training area some love, by painting them with a sports/boxing theme. I was excited to be just a part of it, and completely forgot there was a small competition for the best painting as well. Halfway during my drawing, Raimonds came up to me and was like, ‘I think yours is up for first place’. I looked at him and just laughed. Hell no, there are so many good ones, but when we were all finished and it was time to announce the winner, it really was me! I was shocked, but it was an honour that they picked me.

The festivity’s continued on Saturday with markets spread out on the main street and the park. In the evening we went to the park to enjoy the first live concert in almost 2 years. It was so cool to experience this together, and although we were in the ‘non-vaccinated’ area because of the fact some of us didn’t have the certificate yet, it was really fun.