Latvia Day 2

Today was exhausting. First off, we are still so jet lagged. We didn't notice the time last night, and when we finally checked the clock it was 2:30 a.m.!!!! We lost track of time watching t.v. and our bodies thought it was day time, so we were wide awake! Once we realized it was so late we went right to bed and fell asleep quickly. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and was wide awake again. I have never had jet lag this bad; not my first time in the Baltics, not in Panama, and not in Cambodia. Anyways, we finally got up at about 9:00 a.m. and went and had our free hotel breakfast. It was good- they had Russian pancakes.

Our original plan was to go to Vilnius, Lithuania today. However, we looked into bus tickets and found that it's a 4 hour ride each way; so we would spent 5 or maybe 6 hours in the city and 8 hours on the bus. And honestly, the bus rides always made me sick when I wasn't pregnant, I can only imagine how I'd feel now. So instead, we spent the entire day in Old Town and at several malls and souvenir shops. We found almost everything I wanted.

• We got these Russian stacking dolls (martrushkee):

Can you believe that there are 9 little dolls in here??? The last one is so ridiculously small that it makes us laugh every time we open it. Seriously, it's about the same size as the fingernail on my pinky finger.

• We bought pastries at two different pastry shops. This one is my favorite pastry shop in Riga; it's just a few doors down from our Church. Mitch liked the ones he tried. I wish we had pastry shops like these at home, so yummy!

• We went in 4 different grocery stores trying to find my beloved strop waffles. They're these flat waffle cones with honey in the middle. I LOVED them when I was here and I've been talking about how I can't wait to eat some for weeks now. And guess what??? They are no where to be found. SO sad!!!
• We rode the elevator to the 24th floor of the biggest hotel in Riga. This was our view:

• I got the coolest handmade mittens I've ever seen. Mitch thinks they look like a Muppet. I said I like them because no one else will have them since they're handmade in Riga and they only had 4 pairs of them. Mitch said that Jim Henson and I will be the only people to have a pair. Ha,ha.

• I wanted to buy a new coat here. (They have really cool coats here.) After searching all day, the last store we went into, which is one of my favorite European stores, Mango, had THE perfect coat and it wasn't too expensive. It is EXACTLY what I had in mind. I took a picture of it in the store:

The picture doesn't do it justice. And, I didn't buy the purse, it was just part of their display. You can wear the collar a few different ways. It's going to be my Christmas gift from Mitch. He said he'd give it to me as long as I don't cry when I open it and I can't button it up because of the baby. Ha,ha. I guess I'll always have it for next year, right?

• We took a lot of pictures of the beautiful parks and architecture today. Here are a few of my favorites:

• We at lunch at a Japanese restaurant in the mall. It was pretty good. Food is fairly cheap here. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, if you can call it Mexican. The "original burrito" had pineapple in it and they had creme brulee for dessert. Ha,ha. Gotta love it. We accidentally ordered sparkling water instead of still. Disgusting! And, on the way home, we accidentally bought a HUGE bottle of sparkling instead of still to drink and brush our teeth with. We had to go clear back to the store that night just because the sparkling is SO gross we can't stand it.

• My favorite part of the day was teaching Mitch how to dress like a true Russian. I laughed several times through the day because he fit in so well! Here he is in his typical Russian outfit: jeans, black leather coat, black leather gloves, and black beanie (everyone pretty much wears only black here):

Overall it was a great day, but we were both so tired from walking around everywhere. We would have gone to the museum in Old Town, but we quickly learned that while the restaurants were closed on Sunday, a lot of the tourist places we wanted to see are closed on Monday. We're going to go there tomorrow.

The other thing I realized today is that people just don't speak Russian here anymore. I tried again and was either answered in Latvian or English. I know people are understanding me, because they answer me, but they refuse to speak Russian. It's quite different than it was 5 years ago. We've had a hard time figuring out what certain foods were or even simple things like if we should push or pull a door open because it's all in Latvian. Weird. Mitch keeps asking me what things are and I don't know because it's in Latvian. I think it was easier as a missionary because I could just ask a Latvian speaking missionary what something was. Now we're here on our own and it's more difficult, but we've been able to figure everything out. And of course, anyone age 35 or younger speaks English, which is totally helpful.

Now we're of to bed. Tomorrow we're meeting Sveta and Olga for dinner, which is exciting.