la vita latvia

I woke up with sun on my face and knew immediately that it would be a good day. I met Tanja at the photoexhibit outside of the train station — aerial photographs of Riga, in which you can even see the place where I live — she came with a sweet cheese-filled, coconut-topped pastry for me, a small gift, and we headed off on the train, chugging out of Riga into the countryside, through all of these forests full of tall pines but absolutely no underbrush, just a clear forest floor of lichens, mosses, and mushrooms. And all through the forest there are the mushroom gatherers, and on the train there are people bundled up for daytrips into the forest, holding big empty baskets on their laps, stepping off the train at stations that just consist of a little trail coming out of the woods. They'll come back with kilograms of mushrooms, as some people already are, old men carrying huge loads of mushrooms, patiently waiting for the train. They know the places to go, the places they went last year, and the weather this summer has made it a bumper year for mushrooms. The sun is shining brilliantly, Tanja and I are relaxing on the train, the landscape outside sparkles, refreshed from yesterday's downpours.

The capital of Latvia is a beautiful city, an on a sunny day you might find yourself spending the whole day marvelling at the intricate details in the art nouveau architecture which abounds here, the amazingly crafted and now carefully renovated buildings that spill out of the old town into the new city. I've never been there, but they remind me of New Orleans. There's something upbeat and positive about the people, too, with smiles and with apparent harmony between the Latvian and Russian halves of the population. Everyone seems dressed up spiffy, in the words of the Swedish boy, "It's like Milano or something." The Norwegian girls in Vilnius remarked about it too. Riga is an upbeat place.

to be continued, I suppose; I have all kinds of writings still unwritten, about traveling and about traveling versus living here, about the hostel crews and all that. But for now, take your wagers on whether Latvians will join the EU this weekend. I'm going to Tartu tomorrow.

copenhagen to gatwick

Does anyone have any advice on getting from Copenhagen to London Gatwick, or, more specifically, from London Stansted to London Gatwick?