Sunday, June 29, 2008

Trip to Latvia




View in the plane


Our lunch in Riga


Sigulda




Kathi



dancing traditional folklore



sitting around the fire



The sport teams in action



Barbecue at Baiba's family



Visiting Riga











22nd of June – a nice Sunday morning at the Vienna Airport: The group consisting of 6 students and two teachers assembled at the entrance - the adventure of travelling to Latvia has started.
At Riga Airport the students and teachers of the Dikli school awaited as – together we headed to lunch – a nice experience in an amazing leisure area.
We visited the national park of the Gauje (with the center of Sigulda) and continued our journey to Dikli. Our students stayed with families - and after an hour every student has found his family.
Midsummer night - an event all of us wanted to enjoy - was georgous. We learned how to braid wreaths of flowers and oak leaves as preparation for the feast at night. Furthermore we got to know typical customs concerning folklore - dances - songs. After lunch we visited Konu mill – where we spent the whole evening. There we were able to watch a woman producing cheese, were envolved in folksy dances and had dinner together. Later, at night we sat around the midsummer night fire while we were enjoying the nice landscape and had much fun together.
Tuesday morning - mixed teames of our two schools run series of competitions in their gym at school. Right after lunch we were invited to visit Baiba's family and spent a funny afternoon there with having barbecue, playing darts or table tennis and other stuff.
The whole Wednesday our program consisted of the visit of Riga and a short trip to the seaside. The capital is a quite beautiful city - especially the renovated center of the town with a lot sight seeing highlights.
At late afternoon we stopped at a stormy beach of the Baltic Sea and had much fun with our experience "wet legs and trousers".
Finally, our trip ended at Thursday morning. However we weren't able to reach Vienna without any problems: Heavy traffic at Vienna Airport caused by hundreds of Russian jets bringing visitors to a game during the European Championship made it more difficult for us to reach Austria at the expected time.