Hafjelltoppen

This was the view from the top of the mountain, heading down to the only mogul run available during our time there. It was, as it looks, cold (about 10 F or -10 C) and windy and too cloudy to enjoy the reportedly spectacular views.

Your correspondent, in his travels thus far, has mostly tried to limit the number of small-minded "it's better back home" observations. It would be contrary to his day job as a diplomat. However, while we had a fantastic time and found the amenities nice, the Norwegian people helpful, and the teenage snowboarders no more obnoxious than our own, there's just not much you can do as a ski area if your mountain isn't all that tall. Even the highest runs on the mountain had intersections with cross-country ski trails, although that might say more about how tough the cross-country skiers are there rather than how small the mountain was. In any case, neither the terrain or the snow were quite up to Colorado standards. The Lovely Katherine, in fact, felt at home there because the occasional long stretches of ice and gently undulating slopes reminded her of her childhood home base at Mt. Abrams, Maine. Which is great for her, but also a comparison not universally understood as a compliment. For the next ski trip, we will perhaps see how the Alps compare with the Rockies.

Lillehammer

We are back from another quick jaunt out of town. Norway, this time, and after what it costs to spend a few days in Norway, we may not be leaving the apartment let alone the country for a little while. We stayed in Lillehammer, which was very easy to get to thanks to some previous year's experience from traveling companions and the wonder of a device they use in Europe known as a "train." We skied at Hafjell, where some of the 1994 Olympic skiing events took place. As seen above, the Lillehammer Olympic Logo Cave Art Running Man Torch Guy is still carved out of the trees on the hillside opposite.

There was a sign at the top of one of the runs that said "Women's Downhill" in English, which your correspondent took to mean that it had served as the course for the ladies' competition in the fastest and most suicidal of ski races. Apparently not; as we discovered on a plaque near the lodge on the final day, the less-suicidal slalom races were held there. Fortunately, this knowledge came only after your correspondent thoroughly enjoyed zipping down the fictitious Olympic downhill course at speeds that bordered on suicidal given his skill level as a skier.

Another Random Istanbul Picture

The staff photographer was mildly amused by the contrast of the old and very traditional mosque and the bright-pink-soap dispensers at the foot-washing stations. Your amusement may vary.

We have discovered the Auto-Publisher

Resistance is futile. The Holla is on the march. It only took us three years of this to bother to figure out such a basic feature of Blogger. Now, we will be relentless. In fact, as this is being published, we are shushing down the slopes of Lillehammer, Norway. Never again will our travel schedule be to blame for failure to post. If only we can find the Blogger feature that can automatically work around writer's block, laziness, and general lack of insight.

Above is a picture memorializing how cold it actually was in Istanbul. More throw-away photos coming soon, since we may be posting more often.

Constantinople

As you may have learned from They Might Be Giants (or the oldsters may have learned from the Four Lads), Istanbul was formerly known as Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine empire. As such, they have some great old Roman stuff, and even some churches. The Chora Church, pictured above, was a highlight, with ancient frescoes and mosaics on every wall (well, surviving on many walls, surely once literally on every wall). The Hagia Sofia was once a church, and also had some amazing mosaics of saints and virgins and such, which for reasons that remain unknown were not destroyed when it was converted to a mosque. And lastly, there is a whole mosaic museum dedicated to large mosaic floors left behind by some emperor, including pictures of monkeys wearing backpacks and bothering birds with sticks. Detail below from the museum, but not the monkey-with-a-backpack-and-a-stick part.

This is the Best One of These Things We've Ever Seen

This is from the Istanbul Museum of Cool Old Ottoman Stuff. (Museum's actual name may have been somewhat more formal, but we forget what it was - ed.) It is maybe a foot across. It contains a tiny map of the Eastern Hemisphere (while your correspondent doesn't recall the date of its creation, I do recall that at that time the Eastern Hemisphere was the Whole Known World), with a small little metal thing pivoting around Mecca, and somehow pointing to some impossibly tiny Arabic script in columns below (or perhaps in Turkish script before they changed to the latin alphabet). But why? We don't know. Perhaps one of our dear Turkish friends, who are surely experts on all the items in the Museum of Cool Old Ottoman Stuff, will stop by to enlighten us.

Istanbul Silhouette

Several of the Mosques had scaffolding around their minarets. We made two attempts to see the Sulemaniye Mosque only to find it was also being restored inside and was therefore closed. It was worth it because the place across the street had the most delicious beans in the world. We almost went back to the closed Sulemaniye's neighborhood a third time to get another bowl of beans. Yes: beans. In other news, "silhouette" gives your editor fits, spelling-wise.

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Your correspondent had always associated roasted-chestnut carts with New York. Perhaps that was where he first encountered them. But they are actually popular urban fare all over, and particularly in Turkey. An economist might note the minimal barriers to entry in a city with literally millions of unemployed or marginally employed people looking to find a way to make some money -- although they are outdone in that regard by the hundreds of guys lining the Bosphorus with fishing poles. Your correspondent mostly just wished he liked the smell of roasting chestnuts a little more.

Mosques galore

One of the best moments of our time in Istanbul was, not surprisingly, in a Mosque. Since we had a whole week in Istanbul, we had tried to figure out how to do some quick trips out of town. But there was always more to do in the city, so we never bothered spending any time on a bus or train elsewhere. On our last day there, we decided to get out and go to Asia - i.e., the other side of the Bosphorus. We hopped a ferry and started hiking in the rain through the less-touristed and more "authentic" neighborhoods on the Asian side, hoping to see a couple mosques that Lonely Planet recommended (so, then, less-touristed, but certainly not un-touristed). While the guide did recommend them, it did not exactly provide a lot of details or a map on how to get there, so we took a few wrong turns and saw some side-streets on our way.

We got to one of the mosques just many locals were beginning to arrive for prayer. At the famed and highly-touristed mosques on the European side, the mosques are closed to tourists during prayer. So we were ready to be kicked out when one of the Turks told us that we (and a few other tourist who must have somehow gotten their hands on the same exclusive edition of Lonely Planet that we did) could stay and watch the prayers if we sat in an alcove by the back of the mosque. So, we did. It is an interesting and beautiful ritual to watch in person. Many of the other men who came in to pray gave us sideways glances or outright stares as they entered, so we worried that maybe the guy who had invited us had overstepped his bounds. But at the conclusion of the prayer as everyone was filtering to the door to gather their shoes, it was all smiles and happy body language, and your correspondent surely butchering "thank you" in Turkish, but seemingly getting his point accross.

We didn't get any pictures of that mosque, since they had posted signs that said "Don't Take A Picture." The above is actually the famous and intensely-touristed Blue Mosque, just as we were being kicked out for prayer time, pictured in super noisy grain-o-vision but deemed a nice picture anyway.

Of the Cistern

Both our dear Turkish friend Ayça and the ever-trusty Lonely Planet (which, by the way, now lets one download guidebooks by the chapter at quite reasonable rates) recommended that we visit the Basilica Cistern while in Istanbul. This was fantastic advice, because it was very interesting, and even more so because your faithful correspondent had essentially no idea what a cistern was. In general, of course, it's clearly some kind of water storage tank. But we had no idea what to expect, really. It turns out it's sort of a man-made cave, built in Roman times, roof held up by hundreds of columns, in which water collects for later use. Somehow, whether by intent or accident, it now has some really huge goldfish living in it. It was weird, it was unexpected, it was not like anything I had seen before: exactly the sort of thing that makes travel worthwhile.

The staff photographer managed to run out the batteries in both cameras in the battery-taxing low-light conditions trying to take a picture like the following, but, you know, better:

Oh noes

We did not realize upon writing yesterday that the best pictures from the legendary Topkapi Palace would also be of lights. Skylights, but still. We suddenly feel as if we have a mission to describe our trip to Istanbul with nothing but pictures of lighting. If you want to see a non-lighting picture of one of the cabinets at Topkapi, which is, to be honest, pretty much as awesome as a cabinet has ever been, you'll have to follow a link.

Anyway, Topkapi. It's famous; it's got all sorts of insanely detailed decor; it shares its name with both an acclaimed movie and a costume jewelry store at the Greeley Mall, and perhaps outshines them both. It also has cool skylights in this honey-comb pattern, capped these days with the tops of 2-liter soda bottles, to the best of or discernment:

Interior Design

Your faithful correspondent, while relatively well traveled, had never before set foot in a mosque. That was remedied and then some in Istanbul, where there are a few mosques of some note. The first one we visited was less renowned than some of its neighbors, but remained one of the favorites throughout the trip. And the first thing one notices upon entering? The lighting. Yes, there is the soaring domed ceiling and the amazing Arabic calligraphy, and the unbelievably detailed geometric patterns everywhere. But first and foremost are the giant concentric circles of light bulbs suspended from said soaring dome. Hopefully slightly deeper insights about Istanbul in the coming days.

A few more pictures of light bulbs over at Flickr.

Happy New Year

Lucky for you, we're back for another year of travelogues interspersed with occasional thoughts about Latvia, when we stop by there for a few days now and again.

Our most recent non-Latvia destination: Istanbul, which despite being a fair bit south of Riga and right along the famously temperate Mediterranean, was ass cold. That is: snow and rain and biting wind and lots of stops to help The Lovely (if Somewhat Circulatorily Challenged) Katherine regain feeling in her fingers cold. We didn't have any days planned for the beach, anyway.

The above picture is the scene on New Year's Day in front of a restaurant that had decorated for New Year's Eve. They cut down the string of balloons from the storefront and there was a near brawl of excited kids trying to get a few. It's as New Years-y as the photography got.

Santa Run

We did one of those Santa Runs. You know, for kids. You sign up. You pay some money. You con your co-workers into also paying some money. You get issued a Santa suit. You run around town in the Santa suit. You give your money to charity.

Except that they ran out of Santa suits. So your correspondent ran around in a Santa hat only. Well, that is, his normal running clothes, plus a Santa hat. It was less festive. But the sun was out for the first day in weeks. And the kids still got their money.

Your correspondent also ran the grueling course through Old Riga -- including quick stops to snap a few pictures of the other Santas (the staff photographer was unavailable)-- faster than the two strapping young members of the United States Marine Corps who participated. I won't mention their names because think they could get dishonorably discharged for letting a State Department bureaucrat beat them in a test of physical fitness, even if it's more about silly costumes than strength and stamina.

Italy: Fashion Capital

Your correspondents diligently stopped by all the main tourist sights, such as the Pantheon (quite cool) and the Spanish Steps (uh...) and the Trevi Fountain. It certainly is an interesting spot, monumental and ornate. But it's one of those sights that doesn't exactly continue to reveal more of itself upon extended viewing. Nonetheless, the square around the fountain was bursting with tourists, all taking pictures of each other and throwing coins in the fountain and doing your normal tourist things. The staff photographer and art director both agreed that photos of our fellow tourists taking pictures of each other would be more interesting than any picture of the fountain. The pictures were mostly not that interesting, it turns out.

That is, until this couple emerged from the crowd and took approximately five million pictures of each other, all with a pocket camera. No harm, no foul, right? But their shots grew increasingly ridiculous, as they worked their way to an uncrowded corner of the fountain, and then started posing, staring off into space, lounging on the fountain, as if they were going to submit these pictures to the next issue of Vogue. The guy took his turns and didn't lounge so much as strike manly poses in his sunglasses and leather jacket. Still, their vacation, they can take whatever pictures they want. But the utter seriousness with which they did it was kind of mind-boggling. The staff photographer took so many pictures of the whole process that it was inevitable that at one point the subject would notice, as seen above. In a remarkable demonstration of their seriousness, she flashed only the briefest glance of recognition, and carried on as if what they were doing was completely normal.

At that point, they seemed odd, but admirable for their lack of concern about what anyone else thought about how they got their kicks. Then we ran into them again, walking away from the square, apparently with two assistants carrying their shopping bags and luggage for them. The picture was growing clearer. Then we saw them again making a public scene at another fountain in another square, with one of the assistants taking pictures with the pocket camera and the woman screaming her head off as the guy picked her up - maybe threatening to throw her in the fountain?

We didn't hear them speaking much, but we have a pretty confident guess on where they were from and why they were acting like they owned the city and all the other tourists were there to see them, which it would be impolitic to print here. I'll just say we hope if we ever have the money to have an assistant carry our shopping bags around town, we'll do so somewhat more discreetly.

More from Rome

Interesting piece of non-church architecture in Rome. Or at least dramatic.

At the very least, you need a beer

Among those who enjoy the game of counting up how many countries one has been to, some take a no-holds-barred approach. I read an article about the "Traveler's Century Club" of people who have been to at least 100 countries and want some certifying organization to vouch for how awesome they are. The article profiled some retards who were sailing by some small island country without a visa, and put out a distress call so they were "rescued" and taken to the island, whereupon they checked it off their list and then sailed away. In my mind, people who probably wasted half of some tiny nation's annual security budget in order to get more credit from the "Traveler's Century Club" should have their passports revoked, not celebrated.

Some of us, on the other hand, find country-counting amusing but not worth risking any lives for. And for me, a country as goofy as The Holy See should maybe not really count. They do have a flag and their own post office. They also have a church that is pretty impressive, but does not meet the medieval-mosaic standards discussed yesterday. They also have a ridiculously large museum. And the Sistine Chapel. I guess that counts for something. They do not, however, meet the official Frank Zappa definition of nationhood: "You can't be a Real Country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer." Well, he's dead, and I don't have designs on joining the Traveler's Century Club, so we'll just use our own personal judgment and count it.

The picture above is the outdoor seating in front of St. Peter's, presumably for the overflow crowds celebrating mass there.

Get wise, get to church

Did we mention we went to Rome? A four-day Thanksgiving weekend may be a little quick for a visit back home for turkey and cranberries, but it was enough time for a quick hop down to Rome, where we saw nary a pilgrim and nary a mashed potato. Not to say we didn't eat well. Pizza for every lunch, pasta for every dinner, wine for every moment in between... hard to complain.

Speaking of things that are unsurprisingly nice in Rome - they have some churches there. We saw many of them, and didn't scratch the surface. They have the big Renaissance masterpieces, but this correspondent prefered the olden-days churches with vaguely naive-looking mosaics, as the one pictured above. It is named something like "Church of the Virgin of Trastevere," apparently not related to the "Church of Vinny Testaverde," which is perhaps an abandoned shrine somewhere near the Meadowlands. Vinny was not pictured in the apse mosaic, in any case.

Whoops

As perhaps predicted, we were otherwise occupied all evening and didn't even look at pictures from Rome. It's the Brits' fault, actually, for detaining the staff at a marathon five-hour game of British Embassy-sponsored pub trivia in Riga tonight. In any case, they do a fine pub trivia night, but it's not their only skill. They are also very good at snatching priceless artifacts from their ancient resting places. They do make a convincing case that if things like this crazy Assyrian relief, painstakingly crafted and then deliberately written on in crazy Assyrian writing, would probably be in a lot worse shape today if still kicking around the Middle East somewhere. Likewise, they claim, the Elgin Marbles. It's a debate we won't settle here, but we were pretty excited to see them in London, and even though we yesterday mocked the idea of taking pictures in museums, we relented in this case.

London

While The Lovely Katherine worked, the Staff Photographer was free to amble about London, snapping photos, surprisingly few of which amounted to anything. But we like this one. He also endeavored to stop into every museum in London to see various Elgin Marbles and Rembrandts and such, but mostly didn't take pictures of them, either because it wasn't allowed or generally taking pictures of things in museums is kind of silly when there's a postcard available in the gift shop. Anyway, tomorrow: Rome, unless we don't get it organized and resort to posting one more picture from London, perhaps taken in a museum.

The Tube

The London Underground is a great system. But some parts of it are a bit creepy. Like this tunnel, with its exposed insulation and security cameras. They also do an amazing job with selling advertising space on the escalators. American subways beaten at their own capitalist game.

Shopping!

Well, shopping, sort of. On the advice of our friend Paul (who has his own unique travel sense, but likes England enough that he managed to acquire a dodgy black-market UK passport) your correspondent spent a fair bit of time exploring various markets in London. These are mostly outdoor markets, selling variously: snobby gourmet foods (Borough Market), hipster clothing and accessories (Spitalfields), disaffected middle-schooler clothing and accessories (Camden), and last but not least, junk -- or rather, antiques -- (Portobello). While there were interesting items and people at each, the junk market was definitely tops in our book.

The further one got from the underground stop, the cheaper and perhaps more "authentic" and "local" the merchandise. Right near the Tube were touristy stuff like made-in-China-but-vaguely-antique-looking pocketwatches, then some interesting antiques like vintage typewriters and telescopes and a couple guys selling toy soldiers or other little figurines (as pictured above) who took it as a challenge to have a toy soldier in the uniform of whatever nationality a visiting shopper might be. (USA was an easy one, of course. Latvia was a stumper.) Moving on, one could find old paperback books, and tons of complete collections of themed cigarette-pack cards, and for some reason, gauges ripped out of boat instrument panels. Then clothing. Then vegetables. Then, reminiscent of Guatemala, a few blue tarps spread on the ground with some old batteries and random bicycle parts and questionably functional clock radios and decades-old VCR tapes of movies nobody wanted to watch then, let alone now, all for sale at sure-fire bargain prices.

Good times. Thanks for the recommendation, Paul. We have purchased you a random socket wrench from one of the blue tarps, which we will send soon, as a token of our gratitude.

London

Did you know we went to London a couple weeks ago? And we never told you about it? Sorry, we just totally flaked. But we were there. Check out the dudes in various silly hats if you doubt it. No other country would have the ingenuity to come up with such a nice variety of silly hats, and then actually use them. And then, crowds of people stand around in front of Buckingham Palace to get a glimpse of the guys with silly fuzzy hats walking around. Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, the staff photographer was alone with the guys in the fuzzy hats and the guys in the funny police hats, vigilantly keeping him from rubbing the fuzzy hats to see if they are as soft as they look.

Right then. So maybe this week a bit of London, next week a bit of Rome, and then maybe a bit of Latvia. All this international jet-setting is really hurting our publication schedule.

90th, revisited

The snowstorm distracted us from posting this last photo from the 90th Anniversary celebrations. There was a spectacular fireworks extravaganza over the Daugava. It was very nice, and pretty quick, which was merciful given the temperatures at that point. For some reason there was a big open space in the crowd just behind the LNT television news crew Winnebago.

Snow

It snowed five inches or so over the last day. This amount of snow would have DC crippled for days on end. And even in Latvia, five inches gets people talking about how much snow there was. It didn't really seem like that much - but apparently it doesn't really snow that much here, it just gets cold. The weather brought out the stories from locals (or quasi-locals) of winters past, in particular one when it was -30F for weeks on end. Please no.

Anyway, the picture above is in the courtyard of our apartment building as the snow was just getting going, looking at the wall separating us from the next building's courtyard. It was shot at night (well, 6:00 PM, which is well into night these days), because the weird snowstorm light seemed cool. But then the long exposure made it seem sort of day-lighty, except for the lights in the windows. It also turned out boring, so the staff photographer had to put someone in the frame to add some contrast. There weren't a lot of volunteers out in the freezing cold.

It gets cold here.

Remember this picture? Well, that was weeks ago. Now it is seriously, miserably cold out. So-called "experts" with high-tech "thermometers" say it's right at 32F, wind chill around 15F. But the staff photographer was out there on assignment for 15 minutes taking pictures and could barely feel his hands. The tropics have apparently made us soft.

Reverse Angle

This is the view from the other side of the Freedom Monument (which is actually the front) on the night of the 90th anniversary celebration, where the crowd gathered for a celebratory concert (no celebration happens here without some singing). Then the concert ended and they all raced through the old town to claims spots along the riverside for fireworks. They managed to do it with urgency but without trampling anyone that we heard about.

Happy 90th Birthday, Latvia!

Yesterday was the 90th Anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Latvia. Your correspondent returned home in the nick of time to see some of the light displays they had set up around town (e.g. above detail of a street lined with suspended Latvian flag red-white-red fluorescent lights leading up to the Freedom Monument) and the big fireworks show over the Daugava. It was a fun night. It was also, literally, freezing. Our founding fathers were wise in declaring independence in July, surely foreseeing the pleasures of lazing about the park, waiting for fireworks. But anyway, good job Latvia on being 90!

Another November abroad...

...another Marine Corps Ball. And as we have newly declared a tradition, another Holla picture of The Lovely Katherine and some handsome young men in dress uniform. Whether fortunate or unfortunate, this year's entry was composed after several drinks had been consumed and the strict discipline for which the Marines are famed had been dispensed with. Your correspondent was apparently so inebriated that night, he failed to follow through on his long-considered plan to strategically untie his bow-tie with an hour or so left in the festivities so as to look like James Bond or Frank Sinatra or some other cool person who actually ties his own bow-tie. Opportunities were lost.

It got a little dusty at the Residence

The Ambassador's Residence, big party from 0600 to 0900 as the polls closed in California. And when Obama spoke, it became notably dusty and maybe some eyes were watering because of the amount of dust in the air and not at all due to the emotional content of the event.

A black president! The gracious concession! The story of the 100-year-old woman! America, ever moving forward! I don't think you had to be an Obama supporter to feel a little tug at the power of progress and history and reconciliation. But it probably didn't hurt.

We had a crowd of highly mixed party loyalties, despite the commonly known fact that the State Department is an infamous den of liberal America-haters. And we did have a fine time talking with assembled Americans (D) and Americans (R) and Latvians alike. But 0700 on a work day is a little early, and nary a hug nor a high-five was witnessed among the studiously non-partisan foreign-policy professionals. I'll admit that I wished I could have been back at home for some hugs or high-fives or even terrorist fist jabs.

In that spirit, no pictures of Latvia today. Above is one you've surely seen before, taken previously by a million other New York tourists. Below is the photo department's preferred shot from our stop at Liberty and Ellis islands en route to Latvia this summer, but "seagulls standing guard" doesn't really scream "America, ever moving forward," as the day demands.

Happy Election

This is a picture from Guatemala. We were hoping to find a somehow appropriate election day picture, but the pictures we had with the outgoing President in them seemed no longer apropos. So here is your correspondent, gazing off into the Future, seeking the next guy to ride Air Force One.

Your correspondent will be attending an election event at 6:00 tomorrow. That's 0600 AM. In the morning. When polls close on the West Coast, we'll be getting up and hosting a breakfast reception for various interested Latvians. (Interested and apparently early-rising Latvians, not exactly an easy or popular option in Riga in November.)

Dusk in the Park

I don't really understand the WiFi phone booth. I guess if you have a laptop and want to sit outside and check your email, you can drop some coins in the booth and surf away. I would assume it is an effort by the phone company to keep phone booths relevant in an era where everyone has mobile phones. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use the WiFi phone booths, but you can't blame the phone company for trying.

The Bus to Sarkandaugava

There are a ton of buses in Riga. Maybe it's just in the center, where we are, that they all converge. Riga also has trolleys and trams (which I guess in the U.S. we would now call "light rail" or some such) and jitneys and legit trains. And there are different tickets for them and different prices depending on if you buy them at newsstands or on the trolley. It's kind of a mish-mash, and a little more than we've really been up for figuring out. I suppose we ought to, after complaining about being barred from the seriously dangerous public transit in Guatemala, but why bother when we can walk to everything?

Some other, less refined, web-log referred to the people who ride buses here as "pensioners and smelly alcoholics," which maybe proves that there is more than unites the U.S. and Latvia than there is that divides us. Except we also have dangerous-looking thugs on our buses.

Autumn

Riga may have as autumn-y an autumn as anywhere we've lived in a while. San Francisco and Guatemala are mild all year. DC has a nice autumn, but somehow, it just doesn't compare. Maybe not enough trees, or we just didn't pay them any mind. Here in Riga, our walk to work takes us by several blocks of parks that are just packed with deciduous trees. The park across the street from the Embassy is seriously post-card level autumnal with streetlights glowing and orange and yellow leaves reflected in the canal's water. They have squadrons of leaf-rakers out clearing the grass, but they barely keep up.

Octopus Attack

For the 23rd consecutive time, our plans to quickly post some thoughts and pictures from a jaunt elsewhere in Europe and then get back to the Latvian content have gone awry. Ah, well. We have some more stuff from Athens, which we'll save for later. Since fall is now long gone in Riga, perhaps we'll post some pictures of autumn here within a few weeks. The above is a picture from the Archaeology Museum that proves that some 3000 years ago, the people of the Greek isles founded capitalism by mass-producing golden octopus trinkets of no apparent use, not unlike the Greek souvenir trinkets now available on the streets around the Acropolis, except, made in Greece.

Athens (con't)

The editor-in-chief is getting annoyed at some of the technical problems with our contracted web publishing service. While we get that sorted out, this is another picture of some columns, cleverly non-fluted at the bottom for easy leaning on by those crafty ancient Greek dudes.

Athens Some More

We were trying to post this last night, but Blogger was down. Now we have no time to write. Sorry, word fans.

Originality

I would like to be the ten millionth person to note that this thing that the Greek Honor Guard guys do in front of their tomb of the unknown soldier has to be the inspiration for the Monty Python skit about the Ministry of Silly Walks. It is really, truly, um, something to see. And then like the proverbial icing on the cake, they wear these pom-pom shoes. I gather that these kind of things are intended to be a demonstration of complete denial of self, the individual broken down and now part of a greater whole. And not to imply that I could properly execute the official Greek Guard Walk if I had to. But some countries (ours included, I would say) manage to do their precision guarding while looking kinda bad-ass, and some, less bad-ass. But I suppose lots of people stand real still or slowly do mini-goose-steps, but the Greeks have the big Rockette-kick-steps to themselves.

Hellas!

We went to Athens. I had a conference to attend, but we went a little early to see some old stuff. This is a temple that, if I understood the little sign correctly, has actually stood like this for about 2500 years. Most of the old stuff in the Acropolis has been blown up at least once in one of Europe's periodic sprees of blowing up all of their stuff, and then restored. The Parthenon was restored, but they did it wrong, and now they've been trying to do it right for several decades, so it has permanent scaffolding around it. It was still pretty cool, and the view there of the sprawl and smog of Athens was more impressive. But the Temple of Hephaestus here did a better job of not getting in the way or being a likely hiding spot for Turks or whoever someone was trying to blow up at the time, which counts for a lot in our book.

Oh my, do we have a lot of pictures of Athens. We promise to not show very many of them here. Editing is a skill, we hear.

They say it's my birthday...

It's your birthday, too, yeah...

I'm just back from sunny Athens. Good times were had, foods involving vegetables were consumed, things 2500 years old were observed. Now I'm a year older and the sun wasn't up yet when I had to go to work. How is that for symbolism? Well, bah. It's time to go out and drink some beer and enjoy despite the cold and the gray. We're off to Kapteiņa Enriko Pulkstenis, which means "Captain Enrique's Watch," a bar named for a beloved Soviet children's film in which a friendly Cuban Navy captain visits Riga and loses his watch, but is helped by fellow communist youth to find it and sail off. Then he busts through the capitalist blockade and brings Soviet nukes to Cuba. Ok, I made up the last part, but the film did teach one Latvian colleague at the embassy his only four words of Spanish. Quoth Kapteinis Enriko: "Muchas gracias, grandes amigos!"

Back soon with pictures of Greece.

Our work - for the motherland!

There are not actually a whole lot of obviously Soviet-looking things in Riga. And for good reason, your correspondent would say. Who would want a reminder of those days? Well, in truth, there are somewhat mixed feelings in some quarters, and one of those quarters is Daugavpils.

Daugavpils is Latvia's second largest city. It's near the Russian border, and with a concentration of ethnic Russians even higher than Riga's. I don't know that that means they miss communism more, but as is the case perhaps everywhere on earth, views of history tend to vary with ethnicity. One example is this sign, on a building overlooking one of the main roads through town. As indicated in the post title, it reads "Our Work - For the Motherland!" which sounds sufficiently communist to our ears that your correspondent can't imagine it lasting this long in Riga. Then again, maybe we're just not exploring the right neighborhoods.

A Picture of a Door

It's late; we don't have time to write much, or to dig around for a really interesting picture. So here's a perhaps moderately interesting picture of a door that someone decided to make out of hexagons in Old Riga. Sorry.

Hoopin it up

For the record, Latvia's national sport is ice hockey. They have a pretty good team. Or at the least, they punch above their weight for a nation of 2.5 million.

But the runner-up is basketball. ASK Riga (short for "Army Sports Club", no relation to the English word it spells) is a legendary team, having won several European titles back in the day when I can't imagine that many Europeans actually played basketball. A co-worker who is a big basketball fan offered me one of his courtside tickets for yesterday's game, when ASK triumphed in a Baltic Basketball League tilt against Lithuanian rival Žalgiris. Not that courtside seats were such a huge deal - it was far from a sellout - but as with everything, it was fun to be up close, even if the quality of basketball wasn't quite NBA-caliber.

The majority of the teams are Latvian or Lithuanian guys, but each team had a couple Americans and at least one Serb and/or Croat. Why the Balkans, I'm not exactly clear. One of the Americans, named Corey Brewer - but not the more famous basketball-playing Corey Brewer - played for the Oklahoma Sooners for a couple years in the late 90's, and has been playing in developmental or Eurpoean leagues ever since. I wonder what it's like for the few American athletes, living in a place like Riga, Latvia for the chance to keep playing professionally. It probably differs from being posted here as a diplomat in several relevant regards.

The photo above is from the ASK Riga webpage, photographer unknown.

More Jugendstil

I don't really know architecture from a hole in the ground. I can't tell a Georgian from Tudor from a Victorian. But I think mostly what they have in San Francisco is Victorians, and I think from this view, this building looks like something you might see out near the Panhandle -- a Victorian, perhaps. Except with a giant face stuck on there. The Victorian part is probably all wrong, but I'm pretty sure about the face.

New School

We're sure to have another report from another far-flung locale soon, but for now, we're back in Riga. Our neighborhood here is amazing. We live on the edge of the Art Nouveau district (or, the Jugendstil district as it's known, since there were more Germans than French hanging around Riga in those days). When your correspondent thinks of Art Nouveau, he first thinks of perhaps the Paris Metro. Riga is considered a capital of Jugendstil, at least in terms of what's surviving today. And the style here, mostly, means screaming people. We have many buildings in the blocks around us that feature figurative details. As often as not, those figures' faces look like they're witnessing a train wreck, or passing a kidney stone, or trapped in a room with two guys talking about their Fantasy Football teams. It is not yet clear to me what it was in the zeitgeist of those days that made architects think, "when someone looks at this building, they should see the building looking back and seeing the abyss of mortality." Or something. Apparently it was "new."

The above picture is at the very top of the facade of a six-or-so-story apartment building.

Stockholm, part the last

Hey, so that's it. Sweden was swell. We made it through four days of temptation without ever relenting and actually saying aloud, "Bork Bork Bork!" I.e., the trip was a success. Next time we might actually get back to saying something about Latvia, as was kinda the point all along.