Of Uzbekistan: Market Day

We spent a morning at a market in the small town of Urgut, not too far away from Samarkand. We've done a lot of markets around the world, and always enjoy them. The staff photographer, like many photographers, loves the variety of sights and people doing interesting things in public markets. Of course, in a lot of markets (e.g. Guatemala), there are a lot of people who are not excited about having their picture taken, whether due to general principle or exhaustion from so many tourists wanting to take a picture of the colorful vegetables and the equally colorful local person.


When digital photography first became affordable, stories abounded of how excited those colorful locals were to be able to see themselves on the little digital camera screen. Your correspondent had dismissed these tales as largely apocryphal. But, wonder of wonders, in Urgut, lots of people really wanted their picture taken. I was wandering the market with a Swiss guy I had met at the guest house in Samarkand. We each had big obvious cameras with us. And the number of people who would say "Hey Mister" and then pantomime taking a picture was really surprising. Kids in particular were excited to see their miniature LCD-screen portraits, but even adults seemed to get a real kick out of it. The guy below, in particular, wanted a picture of himself talking on his mobile phone. Maybe he figured it made him look like rather than selling rice by the pound, he was selling grain futures on the world market.

Of Uzbekistan: Bonus Sunday Photo

Just because we have a lot of pictures we want to share. Seen in Urgut, near Samarkand. I look at this and think they look like a gang of dangerous characters wandering into some movie's one-horse town, ready to cause trouble.

Of Uzbekistan: The Mighty Lada

There are some Ladas still on the road in Latvia. Few enough that you still notice them, but not so few that you stop and stare.

In Uzbekistan, there are a lot of Ladas on the road. They come in all variety of colors that we don't really use for cars anymore, like vibrant purple and pumpkin orange. A lot of them are being used as taxis, but your correspondent only rode in one Lada taxi - it seemed that whenever I needed a taxi some crummy modern Daewoo was right there. An equal number, however, were being used as pickup trucks. Or at least, used to haul furniture, lumber, appliances, you name it, which I think of as pickup appropriate tasks. This is the best picture I got, but not even close to the biggest stack of stuff seen on top of a Lada. I did not see any of them hauling cattle trailers like you would in a Ford pickup ad, but they still haul a pretty impressive load for such a funny little car.

Of Uzbekistan: Seeds for sale!

Things in this picture:

A guy in one of those cool Uzbek caps and his (perhaps) granddaughter selling some kind of seeds as a snack from a wheelbarrow of sorts.

The remains of the Aksaray Palace, the top of which was the site of yesterday's photo.

A big statue of Timur/Tamerlane - he's everywhere in Uzbekistan. Don't worry, it's just the perspective that makes it look like maybe it's bigger than the palace. It just normal big.

Ferris wheel, one of several rides you probably could not have paid me to ride on at the fair for the last day of school.

Not sure why the black-and-white seems to be working for a lot of the Uzbekistan pictures. It was at times a fairly colorful place.

Of Uzbekistan: Graduation

This picture is from the top of the remains of a centuries-old castle in Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan. Shahrisabz was home to Tamerlane, the Uzbeks' great conqueror and now national hero. Which is sort of like declaring Attila the Hun your national hero, under the philosophy: "He may have been a cruel tyrant, but he was our cruel tyrant." In any case, Tamerlane built an amazing palace in Shahrisabz, parts of which still stand and are amazing.

The day we were there turned out to be the last day of school for the students of Shahrisabz Unified School District. It seemed that thousands of them descended on the park surrounding the ancient palace for a modest carnival and the possibility of climbing to the top of the tower, and if not, enjoying the biggest graduation party in town down at ground level. To the best of our reckoning, the new graduates all wore sashes to mark their accomplishments. Many of the young women, graduates or not, were dressed as pictured above, poofy pony-tail holders and all, as apparently is the fashion in Shahrisabz these days.

Of Uzbekistan: The Registan

One of the undoubted highlights of Uzbekistan is the Registan. It is a complex of three madrassahs (Islamic seminaries, sort of) built from the 1400's to the 1600's. They are pretty spectacular. Each of them has a similar style a massive arched door, with a courtyard behind, surrounded by what would have been the dorms and classrooms. Nowadays, each of the little study rooms has been converted into a souvenir shop. It's a shame. Similarly, they have "restored" the medrassahs to such a shiny new state that they look like they might as well have been built yesterday. The buildings are still amazing, but you don't get the feeling of awe you might if they were a little bit crumbling and not packed with people selling kitsch versions of national crafts to tourists.

Oh, well.

On the flip side, there are a series of minarets (picture of what the whole place looks like found below), each with a tiny spiral staircase inside. For an appropriate additional fee to the security guards, they will let you climb up to the top of the minaret for a pretty impressive view. I'm sure the "minaret fee," like the "camera fee" and a variety of other negotiable charges at tourist sites, was appropriately turned over by the guard to the administrators of the site in order to fund future restoration efforts.

Special Election Edition!

We have more pictures of Uzbekistan than we know what to do with. So here is a picture of the roof at the Registan - about which more later.

We had an interesting weekend here, but the staff photographer didn't come along. Elections swept across Europe, and your correspondent, wearing his diplomat hat, was an observer here in Riga. We zipped around the city, stopping in at various polling places, checking in, looking around, and then zipping off again. There are places in the world where foreign election observers have a decent chance of running into someone stuffing a ballot box or threatening violence against people who vote the wrong way. Those of us lucky enough to be posted to EU capitals are somewhat less likely to run into these problems. Not that there is no corruption to be found in Latvia, but this observer did not witness anyone being paid for their votes. Mostly, it was similar to what you might see in the U.S.: Some polling places were pretty empty; some had lines; some had more voters than they had apparently expected and the election commission worker in charge seemed to be on the edge of a breakdown trying to handle the requests coming from all angles - not least of which some random people from an embassy stopping by, necessitating further filling out of forms and signing of documents. Hopefully nobody dumped out the ballot box while we were inadvertently distracting her.

Of course we did note some interesting trends and could expound on the meanings of the election results, but reporting on that would border uncomfortably on our day job, so you'll just have to go read the extensive international news coverage of the Latvian elections to learn more.

Of Uzbekistan: Potatoes and Prints

These pictures are from the main market area in Tashkent. There is a big and somewhat organized farmer's market section, with thousands of pounds of potatoes and onions, and then a sprawling collection of tarp-shaded stalls selling household goods and clothes.

The traditional women's attire is of particular note. Most of the women of a certain age wear a suit that looks like pajama pants and a muumuu of matching fabric, and then a scarf around their hair of an often entirely different fabric. Most popular are prints, and the crazier and louder the better. Traditional Uzbek weaving patterns are not exactly subdued. Your correspondent assumes that the advent of synthetics and their even more vibrant colors and elaborate prints were adopted in place of the kind of hippie-looking hand-woven patterns of the olden days. The fact that no effort is apparently made to match the headscarf and the main garment leads to some striking combinations of patterns. A small assortment of fabrics for sale is seen below.

Of Uzbekistan: Tree Whackers and Washroom Attendant

Today, two pictures of interesting people your correspondent briefly met in Uzbekistan. We happened upon a local guide (of sorts) who helped us translate some basic conversations. Above, a grandfather-and-son team. The older guy with the long plank was using it to shake berries off the branches of this tree, just off the side of a big broad street. His young assistant gathered into his plastic tub any of the berries that fell on the tarp. They let us try a few of the berries, which were shaped sort of like raspberries but were a pale waxy yellow. They were sweet and tasty. (That's the limit of either our palate or our vocabulary in describing food.)


The second picture is a guy who we met at one of the small neighborhood mosques. He wanted it known that while the mosque pictured in yesterday's post may be bigger and more famous, this small mosque boasts a washroom (for washing oneself, particularly the feet, before entering the mosque) unparalleled in Tashkent. He's squinting in the sun in this picture, which makes it hard to see he only has one eye. In any case, both pictures are worth looking at bigger if you have a seocnd, to see all the expressions on the faces.

Of Uzbekistan: Thermometers and Fistfights

This is perhaps not the most striking example of the architecture of Uzbekistan, but it is the first one the photo editor came across in chronologically sorting through the pictures. This is in Tashkent. The first impressions of Tashkent, upon arriving at 1:30 in the morning because that's when all the flights get there, were these:

One disembarks from the plane, like at a crappy European airports, by taking stairs down to the tarmac to get on a bus. The bus takes you to the terminal. Then, unlike at any European airport I know of, you line up and before you can get into the terminal you are greeted by a nurse in a funny hat and a surgical mask who reaches into your shirt to put a thermometer under your armpit. You then walk thirty paces to the next station, where a doctor takes the thermometer and checks to see if it has climbed to an unsafe level during your short walk, and if not, allows you to proceed to passport control. I hear this is a temporary swine flue measure.

The second impression was in the car from the airport to my hotel, at 2:30 in the morning, cruising down one of the six-lane boulevards that is the hallmark of a Soviet-planned city. At this hour, there is no traffic at all. But then I noticed something in the street ahead... the driver shifted from the middle to the left lane to avoid what turned out to be two guys laying on the ground, wrestling and punching each other, in the very middle of a darkened major street, oblivious to the minimal traffic, with a woman watching them and occasionally stepping in to land a quick punch on one or maybe both of the combatants. It seemed weird - even surreal - but I suppose it's something one could come across in any city in America that happens to sell alcohol.

Of Uzbekistan: The Big Wad of Bills

OK, so once again this isn't the most amazing picture, but it is illustrative. The first things one does as a tourist in any country is acquire a bit of the local currency. The above photo represents the stack of money you get if you change about $150 into Uzbek sum. The biggest note they have is 1000 sum, which is about 65 cents. So US$200 = 300,000 Uzbek sum = a stack of 300 ratty notes that one has to find space for in their luggage. The other result is that you walk around as a tourist with a stack of 1000 sum notes in your pocket and therefore, tourist-area vendors being smart people, no price for anything is ever less than 1000 sum, which is fine because you really get to feel that you have a bottomless supply of 1000 sum notes to throw around. And when you have to pay for something expensive -- like $13 expensive -- you feel like you're in a gangster movie, pulling out a giant wad of bills and counting off 20 of them to hand over. Thinking of which - maybe there is tourist appeal in the tiny banknotes, after all.

Of Uzbekistan

Your correspondent went to Uzbekistan. For vacation. On purpose. It was great. We hope you want to read things about Uzbekistan, because the staff photographer took well over a thousand pictures -- digital photography can do that to you. Anyway, despite the fact that the majority of items published here are about our travel adventures, we are painfully aware that as a rule, reading about other peoples' travel adventures is really, really boring. A great travel story is one thing. A recounting of "and then" on top of "and then" is a sure cure for insomnia, and we've all been forced to sit through more vacation pictures than we're interested in on at least one occasion. So, despite our current excitement about Uzbekistan, we will attempt to narrow things down to just a few choice stories and a few exceptional photographs. If we all hang in there together, we can get through this.


As an introduction fitting the general travel theme (and because we haven't had a chance to really edit our thousand pictures down to the promised handful of keepers) we present today pictures from inside and outside an Uzbekistan Airways flight from Bukhara to Tashkent. Your correspondent traveled this route on a Soviet-era Antonov AN-24 aircraft. It did not crash while I was on it. It turns out I wasn't supposed to take pictures at the airport, I guess for general airport security reasons, or because they are worried about someone stealing the highly prized Antonov AN-24 airplane technology. We may never know.

Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets: Le Jetee

Out at the mouth of the Daugava, there is a long breakwater or jetty or seawall (growing up in Colorado, your correspondent has no idea which, if any, of these is correct) sticking out into the Gulf of Riga. It's surprising that after miles of industrial decay, and then some miles of pretty much nothing, all of a sudden this structure boasts hundreds of yards packed with fishermen. I never saw anyone catch anything, but this many fishermen can't be wrong.

Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets: Estonian Pride

This is an add on the ship-board duty-free store for Vana Tallinn, which is a supposedly traditional Estonian liqueur. We haven't tried it, but we hear it is not too different from Rigas Balsams, in that it is "traditional," and doesn't "taste good," and is marketed at tourists. Astute readers probably figured all of that out from the advertisement, which couldn't come up with any better selling point than: you might as well give it a try because - what the hell! - "It's Estonian!"

And maybe they sold some: It seemed that one of the primary pastimes among the ship's passengers was "waiting for the duty-free store to hit international waters."

Revenge of Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets

More things spotted from the Daugava: A rainbow of rail cars that probably haven't moved in years.

The cruise scene was a bit odd. The boat was not big enough or spectacular enough to be a real cruise ship, but it was definitely too loaded with amenities to be simply a "ferry." There were overpriced restaurants, a duty free shop, and some modest on-board entertainment. Actually, our friends' young ones seemed to enjoy Pepe, the Ship's Clown. The Ship's Acoustic Troubadour and the Ship's Violin-and-Piano Duo seemed to draw somewhat less intense followings. And by that I mean that they played to basically empty rooms. I'm sure they got paid either way, but there is something really sad about relatively talented and skilled musicians trying their best and not finding anyone who cares. It might have been better for overall spirits if they had just played recorded music in these locations.

In part, the ship was not all that packed - it's early in the season and your correspondent estimates that the money is in ferrying cars and big rigs across the Baltic - and if they can con a few extra people into renting a cabin for the night, that's all gravy.

More Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets

The Daugava is, in general, an attractive river. It's wide, it has tree-lined banks, etc. But in the fifteen miles or so from Riga to its mouth on the Bay, there are a lot of cranes and a lot of apparently abandoned factories.

Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets

We went on a cruise! Sort of.

Your correspondents, as always tirelessly seeking the most essential and authentic cultural experiences, sailed on the SS Romantika across the Baltic Sea and back. The journey takes 15 hours or so each way, so basically, one sails from Riga overnight on a Friday, has six hours in Stockholm, and then an overnight return.

The ship is big and has lots of amenities, but it's not all-inclusive or decked out with a climbing wall, so I guess it's not like a true full-service cruise. This lovely shot taken from the deck as we sailed down the Daugava from Riga.

Last of the Pride Pictures

Tail end of the parade. It's hard to refrain from editorializing further about relative merits of the parade participants and the anti-parade protesters, but such is diplomacy. I guess. Thus, I will say: I like this picture even though it's not sharp. If you want to see a few more from the parade, check out the set on Flickr.

The Fuzz

Like any event in the modern world where people of divergent opinions gathered, there lurked the potential for one of those groups of people to beat the crap out of those with the divergent opinions. And so, you get your riot police. The police actually did a great job of respecting everyone's rights to free speech while keeping the two combatant sides separated. They haven't always. In any case, riot police in full gear are a striking sight. The greatest highlight for lovers of irony may be the sign on the left in Latvian, one of several that accuses the Pride parade of sticking the Latvian people with a huge bill for the security costs incurred. Finding the irony involved is left as a basic exercise for the reader.

More from Baltic Pride

A little more from Saturday's Riga Gay Pride parade, which your faithful correspondent covered for his day job. Homosexuality is still controversial enough in Latvia that the city council tried to ban the gay pride parade, and though they were not successful there were still plenty of opponents there to hurl epithets.
As a highly politically charged event, we can't really say a whole lot about it since we were there in our official capacity.

Most of the anti-parade protesters, who outnumbered the participants in the gay pride parade itself, were kept outside the parade grounds by riot police. For some reason unclear to your correspondent, this woman was allowed in, wearing a quasi-habit and a cross tied to her chest. She stood silently blocking the parade route for long stretches, as above, where the marchers to the right have been standing still long enough for the press to conduct an interview. At one point when the parade people decided to just go around her, she feigned that they had knocked her to the ground and wounded her, much to the delight of the gathered press. It was quite a scene.

P.s. We're going on leave for a few days, which would have meant more pictures than words coming up anyway.

21 km

Your correspondent is pictured above, making an ass of himself while running the Riga Half Marathon on Sunday, presented here in perhaps some sort of mental compensation for posting that picture of an anonymous staffer eating a giant steak last week.

The half marathon was a good time, although it's a less festive event than similar occasions might be in the U.S. Thousands showed up for the 5k mini-marathon. Hundreds participated in the half-marathon. Maybe hundreds* took place in the full marathon, which involved multiple laps of a course in Riga's center, and was flat but probably pretty boring. There were a few spectators here and there, and a few brass bands to liven things up. But mostly, there isn't a real culture around running here. It is very rare to see a Latvian running on city streets, as you see in any American city on any morning of the year - exercise here is something you do inside at a gym, if you must. I thought maybe this concept would bring out spectators interested in seeing the freaks out sweating in public, but apparently that would be more sad than fascinating. Then again, they may not have known there would be participants like your correspondent above, going above and beyond to look like idiots.

* editors note: It turns out that several hundred ran the marathon. Our correspondent is not so good at estimating the size of a crowd strung out along 26 miles of road.

Press

This is your faithful correspondent, making small talk with the Canadian Ambassador prior to the Baltic Pride parade in Riga this weekend. Featured (well, buried, but findable) on Delfi, a pretty well-read Latvian web portal. (Do they still call websites with headlines and various general-interest stuff "portals"? Even if they're dead in the U.S., they still have them here.)

Anyway, a busy weekend: more stuff coming soon.

Of Florence: Last bits

Ok, so here's a tourist-style picture of the famous Ponte Vecchio. For some possibly quasi-OCD reason, the publisher feels that upon having four posts in a week about Florence, we ought to round out the week with more Florence, even if there's not much left in that well. And while we're throwing around generally pleasant pictures, the photo editor is quite fond of this picture of The Lovely Katherine waiting in line at the Uffizi, even if (because) she decided not to sit still.

Of Florence: Steak Florentine

We had some delicious food in Florence. On a couple occasions, this involved rare steak, in the Florentine manner. In one of these occasions, it involved a steak so large, they had to warn us that it was a stupid amount of steak for two people, but that was the only size they serve. The anonymous Holla staffer above was maybe not thrilled to have her picture taken with this cut of meat that looked kind of like that big thing of ribs they put on Fred Flintstone's car, tipping it over (if we recall the Flintstones' title sequence correctly). This was, in fact, one half serving, with the staff photographer enjoying the other half. Anyway, the photo has been altered to protect the identities of the innocent.

Of Florence: The Mighty Vespa

The Vespa is a classic of Italian design, and still frequently used in Florence. And probably in Rome, but we don't remember.


There are a lot of other motor scooters out there, and while the staff photographer sat on the side of the bridge trying to get some good panning shots of the traffic zipping by, he captured all variety from tiny scooters to full on touring motorcycles. But sorting through the pictures, the Vespas stand out, even when the blurry pictures reveal the staff photog's limited ability to pull off a panning shot. (For the non-photographers out there, the idea is to move the camera to keep a moving object in focus with the background blurry.)


The other side of things is array of fashions on display. Those scooter riders of Florence wear some colorful shoes. I guess none of the colorful shoes made the cut this time, but there were a lot. Of course, maybe it's just that everyone looks stylish when zipping along on a Vespa.


Because we did not exactly do a lot of planning ahead on this trip, we failed to reserve a timed ticket for the Uffizi gallery before they were sold out. Which, over May Day weekend, meant a three-hour wait in line. We took turns, but the staff photographer definitely came out ahead with a lot of time sitting out on this bridge shooting scooters.

Of Florence: Restraint, or, Unforeseen Budgetary Problems

Your correspondent found these churches, of which there are at least a couple in Florence, striking. This is Italy, home of the Renaissance and the counter-reformation and various soaring cathedrals dedicated to various saints. And yet in Florence, there were some of these churches that, at least from the outside, seem as humble and unadorned as any back-to-basics Protestant church you could find. I suppose the vaulted stone is not as humble as simple clapboard, but there is no towering steeple here.

The Duomo, it turns out, had its original decorations torn down because they were out of fashion. It then took them hundreds of years to finally get around to putting anything new up there. Maybe the same happened here - a grand architectural redesign that is still waiting the money needed for completion. I suspect something of the sort is at play here, but it would be nicer to think that they decided they'd had enough of all the Marys and John the Baptists on their churches and went for something different.

Of Florence: The Duomo

Like a lot of tourists, we took some pictures of the Duomo. And like a lot of tourists, we wound up with a bunch of boring pictures of the Duomo. It's a crazy building and all, but sometimes a picture of a building is just a picture of a building.

The photo editor's favorite is the picture above. As in many matters of aesthetics, it's hard to put a finger on why. I suppose we could say something about the contrast between the static and moving elements, or the surprise of an unexpected element in an otherwise predictable picture. Or maybe we just like old guys on bicycles. And if you're looking for somewhat more predictable or traditional or what have you, see below.

Of Florence: A Picture of a Carousel

I really think it's great that there are some people who apparently have subscribed to the Holla feed or otherwise check in regularly. Maybe even a couple who aren't related to me. Really, thanks. I'm trying to put something interesting here every weekday. But sometimes I just can't (or maybe just don't) keep up with it. If only each of you regular readers would agree to pay me one-tenth of my regular salary, I could quit my day job.

In any case, here is a picture from the Piazza della Repubblica in Florence that turned out actually pretty well given that it was taken with a handheld point-and-shoot camera. But it ain't art. Sorry; it's past the editor-in-cheif's bedtime already.

Of Florence: Mosaics Great and Small

Did you know there is some famous art in Florence? It is true. One can barely walk without stepping on something famous by Michelangelo or Raphael or Donatello or Leonardo and maybe even some decent artist who never had a Ninja Turtle named after him.

Some of the famous pieces are cool to behold in person, and some less so. But it is the editorial policy of this publication that you can never go wrong with an ancient mosaic. Below is a mosaic as big as a house, and above is one as small as a matchbox. Both were awesome.

The Lovely Katherine, for her part, points out that approximately half of all paintings in Florence, whether Gothic or Renaissance, feature a beheading -- which was apparently all the rage back then.

The King of Spain

Hey, look, it's the King of Spain (left)! And the President of Latvia (right)! And some security police guy (center)! King Juan Carlos was in Riga today, spotted at a ceremony opening a Latvian-run, Spanish-built power station today on the outskirts of the city. Your correspondent never got closer than twenty yards or so, but the staff photographer is about to turn in his resignation and give it a go as a freelance paparazzo.

Of Florence!

No time to say more for now. We'll be publishing late again tomorrow, but hopefully with something interesting from Florence other than a hip dude on a tiny bicycle. We can't promise it will be better, but since this is the only dude on a tiny bicycle that was captured on film, we can promise it will be something different.

Flowers

After Latvia beat Switzerland in the World Hockey Championships, your correspondent followed the crowd to witness a local tradition. After an international hockey victory, Latvian hockey fans gather in front of their vanquished foe's embassy in Riga, where they lay flowers as if in condolences or mourning. The staff photographer tried to get some pictures, but it was dark, and nobody was very interested in standing still. There was a lot of jumping around and shouting and general celebrating, and a lot fewer flowers than we expected, although upon our departure there were still plenty of people just arriving, like the two pictured above. I guess people don't buy entire bouquets just to throw at an office tower that happens to have the Swiss Embassy as a tenant, but things might be different if they win a quarterfinal game this week.

Hockey Night in Rezekne

Your correspondent and a local guide were dispatched for a research trip to beautiful Latgale, in eastern Latvia, along the Russian border. It was actually a very interesting trip and we met some great people and learned a lot, which is kind of the point of your correspondent's day job.

In the evening, the trusty local guide was dedicated to finding a decent television to watch the World Championships of Hockey. I'm not talking about the NHL: Although you wouldn't know it by reading ESPN.com or Yahoo Sports, there is a world-cup tournament happening right now. (If you are interested, the U.S. is doing ok, while Latvia managed to beat the Swedes for the first time ever and advance to the next round.) It's apparently not a big deal in the U.S., which is sort of too bad, because it is clearly a big deal here.

On Monday night in Rezekne, we went searching for a bar where we could watch the (admittedly great) Latvia/Sweden game. Unfortunately many of the bars within walking distance had mirrored windows, were open 24 hours a day, and advertised slot machines prominently on the outside. Not being interested in these places where gambling or some other unsavory activity would happen, we made our way to Rezekne's other major hotel, which had a bar with a TV, pictured above. That is your correspondent using the table as a tripod to capture the scene. And yes, to the right, that is a pole of the variety that might be used by an exotic dancer. Not that there were any strippers working that night: It didn't seem to be laid out such that there ever would be; maybe the pole is there for the convenience of patrons? In any case, even if we didn't really find a U.S.-style "sports bar," the game was entertaining enough to carry the evening, and the pole was never put to use.

Stork Season

Like the Canada Geese returning to crap all over Greeley for another year, except somehow better (maybe because the don't crap in Riga's parks), the storks have returned to Latvia.

All year round, one can see stork nests dotting the countryside. As I have heard it, it is illegal to damage or knock down a stork nest. And apparently, Storks love nothing more than putting their nests on top of telephone poles. Perhaps more accurately, they loved to put their nests on telephone poles thirty years ago. As progress put up new, somehow better telephone poles and knocked down the old ones, progress was prevented from knocking down those poles with stork nests. As a result, there are random, lonely poles along the roadsides all over Latvia, solitarily holding up storks' nests.

On a recent trip to the East of Latvia, this nest was spotted with a pair of storks apparently mating. Violently. They kept falling out of the nest, and then would fly off in a big circle and land back in the nest and wrestle some more and then fall out again. Eventually they fell out and I guess they were done because they just sat there on the ground. Maybe if they didn't put the nest on the top of a telephone pole, it would be a little easier.

P.s. Sorry we messed up some of the pictures earlier this week. They're fixed now if you want to go back and look.

Red, Yellow

We did not partake of either the mysteriously red cabbage or the mysteriously yellow cabbage on offer at the market. Some subtleties of the local cuisine may remain unknown through our entire time here.

He who controls the spice, controls the universe

Kind of a fun way to buy spices, stored loose in rows of little plastic trays. If you want some cumin, for example, you just have to tell the friendly lady how many grams of cumin you want. Which means you have to have some idea in your head of how much one of those little jars' worth of cumin might weigh, and then (for some of us) convert it to metric. It's way better than how they do it in America.

The Central Market

Some pictures from a while ago. We may not be ready to do this every-day posting thing, and the Day Job is taking us away from the Holla offices for a couple days.

Anyway, the Riga Central Market is found in a series of huge arched buildings that were originally designed to be zeppelin hangars. No, really. Now they are home to the cheapest vegetables, fish, and cheese to be found in the city.