Riga, Latvia

What an interesting Sunday I had with two very different activities.

A few days before the Sunday in question I met one of my host friends, a very nice Russian man that was very eager to show me his Riga.

He invited my host and me to attend services at the Lutheran Anglican church, where the services are in English so I would be able to participate. I told him that I am not a religious person but he was being so nice wanting to share part of his life with me, so without wanting to hurt his feelings, I accepted.

The service was nice, a little different than catholic services and they were only one hour long, so it wasn’t that bad.  After the services I was introduced to the congregation. The Pastor was very nice and charismatic and in attendance were the American Ambassador and her family, so I was introduced to them also.

After the services we walked the old town toward the market, which as you know, I like markets.

Then back to my host’s home for a few hours and then to a country sauna, and what experience that was.

A 73 yrs. old Russian lady, which is a wind surfing instructor, invited us to her country sauna.

Country saunas are run by a wood stove with the stones on top, and they are very hot, some are 86° and some over 100°. It is recommended to wear a thick hat and gloves as not to get burn.  So there I was, naked and wearing a wool cap and ready for the experience.

After being in the sauna for a while it is recommended to cool down rapidly, so these saunas are usually located near a lake or cold pool, or at least a shower.

After a few times in an out, everybody run to the lake and jumped in, except me. As my feet touched the freezing water while listening to all the other ladies scream as they dived in, I could not do it. I just got wet with my hands and that was it for me. I know, I should have got in, after all, that is one of the benefits because the sudden contrast from hot to cold is good for the blood vessels and renews the skin making it more flexible, but I am a chicken.

Then one more time to the sauna where I lay while a lady swatted me. The swatting is done with dry brunches of birch, oak, linden or juniper. My swatting was done with oak branches and pine branches. These branches are wrapped into a bouquet and tide with their own leaves. These bouquets get wet before they are used.

First they fan the bouquet in the air sprinkling the water around and making the sauna even hotter, and then I got rubbed with the branches and then swatted with them. Actually, it felt good, very relaxing even that it was very hot and I could hardly breath, but they put a bouquet of wet pine branches over my face so I could breathe better and it worked.

Then one more time everybody went into the lake and this time I did not even try, I just stood under the rain feeling relaxed while cooling down. Besides it is such a feeling of freedom to stand naked on a field feeling the water falling on my body, just great.

One more time into the sauna for a honey scrub and then a nice shower and a good night sleep.

Next morning I felt brand new and so revitalized…

I have been to saunas all my life, and I have heard about the swatting Nordic saunas, but this was the first time experiencing one and hopefully won’t be the last one.

The Rhine's River Castles and Loreley

What a glorious summer I had.

I know I have not written in a while but I have been having such a great time that I did not wanted to be inside a room writing.

So here it goes now. Let me start at the beginning.

After spending the winter in the French Riviera, I wanted to spend the summer in the Scandinavian countries. So I started making my way north through Germany. 

I always wanted to take a Rhine’s cruise and as I was going from Wiesbaden to Wibessen, I decided to take a little detour and take the cruise.

And it was a beautiful 11 hrs.trip, just looking at all the castles along the coast it was great.

Now, you are all familiar with the legend of Lorelei as we all have seen many pictures depicting the beautiful siren seating on a rock singing her songs while combing her hair.

As the legend goes, all the sailors where entranced by her voice and when they hear her they loosed all capabilities, making them crash against the rocks and sink.

In all the pictures, whether with real actors or cartoons, we saw the siren seating on a small rock in the middle of the sea. Well, the Lorelei rock, as you can see in the enclosed picture, is a high hill on the coast of the Rhine River.

And there goes another legend. I don’t know how or why a siren would go all the way up a hill just to comb her hair and sing. Oh well… it is a legend after all….

Nevertheless, the trip was great.

Walt-Mart, Xerox and food stamps

Who is to blame??

Wal-Mart for allowing the purchases? Or the people for knowingly purchasing over their limits?

In my opinion, they both are.

Wal-Mart should not have allowed such purchases and the people should not have taken advantage of the situation.

Walt-Mart knew that those purchases were wrong and they allowed them anyway, so I don’t see why they should get paid for their own bad judgment.

The people on food stamps should not have purchase carts and carts of groceries knowing they were not authorized to do so.

The food stamps department knows the food stamps recipients that overcharged, so they should suspend their monthly benefits for up to the amount they spent. These people should not go hungry; after all they have all the foods that they just “bought”.

I don’t see why these people should be getting future benefits with our tax payer’s money when obviously they are not deserving of them.

I don’t blame the Xerox company because it was a computer glitch, and as soon as they noticei t they fixed the problem, besides they have a clause specifying what retailers should do in such a case.

I blame Wal-Mart for knowingly allowing it and the food stamp recipients for knowingly taking advantage.

And the key word is: “knowingly”.

Both sides knew they were on the wrong and they did it anyway, so they cannot blame anybody but themselves.

In my opinion, this is a simple solution; just deduct the expenses from future benefits. And Walt-Mart should know better.

House-sitting

Many times squalors take possession of an empty house and the law makes it very difficult to vacate them. This has been happening for ever, however, now a day there is a new kind of squalors.

I was reading an article about how people are trespassing in houses when the owners are on vacation. The article sites that these people “vacation” in the empty houses, however, they eat and drink everything in sight, they leave a mess behind and in many cases they vandalize the properties.

The one article I read sited how when the home owners came back they found the house in shambles. There were dirty dishes in the sink and on the floors of the living room and bedrooms. The bathrooms were filthy as it was the rest of the house.

And even that I find this conduct reproachable, I can’t stop thinking why these people did not get a house sitter?

I have been doing house sitting for the last 5 years and it is a great program. There are many websites for it, I have been using House Carers and I love the experiences I have had.  I have house-sat in the US, England, Ireland, Spain, France, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Italy.

It doesn't cost anything to the homeowner to get a house sitter but they get peace of mind of knowing that somebody is taking care of their place while they are on vacation.

Most of the time the house sit it’s to take care of a pet because the owners don’t want to leave their pets in a kennel or cattery, and it makes perfect sense, the pets are better off being in their own environment. Nevertheless, there are many house sit where there are no pets, however most of them do, and let’s face it, all of us (house sitters) are pet lovers, otherwise we would not be doing this.

For people like me it provides the opportunity to travel and live in one place for a time and be able to learn the ways of life of that country, their traditions and customs and language, and don’t let us forget the opportunity to taste different foods.

It is a win-win situation. The home owner gets somebody to take care of their house and pets and the house sitter gets a place to stay.

 Win-win!

http://www.housecarers.com/sitter.cfm/cristinagrau.htm

It’s all part of the adventure.

I am still in Estonia and this weekend I decided to go CouchSurfing to Tartu. Thursday I took the 2 ½ hours bus from Pärnu to Tartu. 

Half way there, a car come speeding next to the bus, blinking and blowing the horn and signaling to the bus driver to stop. The car swerved in front of the bus making it stop, just to find out that we were leaving an oil trail all over the high way.

Needless to say, the bus could not continue any longer. So, there we were, in the middle of nowhere with a broken bus.

The bus company was sending another bus, but as I mentioned before, we were half way there, so no matter where the bus was coming from, still will be a long wait.

It was a beautiful day, so I walked a little, sat a little, walk some more.

            Finally the replacement bus came and we were on the road again.