Merry Christmas From Riga, Latvia

Behold my Charlie Brown tree. 

It's a sad X-mas without snow, don't you think?

You Shall Not Pass...

... in Lithuania.

Wet Feet And Chicken Soup

As a Canadian I'm somewhat ambivalent about Latvian winters. The last several winters have actually been slightly nasty by local standards so I was fairly comfortable but this one is turning into the type of Baltic winter that I have come to, dislike. It's the cycle of snow/slop which I find so untidy. Get the snow down, have temperatures drop low enough so that the ground freezes and you're good to go until the spring. Wishful thinking.

As of this writing there is almost no snow left, just a little slop. This after the snow/wind storms of several weeks ago. Below is a pic showing how it was after the first snow storm, beautiful eh!? (notice the rock? ;))

This is how it is today. So dull. So washed out. No crispness.

So many rocks in a country supposedly almost devoid of them! Rocks to the left...

Rocks to the right...

(confused by the fixation on rocks? see previous post.)
But I have to admit, it's easier for me to get dirt to re-pot some of my house plants.  Because I can't be bothered to actually buy dirt. There is something wrong with that whole concept. Buying dirt.

Gophers. I'm told they call them ground squirrels here but in eight years I've never seen one in spite of the fact that these mounds are absolutely everywhere. Tractor lawn-mower comes around to cut the grass! Piles of dirt blasted into oblivion. Back the very next day. Doubly odd because the water table is so high in Latvia which has a high elevation of something like 300 m somewhere in the "mountains". You see the pond in the right of the frame? That's the water table. If I dig down 2 ft I'm in water so these tunnel beasts live in a layer of dirt 2 ft thick. 

The weather forecast for the next three days is temperatures above zero and rain. Looks like a green Christmas! And a lot of home made chicken soup.

Latvian Driving Habits

Oh my. Where to start?

Lets do like this, just to take the sting out of it a little bit.

Back in 2004 I was living in Moscow waiting to get married at Zags #4. My future wife had a full time job but I didn't. Two or three times a week I taught English lessons to Russian engineers at an industrial complex just outside of Chekov which is just 30 minutes outside of the city so I had time to wander around and make a nuisance of myself. On this one particular day I was window shopping at Fujon (fancy chocolate store) on Tverskaya when I was almost run down by a big black Merc. On the sidewalk, which is hella wide. I mean, people were parking on the sidewalk but it was kinda organized by these parking control people. You get used to that in Moscow. But you don't get used to big black Mercedes running at speed on the sidewalk trying to get around the traffic stalled at a red light. That was my first lesson of many on how to survive in Moscow as a pedestrian. Keep your eyes wide open even when you are in the toilet!

Latvia, Riga and suburbs particularly have even more crazy driving situations. Ever wonder why there are all these big rocks dropped on almost every corner once you get out of the city centre? It's because even Latvians understand that they will drive their vehicles wherever they can, just like they were on the farm or some back country road.

Around my building there are, I think, no less than eight rocks. They vary in size from big honking boulders that several people can sit on to eat lunch to barely noticeable things that are just high enough to take the oil pan off an engine. Does that force people to show due care and attention? Nope. There is a strip of dead grass after one of these barely noticeable half buried rocks that is the result of spilled oil from many a damaged engine. I even witnessed one poor fool destroy his car thusly about four years ago. Look closely at all the other bigger more noticeable boulders and you will see paint. You would think that drivers would know better but for one thing, booze.

It's really astonishing how many of my neighbours drink and drive! It's so bad that along with keeping my eyes wide open I also simply assume that everyone is drunk as it is much safer that way. I'm not saying that everyone is drunk but I just cannot ignore what my eyes see!

Take for example the guy who lives in the next building. I see him every day, parked behind my building. At first I didn't know what he and his passenger were doing but one day as I walked past I could see them drinking vodka out of a bottle with a Coke chaser. When they are done the passenger gets out with the empties and whatever crap they were noshing on to drop into our waste bins while the car owner drives home, which is not very far. Why am I even mentioning such a trivial thing you ask? Because he uses the pedestrian walkways to both go to the Elvi to get his booze and to go home. Every day. The pedestrian walkway that the moms use with their prams. The pedestrian walkway lined with snowmen where kids play. And he's not the only one! It's tragically common.

Then there is another fellow in my building who keeps a bottle of vodka in the back of his car. I won't mention him much. He has bad friends.

And I'm not even going to mention beer because it's apparently akin to soda pop.

Outside of booze I suspect there is a fair amount of laziness or a sense of entitlement because how else do you explain people (my building again) who insist on taking two parking spots, or drive on the grass rather than rotate the steering wheel more than 90° in order to park or leave the lot. Reverse? When you see a Latvian put it in reverse put your phone on video because you are in for a show. Forward is all anyone understands.

Think I'm being hard on our Latvian drivers? Not hard enough I figure. Two weeks ago I was almost run over by our waste bins by another neighbour (drunk) who was outrunning the police who unfortunately just had some shitty underpowered little service van. The cop tried to ask me if I saw anything and for sure I was going to turn the miscreant driver in but the cop was so disgusted with my Russian (I don't speak much Latvian) that he threw his hands in the air and drove off. I was quite disappointed.

My wife tried for three months to get her drivers license using one of the driving schools in Riga. What a scam! There was no way to pass the exam without paying a bribe and after three freaking months we just threw in the towel and renew our International Drivers Licenses every year. But we're too afraid to drive, so we use public transport.

Ainars Slesers Continues To Soil Latvia With His Presence

I thought it was pretty cool of Ainars Slesers to delay the announcement of his possible return to Latvian politics until the 2013 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index was released. So as to not negatively affect this countries rating.

And that's pretty much all I have to say about that.