Vacation photos
Hi everyone :D I'm back from my vacation, and it's time for a vacation report with photos and stuff. Don't get your hopes up, though - it was not a particularly exciting vacation XD
I arrived in Riga on Saturday 11.05. I was too late for the local anime convention, so I immediately went home (my mother and brother actually picked me up at the airport so I didn't have to pay for the taxi, yay) and ate food and took photos of mother's cats. The black one is Sebastian and the tabby is Sonya. They are the cutest, I really wish I could keep a kitty here... But then again, if I had one, I would not be able to travel or anything because I would have to look after the cat.
Later that day we went to watch my brother's team play their first game in the season (in case you didn't know, my brother is a football coach for a 2nd League team). It was actually really cool, they played against the champion of the 2nd League and won. It was fun watching the champions get nervous and start making mistakes and commit fouls because they had not expected a new team to be that good.
That said, my brother has lots of money problems with the team, he can't find sponsors, and basically everyone plays there for free, they don't get salaries or anything. So I'm somewhat worried about the future of the team. I have recently been given a 200 EUR pay rise, so I'm thinking of donating something like 100 EUR every month to his football team, but that is really a very small amount, he said that to get the club working, he would need like half a million euros... Oh well.
After bumming around for a couple of days, I went to apply for a new passport on Monday and planned to leave for the countryside on Tuesday. My initial plan was to take a bus and go straight to my annoying grandmother, but my other grandmother phoned me and said there was a possibility to go by car with her acquaintances. Doing that was a mistake because they were late and I only got to the countryside at something like 23:00 on Tuesday.
So I didn't go to the annoying grandmother right away, but only at about 16:00 next day which, of course, caused a huge scandal XD She stacked all the firewood herself and was really angry that I had not come earlier to do that. But I wanted to stay at the other grandmother's place for a while too, she has such a nice garden (which I helped water with some horrible liquid manure stuff XD). Like the firewood could not wait for a couple of hours.
But anyhow, here are some pics from my other grandmother's garden:
This is an apple tree:
Garden ferns:
And one more pretty tulip:
So then I got to the annoying grandmother's place, got told off, but I don't even care much anymore, and stared doing what I was there for - helping her with stuff. She wanted her kitchen and the corridor wallpapered, I also cleaned all the cupboards in the kitchen, the walls in the bathroom, washed the lamps, dusted the wardrobes, and basically did whatever crazy whim came to her mind XD
And she also forced me to go shopping for clothes twice, because according to her I'm morbidly obese and my clothes just make me look worse. My obesity was a popular topic for her, she was going on an on about that for pretty much the entire week which I spent with her. Fun times.
Oh, talking about fun times, my grandfather has had a stroke a couple of years ago, but now his health and mind are deteriorating, he is constantly peeing his bed, can't eat himself, and can barely get up to sit in his favourite chair, going outside has been out of the question for years now... I'm not even sure he remembers my name anymore, because he never called me by name, although he did hold my hand and smile.
Anyhow, it was not all bad, I went for a walk in the town where my grandparents live and here are some pics.
The main church of the town that's constantly being renovated:
The completely empty streets make the place look like a ghost town, and it was only 7 o'clock in the evening...
But the lake and the castle ruins looked good, as usual XD
And the park with the palace looked good too XD
After several days of hard work and annoying lectures on dieting I visited my other grandmother again, came back again, did some more work and went back to Riga on 22.05.
There, I did some food shopping because I wanted to bring something for my co-workers and for me as well, and went for a walk in the park.
There was lots of lilac, and I love the smell of it, so I was happily sniffing the air all the time. Funny thing, but there is hardly any lilac here in Hamburg, I don't know why.
And chestnut trees were blooming too.
On Friday I went to get my shiny new passport and ID card, and went for a short walk in the city. I didn't go to all the historical touristy places, I already had photos of those before, so I took some pics of random pretty houses.
I think Riga looks better than Hamburg, seeing all those lovely buildings actually made me kind of sad because that's not my home city anymore and even if I went back I would not be happy there because as far as living goes, it is better in Germany, but I still don't feel at home here.
Even little things like spontaneously going to a cafe to have a cup of tea and a cake is difficult in Germany because the cafes are different here and the cakes are different and I always have to think about how to ask for what I want. In Latvia everything is so much more familiar and I can actually say things I want to say without thinking about language barrier... Oh well.
More chestnuts, yay XD
And then early Saturday morning I went back to Hamburg. Looking out of the plane window the sky looked bright and blue, but it was really rainy and cold here, something like +10°, but luckily it's getting warmer now.
So, that was the story of my vacation. I still have not quite caught up with all the flist entries and I still have not managed to reply to all the comments from before the vacation, sorry about that. I'm working on it ;)
I hope you liked the pics and were not too bored by my long descriptions of all the stuff I did XDD
I arrived in Riga on Saturday 11.05. I was too late for the local anime convention, so I immediately went home (my mother and brother actually picked me up at the airport so I didn't have to pay for the taxi, yay) and ate food and took photos of mother's cats. The black one is Sebastian and the tabby is Sonya. They are the cutest, I really wish I could keep a kitty here... But then again, if I had one, I would not be able to travel or anything because I would have to look after the cat.
Later that day we went to watch my brother's team play their first game in the season (in case you didn't know, my brother is a football coach for a 2nd League team). It was actually really cool, they played against the champion of the 2nd League and won. It was fun watching the champions get nervous and start making mistakes and commit fouls because they had not expected a new team to be that good.
That said, my brother has lots of money problems with the team, he can't find sponsors, and basically everyone plays there for free, they don't get salaries or anything. So I'm somewhat worried about the future of the team. I have recently been given a 200 EUR pay rise, so I'm thinking of donating something like 100 EUR every month to his football team, but that is really a very small amount, he said that to get the club working, he would need like half a million euros... Oh well.
After bumming around for a couple of days, I went to apply for a new passport on Monday and planned to leave for the countryside on Tuesday. My initial plan was to take a bus and go straight to my annoying grandmother, but my other grandmother phoned me and said there was a possibility to go by car with her acquaintances. Doing that was a mistake because they were late and I only got to the countryside at something like 23:00 on Tuesday.
So I didn't go to the annoying grandmother right away, but only at about 16:00 next day which, of course, caused a huge scandal XD She stacked all the firewood herself and was really angry that I had not come earlier to do that. But I wanted to stay at the other grandmother's place for a while too, she has such a nice garden (which I helped water with some horrible liquid manure stuff XD). Like the firewood could not wait for a couple of hours.
But anyhow, here are some pics from my other grandmother's garden:
This is an apple tree:
Garden ferns:
And one more pretty tulip:
So then I got to the annoying grandmother's place, got told off, but I don't even care much anymore, and stared doing what I was there for - helping her with stuff. She wanted her kitchen and the corridor wallpapered, I also cleaned all the cupboards in the kitchen, the walls in the bathroom, washed the lamps, dusted the wardrobes, and basically did whatever crazy whim came to her mind XD
And she also forced me to go shopping for clothes twice, because according to her I'm morbidly obese and my clothes just make me look worse. My obesity was a popular topic for her, she was going on an on about that for pretty much the entire week which I spent with her. Fun times.
Oh, talking about fun times, my grandfather has had a stroke a couple of years ago, but now his health and mind are deteriorating, he is constantly peeing his bed, can't eat himself, and can barely get up to sit in his favourite chair, going outside has been out of the question for years now... I'm not even sure he remembers my name anymore, because he never called me by name, although he did hold my hand and smile.
Anyhow, it was not all bad, I went for a walk in the town where my grandparents live and here are some pics.
The main church of the town that's constantly being renovated:
The completely empty streets make the place look like a ghost town, and it was only 7 o'clock in the evening...
But the lake and the castle ruins looked good, as usual XD
And the park with the palace looked good too XD
After several days of hard work and annoying lectures on dieting I visited my other grandmother again, came back again, did some more work and went back to Riga on 22.05.
There, I did some food shopping because I wanted to bring something for my co-workers and for me as well, and went for a walk in the park.
There was lots of lilac, and I love the smell of it, so I was happily sniffing the air all the time. Funny thing, but there is hardly any lilac here in Hamburg, I don't know why.
And chestnut trees were blooming too.
On Friday I went to get my shiny new passport and ID card, and went for a short walk in the city. I didn't go to all the historical touristy places, I already had photos of those before, so I took some pics of random pretty houses.
I think Riga looks better than Hamburg, seeing all those lovely buildings actually made me kind of sad because that's not my home city anymore and even if I went back I would not be happy there because as far as living goes, it is better in Germany, but I still don't feel at home here.
Even little things like spontaneously going to a cafe to have a cup of tea and a cake is difficult in Germany because the cafes are different here and the cakes are different and I always have to think about how to ask for what I want. In Latvia everything is so much more familiar and I can actually say things I want to say without thinking about language barrier... Oh well.
More chestnuts, yay XD
And then early Saturday morning I went back to Hamburg. Looking out of the plane window the sky looked bright and blue, but it was really rainy and cold here, something like +10°, but luckily it's getting warmer now.
So, that was the story of my vacation. I still have not quite caught up with all the flist entries and I still have not managed to reply to all the comments from before the vacation, sorry about that. I'm working on it ;)
I hope you liked the pics and were not too bored by my long descriptions of all the stuff I did XDD