Living in Latvia

When I first arrived in Latvia, I was very nervous as you can imagine. Having lived in the UK for 44 years and only the occasional foreign holiday aside, never travelling far from home. Moving lock-stock and barrel to an unknown land was a very big step.
Why did I come here you may be asking yourself and the answer my friends is clear.
Becoming single again with a sense of adventure rekindled I applied to attend a teachers job fair in London in the spring of 2012. Jobs were available in Spain, China, Kuwait and Bahrain and many other countries but my meeting with the director of the International School of Riga (http://www.isriga.lv/en/) peeked my interest.



A 1-1 job with a pupil with special educational needs seeemed like the perfect job for me having spent three years as a SEN teacher in Scotland. I accepted the position and the two year contract almost immediately. So in August 2012, I arrived in Riga with all my worldly possessions in three rather average sized suitcases.

If you have never been to Riga it is an amazing city; beautiful architecture, parks and boulevards that criss-cross like a grid with new treats to feast your eyes on at every turn. Its history is incredibly varied; occupation, repression and revolution. 96 years old, still young when compared to the rest of Europe.

I had seen, like most Europeans, the chaos that enveloped Riga in 1991 on my TV screen. The euphoria of the fall of the Berlin Wall long forgotten and people stood on the flimsy barricades that protected the government buildings from the might of the Soviet army.

http://www.mod.gov.lv/~/media/AM/Ministrija/4.ashx


That same determination still comes out of these people today. The steely gaze still exists on these determines faces but it is the smiles on those same faces that truly shows the Latvian psyche.

As a newcomer to Latvia you may not always fit in immediately but as time passes this becomes easier.

I still remember that first night in my Riga apartment, lying in the darkness staring up towards my high vaulted cieling and asking myself "What the F*** am I doing here?"

I only had a few days to get into the flow of Riga life. Work and getting to know the city took up a lot of time and i realised that the only way that I would be able to fit in quickly was to throw  myself into it by using my limited Latvian and making mistakes.

Thank God for the French Bakery downstairs and their super Lattes...

https://www.facebook.com/CadetsDeGascogne

To be continued......