A more perfect ending to my stay in Latvia couldn’t have been written.  And this is due to the efforts of Marina and Misha, who will deny it out of modesty, but who worked very hard to make sure that I was able to see and do everything I wanted while in Daugavpils and still have time to get to know all of my cousins together and individually.   Marina, Tanya and Julia mentioned several times this week that they don’t often get together this way except for very special occasions, and I feel very honored that my visit was a special enough occasion.

I think today I will describe the events in reverse time, because I am still so full of emotion surrounding the end of the day.  Just a short time ago, Julia, Leonid, Tanya, Sasha, Ilya (Lyuda was not able to come), Marina, Misha, Nastya, Max мой друг  (it’s an “in joke”), Misha’s parents, Lena and Sergey were saying goodbye in front of the hotel.  I feel like…how to describe it?  It is as if we have found something in each other that we didn’t know we were looking for.

Poor Nastya had a tick, and was very upset so I had to say a quick goodbye to them as they were on the way to someone to take care of it, but I’ll see them in the morning (VERY early!).  I recall, many years ago (много лет назад) trying all of the common wisdom, which doesn’t work by the way, to extricate a tick from Nicole.   It wasn’t fun.  I hope you don’t have a long night!

Misha and Marina provided the meat for shashlik (shish-ka-bob) which they marinated last night with onions, and everyone (except me) brought wonderful things to eat.  Julia made rice and brought pickled tomatoes and cucumbers.   Lena and Sergey brought wine, vodka, challah from last night, and other neat stuff.  :-)

Everything was wonderful.  Have I described the view yet?  Wow.  I won’t have enough time tonight to process the photos, because I have to get up so early tomorrow.  So this will be all for now.  If I get a minute tomorrow morning, I’ll post a progress report.

Thanks for listening.   This is radio Latvia wishing you all a good night!

Picnic on Saturday

Picnic on Saturday