My bag all packed up

This is what it would look like if I were to take a picture of a surveillance camera watching me

Word of the Week

Chimney fire -- when your chimney catches on fire

To Build A Fire

Our first try was deep in the snow and we didn't have any paper except for my library card. The experience left me with frozen feet and no library card.


The second try was in Ansis' house. We had plenty of paper but we couldn't get it going. The trick is to wrap little pieces of wood up with pages out of the phonebook. This will leave you with a fire warm enough to thaw your feet and allow you to play poker.

The third try was more harrowing. We had a little bit more paper than the first try, but we were running out of matches, and the stakes were higher. Kristaps and Pēteris and Pika and I had been walking through the forest for an hour or so and we had no way of getting out in the near future, when Kristaps said "We stop here." When I asked why, he said "We will build fire..."

Kristaps' method involved lighting a coke bottle on fire. It didn't work and then me and Pēteris started up a little twig fire. After a few tries it all caught. I don't know why we had firewood but anyways we laid it on and then broke branches off trees and used those. We warmed our feet again (and Kristaps burned his coke bottle) and we split our separate ways.



Pēteris: If we go that way with Kristaps, there will be road, but that way is river and forest. We will go that way.

Five hours later I'm home and my butt has a big bump on it.

santa klaus

Nu ziemassvetki nu...

A Christamassy image from my Christmas night:

Vairis: (Is forty or fifty years old) This is my brothers!

Me: (I shake hands with them. I shake hands with Vairis' younger brother. He has a mustache. At first I think he has peculiarly small fingers, but then I realize that all the fingers on his right hand except for his pinky have been chopped off at the middle knuckle. It feels strange) Hello, it's nice to meet all of you.

Pēteris: If Romans don't go to woods hunting tomorrow, he will cut your hairs in factory where my father work.

Me: Fabulous.

(We pop open the champagne and start drinking brandy, and then vodka. You get in the mood for beans on Christmas)

Pēteris: Merry Christmas!

Armands: To you as well!

(We eat beans)

(We are watching Shrek 3 in Latvian)

Vairis: Fuck it... (He switches on the VHS)

(The TV starts up and it's a Latvian porno film. The man is wearing a condom in the woods and the woman is wearing nothing)

Armands: Merry Christmas!

(We drink)

This is the car now

Apparently we pulled the car down by the river and it's been there for about two or three days now. I saw some Russians taking pictures of it. It'll be there a long time.

Blee kurā dienā bus ziemassvetki?

I think the sentiment towards Christmas in Latvia can be just about summed up by a conversation we had last night while playing poker in Pēteris' basement:

Pēteris: (looking at the clock; it's midnight) Hey look it's Christmas!

Everone: Yay it's Christmas! Let's all kiss.

Pēteris: Wait, is Christmas the 24th or the 25th?

Ansis: It's the 25th.

Pēteris: Well then it doesn't count, it's just Christmas eve.

Ansis: So?

(Everyone continues the poker game for a while. A few people lose and are out of the game, and a few people go home)

Martiņš: (leaving) So, we're drinking tomorrow?

Built Ford Tough

This is what you see after your car fishtails off the road and hits a tree.

After we pulled the car out, Gatis tried to drive, but the fender was wedged into the wheel.

This is what the car looks like now.

When the tractor finally came we had to break the trees in order to pull the car out

This is what it looked like afterwards

It's a very simple equation I learned: when the road is more ice than asphalt, don't try going faster than the speed limit, and when the car crashes and you try to figure out what happened, don't yell "Ow my nose!" because it won't help anything. Oh, and don't let the guy (his name is Armands) who's only driven a car once in his life before drive. And wear warm socks, because it's gonna be snowing and you're gonna be out there for a good five or six hours and your feet are gonna be wet. And if you need to, don't be afraid to sit down in the sideways car for warmth.




I sat down in the car with Edijs and smoked a spanish cigar as he lamented the loss of his car. He told me it was a Ford and this pained me for some reason or another.

This means "Push"

The other one means pull. This is important information.