Tatiana in Riga Latvia

Well another week has gone by and I can hardly believe that it is over. Riga is the capital of Latvia and there are tons of people here to talk with it is strange here because they have two Christmases, one on the 25th and the other on the 9th the Russians celebrate on the 9th because it is the Russian orthodox calender and because they just love parties to they will make and excuse to party any time they can. For Christmas we sing in old town which is the heart of Riga and has all these old beautiful building built hundreds of years ago I will take some pictures and send them to you but it is kind of hard because it is always dark when we are there.

For Christmas the branch is having a huge party on Christmas eve to celebrate I will take pictures and send them to you it will be tons of fun Russians know how to party and they make really good food but when you have to cook for yourself everyday and you don't have a lot of time any homemade food is good. I like to eat Borch which is a traditional soup made from pork and beats it look like blood and you have to have it made the right way or it is really nasty. I also like to eat palminnie which is like wantons except for they don't have soy sauce so we eat them with sour cream with is like salt here everyone uses sour cream on everything it is actually quite funny.

The weather is not as bad as I thought it would be it is still cold but the weather is fine. and it is really funny our house is heated by the city because it is still on the communist system so it gets really hot at night and we have to sleep with the window open at night because it is never just right. I live in a apartment on the 7th floor and we did not know that we had stares until the elevator broke and we had to get out it was a fun adventure trying to find them I will send you a picture of what the view look like from my apartment.

The funnest thing to do is go harvesting we have to brake into or rather brake the code so that we can get in and then we take the elevator which feels more like a death trap because you never know if it is going to work. then just start knocking it really fun. Russians don't open their door when you knock they yell through them it makes it difficult to walk to them because everyone has two steel door and five or six lock because they lived in fear for so long.

Well I can wait to talk with you on Christmas I Love you so much