5 things we've learnt in Latvia

We've been in Latvia for over 24 hours now, and we've learnt some important things already!

1. Groceries are cheap here in Latvia!
We bought a LOT of food, and it came to a surprisingly cheap amount of €27!

2. St Peter's church was rebuilt after the second world war to include a baroque style tower.
We have been cultured, you see! We had a small wander through Old Town, Riga and saw a few of the buildings. We're going on a walking tour tomorrow to visit more places :-)

3. Riga has lots of Japanese restaurants!
We're not sure why either!

4. Latvian scouts and guides run meetings all over the world!
During the second world war when Latvians got displaced to Germany, they carried on running Latvian Scout meetings in the displaced person camps. Then when the war ended and they moved to USA, Canada and various other locations, they carried on still and now they meet up every four years. At the latest meet up, 30 Scouts and Guides from Latvia made it to New York, which in an organisation of only 500 is quite impressive!!

5. You spend more time waiting at traffic lights than you'd think!
Latvia has pedestrian crossings that count down how many seconds you have left until you can cross. We have spent approximately 8 minutes 20 seconds waiting at traffic lights today!

So there you go! Also, important things to note that didn't quite make the cut of the top 5 are that you can cook pasta in a microwave and that greeny bananas can taste yellowy!

More tomorrow!
GOLD love,
Team Latvia x

The adventure begins...

Today, we woke up raring to go! The taxi arrived at 8am, with a really helpful driver. After much debate, the bags were loaded, along with Net and Sarah, and the rest of the team walked to the station! After a short train journey, we arrived at Gatwick, checked our bags in, and after minor watch related disaster, we found breakfast and eventually our plane! The flight was uneventful, and we slept and read. At the other end, we were met by Liene, who got us on a bus and took us to our hostel. Then we decided to have a wander around Riga - we'd been walking for about two minutes before Martins, one of the Latvian board, caught up with us!

At 6pm, we met Liga, Martins and Eduards for a meeting about our project. It was really interesting to get to know more details of what we'll be getting up to and also to find out more about the background of the organisation, and to be able to see how the work that GOLD is doing is impacting the association. The 3 Latvians, particularly Liga, were really enthusiastic about Guiding and Scouting and were really passionate about growing the movement in Latvia!

After our meeting, we had a fabulous meal out, and wandered back to our hostel. We're now curled up on a sofa in the hostel discussing all that we've found out and the differences between LSGCO and Girlguding in the UK. It'll be bed time soon!!

Tomorrow will be a chilled day, planning, exploring and buying new watches, and generally getting ready for the adventure ahead!

More updates soon...

GOLD love,
Team Latvia x