Happy New Year!!

By



c Новым годом




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ever Heard of Tallinn, Estonia?

By
Image
Not too many Americans have heard of the historical capital city of Estonia. Last summer we had a chance to visit Tallinn since it's two hours west of St. Petersburg.


Founded more than a thousand years ago, this ancient city is preserved in its historical setting for us today. The stone walls surrounding the ancient city are well-preserved for tourists.


Tallinn is located on the north coast of the Gulf of Finland. Historically, it was very important for trading purposes. Because of that, it was ruled in different times by Denmark, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, and Russia.





The Old Town area with its town square is preserved for tourists today and is listed as the best preserved medieval city in Europe. The narrow streets and castle walls take a tourist back in time.










We climbed the steps to the Upper Town where the government buildings are located today. From the top of the castle wall the view of the Lower Town was amazing.





The next day we visited the Estonian Open Air Museu…
Read more

New Place, New Space

By
Image
Now that we're pretty well settled in our flat in Riga, I thought I'd share a bit about our new living arrangements.

We're in a much smaller (and cozier) building this time - a house with only four flats in it. The stone house was built in 1800s so has very thick walls. Hopefully, that will keep out the heat in the summer.

As you can see by the picture on the left, our flat actually has two floors. The upper floor has our bedroom, bathroom and family room, so we have lots more space than any of our other apartments in Europe. We have lots of room for guests (hint).


The lower level has the living room, office, kitchen and another bathroom. It's actually the closest to a US apartment that we've had to date. We have a dishwasher and garbage disposal in the kitchen. The laundry area in the basement has a washer and a DRYER!! First time in years that I have some of these luxuries.



During the last week, I have found a couple quirky things about the kitchen. One of them i…
Read more

WHAT WAS THAT NAME AGAIN?

By
Image
This week brings a big change for us. We are moving from our temporary apartment to our permanent flat across the city. That means packing everything we brought plus the extra food, etc we've accumulated since we arrived. At least, we don't have to get it into the six suitcases this time. But however many boxes and bags, we need to move this all ourselves by Friday morning.

We are moving from a street called U Libenskeho pivovaru. When we first saw that name our first reaction was WHAT? How do you begin a name with the letter U all by itself. And why is the name so long?

After we were here for a couple weeks, we found out that the letter U by itself is a preposition meaning "on, at, near". The area of Prague that we live in now is called Liben. Finally, we learned that the all important word beer is "pivo". So the name of our current street means "Near a brewery in Liben".

We are moving into an apartment on Bubenecska. Bubenecska is located in the …
Read more