Home Safely

We made it back from Turkey. It was a wonderful time. More on that later. For now, good night!

Turkey

For reasons listed here, we need to (and get to) leave for Turkey and stay there 8 complete days. So tomorrow we'll get on a bus and head to Riga, Latvia and then on Thursday we'll leave from there and fly to Turkey. We'll be staying with a good friend of the Hanson family in Izmir.

We're looking forward to the break. Please pray for safe and easy travels, and that we would feel rested and ready for the rest of the semester when we return.

I had planned on posting some pictures from my events last week, but due to some technical difficulties, it might have to wait until we get back (Sunday, November 2nd).

On an interesting note, Turkey is in the same time zone as Lithuania, but we'll still have to adjust our clocks because this weekend (as far as I know) is daylight saving time. One week earlier than in the states.

Hope everyone is well. We'll update more when we return from Turkey!

(Happy Birthday to my Mom on October 25th -- we love you!)

Overload

Just a quick note...

I am feeling overloaded. I have a few things to get done before break, and things that will be waiting for me when we get back.

Pray for me, please!

A lovely Saturday -- part 3

Sorry for the delay of Part 3. It has been an insanely busy week. I had two events, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. I took pictures of those, which I will share, but after a ton from Riga. Enjoy!

So many cool buildings in Riga.

A bunch of our group in the city center.

Keith, who is unknowingly walking into the picture, is the interculeral programs coordinator. He arranged this trip. Lorna, standing by Steve, is an LCC alum who now teaches here. We four were the non-students on this trip.

For 2 Lats each, we rode an elevator to the top of this church (St. Peter's)

The Occupation Museum. It looks like a big tetris piece, but it was really interesting. It educated us about all the times the Baltic states have been occupied by other countries.

A view from the top of the church.

Another view with the river in the background.

Ode to Pittsburgh

Steve at the top.

Me at the top.

Inside the church.

Looking down one of many streets.

There were a lot of these around. We stopped at one to sit down and have some coffee.

I couldn't get enough of the buildings.

This is where we go when we need our "fast"food fix. It's pretty good (we didn't go there in Riga, just took the picture in Riga so I could talk about it.

Didn't go here, but it looked familiar, so I took a picture.

I wonder what kind of food was here?

Us in Riga.

A lovely Saturday -- Part 2

Rundale Pils

When we drove over the Latvian border, they decided to stop the bus and check all of our passports/identification. After some time, they decided that we could be in Latvia.

After driving for a little while, we arrived at our next stop Rundale Palace (Rundale Pils in Lithuanian). You can click on the link above to find out the history of it. It is now a museum, and we got to take a tour. If we wanted to take pictures inside, we had to pay 2 Lats. We decided that we'd save our Lats, and let other people take some pictures. The website has a few pictures that suffice.

It was a really interesting place. Huge.

Here are some pictures of the outside.

A potential Christmas card photo?

Walking toward it. There is a HUGE garden behind. If we were to visit here again in the summer, I bet the backyard would be beautiful.

Walking on the cobblestone path to the front door.

We all had to wear these fancy blue slippers (to protect the floors). This is the only picture I took inside.

A path from the bus to the palace.

This picture was souvenir enough.

Part 3 coming soon!