Kaira visits Riga and has many feelings...

Imanta and Kaira

The grand finale of our time together, taking a picture at the Freedom Monument

Two weeks ago my friend Kaira came to visit.  Kaira is an American-Latvian, comme moi, and enjoys having a good, rowdy time wherever she may be.  The last time she was in Latvia was on her "Sveika, Latvija" trip, which is a trip offered by the American Latvian Association to give kids just finishing Latvian school the chance to travel around Latvia for two weeks and see the land they've been hearing about for so long.  Needless to say, Latvia had changed a lot since then... and so had Kaira.  So she was coming to Rīga for the first time as a willing adult and ready to see this wonderful place for all it is!

As fate may have had it, a trip to Latvia also meant dealing with some crazy existential identity questions.  There we were wondering what the heck this place means to us?  Do we belong here?  Are we more Latvian, more American, more something else?  I have to admit that I had already mulled these intense questions of identity a few years back, when I returned for the first time as a young adult in 2008.  So these reactions coming from Kaira were not foreign and I had prepared myself for them.  All in all, I'm glad she had them.  I think all of us American-Latvians need to experience these feelings and questions to help us decide why we continue being active in American-Latvian society and how Latvia can be a part of our future.  (That being said, I feel a bit guilty that I'm writing this in English....)

In my case, (and this realization has come only in these last weeks of living here) I was faced with this identity crisis of sorts while living in America.  I had to constantly explain to people around me why I did things the way I did, taking on the title of the "stinky Latvian" among high school friends, etc, etc.  Even among Latvian friends this issue would come up when I would get frustrated with youth organization events lacking substance that would force us to discuss this identity that we all claimed to hold so dear to our hearts.  So, how do you resolve this conflict, crisis of identity?  Coming to Latvia, living here for two months now, it is slowly becoming clear that for me, all that needed to be done was to take out the factor that was causing problems- to put it bluntly- America.  I'm in Latvia, I'm Latvian, that's all there is to it.  Obviously, now I'm faced with a backward trend of having to explain my story of coming to Latvia as a product of immigrants and diaspora upbringings, but what it all comes down to is that I've always felt a stronger pull to the Latvian side of my identity.  Being here feels a-okay.  Who knows how I'll feel a month, two months, two years from now, but for now it's this.

So how to make this momentous visit as fruitful and exciting as possible for a dear friend as she's experiencing the most intense feelings?  (FEELINGS was a key term of the week spent together)  We dove right into those feelings and I'm not sure if we've come out head-first, but here's a look at some of the adventures we had!

(First night in Rīga- a late night visit to Aptieka aka Pharmacy Bar for hot Balsam and currant juice)

 (Kaira with the funky cat statue that reminded us of our friend Gints Grinbergs)

(A much needed break at Mārtiņa beķereja for some pīrāgi!)

  (Exploring Centrāltirgus and buying one pickle)

(This one definitely requires some explanation:  At the same time as Kaira was in Latvia, our friends back on the East Coast of the USA were preparing for Rudens Svētki/Fall Fest at camp in the Catskills.  We decided to send our love across the ocean, take pictures of our blunders and celebrate Rudens Svētki along with them!)

 (And here we go!  Imanta and Kaira at ALA Folkbar, drinking Lemberga shots in the colors of the Latvian flag!)

 (Serious Soviet faces, at Ezītis Miglā)

 (Mischievous Imanta and Kaira)

(We even got innocent by-standers to join us in the fun! Vēsma and Santa)

(Fall Fest is celebrated in a house called Rota... Rota also means jewelry in Latvian... well, we found Rota, in which ever sense of the word!)

(Kaira's last night we went to the Sviests IV disk presentation concert.  The emcee asked the audience where the group "Tērvetes Trubadūri" was from- Tērvete- which is in Canada, and Kaira yelled out the answer, winning a free cd!)

(Celebrations continued back at ALA Folkbar with our favorite folk musicians!)

 (Kaira outside the bar "Fīlings", which we felt summed up her trip quite well.)