Cute pictures of cute people

Sports day for Latvian schools!
Welcome to the Olympic Center, where apparently they have enough of a problem with people bringing cows that they feel the need to explicitly forbid it.

 Our community.

The opening act naturally included flawless Russian trained gymansts.

And they were cute so I took a lot of pictures.

 But Latvian sports day was more like "sports" day because I'm not sure that funny shoes, arm wrestling, or drawing pictures of sports really qualify. At least they were cute.

And then the kindergarteners were adorable, as always.

So we helped them with a scavenger hunt...

And then I took pictures of how cute they dress here. They have a lot of rules about appropriate clothing here and apparently hats in the summer are going on the list.

 

I was formally inducted into Latvia by undergoing 2 important ceremonies:

1. I learned how to make a crown out of flowers. 

 2. I took a picture with the cow that apparently all Latvians take a picture with.

And, as if the Latvian zoo weren't already great, I also found this beauty there: 

I saw people celebrate liberation from Nazi occupation in a country that was actually occupied and terrorized by the Nazis:

My cousin turned 20! So I got my Russian family in the countryside who fed me fresh rhubarb and peppermint tea and homemade tiramisu and stuffed me full while telling me nice things the way the babushka of my dreams would.

And I finally got me a travel buddy! Together we found all the different colored snails in the city, which actually move when you're not looking (as if the snails weren't terrifying enough)

We saw the open air museum, aka mini-Latvia:

We also saw more of this purty city:

Oh yah, and we had fun: