Nothing special happend...(10. to 23. November)

This is what you would say at the first view... But if you look carefuly at the last two weeks, you will see that a lot of interesting things happend. Actually these weeks were very important for the latvian people because they prepared for the Latvian Day.

On Tuesday the 11^th of November, Latvians celebrate Lāčplēsis day. Lāčplēsis ist he latvian national hero who fought bears and witches. They chose the date of 11^th November because on that date in 1919 latvian army won a battle against the German Army in order to become an independent state. For this celebration, we were invited to GORS concert hall to see a concert. Everyone was dressed up and very solemn. The event started with a long ceremony to honor people who did something special for Latvia in 2014. After that we had a short break with food and drinks. Then the concert began but it was no ordinary concert but a cinema show with live music. The movie was very old and without sound but the music fitted perfectly and was very good. 

Next day Clemence participated in an activity in school where she learned a lot of songs. On Thursday we had the next Latvian traditional event, a traditional Latvian dancing evening, where Clemence and Paul were invited and they learned many dances. It was great fun but after that they were very exhausted because Latvian dances are crazy! 

Also the preparation for a famous contest, organized by JACis started this week so, Paul, Clemence, Tanya, Kike, Vincent and Nastia  had the first meeting in order to prepare the performance for the Popiela that would take place on 29^thof November

The weekend was very long and a lot of stuff were happened:

For four days Clemence and Kike decided to visit the city Parnu in Estonia by hitchhiking.

The first step was to find a car until Riga on Friday the 14th of November. A very nice Russian trucker took them to Riga. He didn’t speack English, so they needed to use body language to communicate. He invited them to eat with him.

The second step was to find another car from Riga to Parnu in Estonia.

For sleeping at Parnu they didn’t find some another volunteer, so they couchsurfed.

On Saturday they visited the city. Parnu is the capital of summer in Estonia. It’s a beautiful city next to the sea. You can walk on a stone path in the middle of the sea. It’s very awesome.

The centre is also very interesting, with some historical places

The second night, they slept in a typical house without heating, only one matress and a fire.

In the same time Moritz went to Vilnius, Lithuania on a short city trip. The journey by bus was quite cumbersome, with unpaved roads and a crowded coach, but once there, Vilnius proved to be a beautiful town, featuring a lot of green spaces (if it wasn't for the season, that is), an impressive castle overlooking the wonderful old town as well as the skyscrapers across river Vilna and pretty friendly and welcoming people. There is an artist district which declared itself an independent state with a size of half a kilometer squared, along with a tongue in cheek constitution (Art. 12:"A dog has the right to be a dog") and plenty of artistic stores. A complete contrast to this alternative quarter is the giant mall "Akropolis" in Northern Vilnius, which could easily host all of Rezekne. There is even an ice skating rink, a cinema and a giant supermarket inside. All in all, it is completely recommended to visit this nice town, if you like big cities.

A wall commemorating the Human chain, which ended in Vilnius and led to the independence of the Baltic States

The Angel of Uzupis, overlooking the artist district

View over the old town from the castle

                                       

On Tuesday Latvians celebrated another big event, their day of independence. In order of that, police blocked the main street in Rezekne and there was a big run called “Tautas Skrejiens” with 3,4 km distance. Clemence and Paul participated and they had good fun. After that the people marched from cultural house to the “vienoti latvijai” statue in the middle of the town. Then there was a big ceremony with torches, a brassband, the mayor gave a speech and an impressive firework.  

GORS also celebrated this day with the opening of old coin expoositions a concert 

All in all it was a very nice day with awesome weather and its really interesting to see how Latvians celebrate their national pride.
On Friday we started the movie activity in JACis. We organized the poll room like a cinema room and we enyoed "How to train your dragon".