Back in the motherland

The excitement about coming back to Latvia made the last few days in Kuwait easy to get through.  My only biggest worry was about my cat.  Tie vet in Kuwait had in formed me that she might be quarantined upon arriving in Latvia because she was traveling from outside of then EU.  Out flight was delayed by 3 hours in istanbul which made the trip that began at 3 am even longer.  They had us all board the bus to go to the airplane only to turn the bus around and drop us back off at the terminal.  Due to technical problems with the plane we had to wait an extra 3 hours to have it fixed.  The flight attendant for the second flight fell in love with her. He wanted to feed her and kept checking on her to make sure she was doing ok.  Upon landing in Latvia I collected my bags and went to declare that I had a cat travel.  They scanned her chip and checked over all the papers that I had.  I think they were slightly confused about it all but in the end looked at everything and wished us a great summer back in Latvia. We have both truly enjoyed being back. The first week I didn't really do anything other than read and sleep on a blanket on the lawn outside of my summer home.  The weather was perfect and I was able to get a head start on the literacy online course that I have decided to take. Still need to buckle down and sign up for a masters degree.  All still in the plans for the rest of the summer weeks in Latvia. Near the end of my first week back my best friend flew in and my dad finished off his trip that he was on with a youth group traveling around Latvia.  Wit was nice to have these two people now to hang out with.  Living alone is nice but I would rather have company.  We celebrated the Latvian traditional holiday of "ligo".  Traditionally you are suppose to stay up to see the sunrise, but since it was cloudy we all gave up around 3 am, which is pretty close when you think about it. My father and I also took a road trip down to Daugavpil, to see where his dad worked and to meet up with an old friend.  I miss road trips and enjoyed just driving through Latvia again.  At the end of this week my brother arrived for his annual summer trip to the mother land.  With a few days to spend together we met up with our distant relatives and just hung out wandering around the old town. It was sad to see my dad leave knowing that I wont see him till december but I could tell that he too was ready to go home.  It was good to at least spend the week and a half with him.  Now it's down to the dynamic trio and next up is our big Spain and Portugal trip.  I hope to post daily updates about that.  Pictures will only be added upon arriving back back though.