Furniture Shopping in Cesis

Latvian Word Of The Day: gulta (bed or bed frame)

So, I have blogged before about our new flat and how happy we are to even have it. The only problem is that there is not a full bed. There are two fold-out couch/bed types. This is pretty common here because of space limitations in all of the flats.

Being over the half-century mark, our Amerikanu backs just didn't quite conform to the Latvian version of the hide-a-bed. We were so glad to have the flat that we thought we could tough it out and save some money. Nay, that is not going to happen!

So, Laura, Inese and I went furniture shopping for a bed and mattress. There is no such thing as a full, queen or king size bed in Latvia. You have to know if you want a 200 x 160 or a 190 x 140 or some other metric dimension. I resorted to just laying down on each one and measuring it that way. Of course, our Latvian is so poor that we can only pick out a few words but we'd find a bed at one store and think that it was good and then we'd pick up that maybe it was from Poland and didn't have as good as warranty. At the next store, same thing but this time the salesman seemed to be saying the Polish one was a good buy and the Russian one was not as good. Must kind of be like the Chevrolet vs. Ford comparison. Eventually, we found one that seemed to pass all of the international protocols for bedding and it will be delivered next week. We were just glad to get a bed without creating any international incidents.

Laura now has to find enough sheets and blankets (which by the way, we have to use blankets every night ... even with the windows closed) to fit. We have resorted to carrying a metric tape measure with us at all times.

The 600 year old Lutheran Church here was very busy yesterday with so many weddings. Of course it was 07/07/07, so all of the couples wanted to marry on that date. (easier for the men to remember their own anniversary dates, I guess) The church does make a beautiful place for weddings and there are many couples that travel from around Latvia just to get married here. Our flat is not very far from the church so we can see some the families heading to the ceremonies.

Our regular church service will be today at 2:30 and then Laura and I will try to find a way to Limbazi for the next camp. The last bus leaves from Cesis at 3:00p so we will miss that one. We may just get up early Monday and take the 6:30a bus there. This is just the Latvian way. You either hitch a ride with friends or just wait for the next bus. It is a laid-back culture that works for them very well. It definitely takes getting used to for us, but we are learning.

Until later...continued thanks for your prayers and support. We'll report from the Limbazi camp next week.

--Mark & Laura--