OTHER SIDE OF ME: Greeting from LATVIA

The Turkish airlines after almost 10 hours finally dropped us in the Riga air port leaving us in a place we never thought we would visit one day. We were welcomed with the cool breeze and all I could remember of telling my friend was “it is colder than Bhutan.” Unfortunately my friend lost her baggage and we had to report to the concerned authority. They helped us to file the complain and assured us that they would deliver the luggage to our apartment as soon as they get it. Our Erasmus buddy Inga and Laura, Latvian student who studies in Riga Technical University came to receive us. They had waited about three hours for us since we had mistaken the time of arrival. They helped us with everything and they were always there when we needed them. I don’t know how I can ever thank them for the help they rendered us.

I have always loved to live in a quiet place and sometime my mother use to tell me that I should settle in some goenpa where I can be free from the noise of the people, honking of the car, etc. To my utter happiness my apartment is about 20 minutes walking from the main town. It is a quiet place and I simply enjoy the view from my window. All the things that are necessary such as super market, bank and my civil engineering faculty classes are all just 5 minutes walking distance from my apartment but in different direction.

For next two weeks after arrival in the Riga, we were busy with signing of the agreement, opening bank account, getting student ID, attending seminars, attending nontraditional games ,visiting zoo and we also had ice breaking party. One thing that amazed me most was the services rendered, be in bank or in the institution. People are genuinely polite, they would help us with the things and all are well informed about our arrival in the institution. I was amazed with their management. Things are all done in systematic manner without any delay and I uttered to my friend “if I ever wanted to do management course than I would definitely come back to Riga.”

I am a civil engineer student but whether I will be a good or bad engineer, I don’t yet know. And somehow we engineers love observing structure and design. I had to visit Riga old town time and again since the foreign student department’s administrative building is located there. Somehow I found all the design of the building so beautiful and have its own uniqueness. I am a Bhutanese, I do have respect for our traditional design but somehow I found design bit monotonous in Bhutan. I know it is too early for me to comment on the design with my very little knowledge but that is just my view. And I feel that everyone has the right to express their views.

Well this city is beautiful; it is neither too populated nor polluted. And believe me or not people are so tall and they have very beautiful skin. Sometime I would feel like they have just walked out of the movie. One of my apartment mate from Mongolia told us that they don’t take chilli because it spoils skin. well I was like”I can’t live without chilli.” And he started laughing. When he asked me why do we asian usually looks younger ,my answer was “because we take chilli.”.

p.s. My friend got her baggage after one day and they did deliver it to our apartment.