First Impressions

*sigh* Well, I’m here :). And, happily, I’ve finally gotten the chance to sit down for a moment…

My flight was long but uneventful – the in-flight movie was good (Lemony Snickett) and the food was even tasty. No complaints there (except maybe for the fact that the flight cut my chance for sleep down to four hours… but I’ve done that before :)).

After I arrived yesterday afternoon, my day was filled with dropping my things off in my apartment, persuading the waitress at “Double Coffee” to give me ice with my chai, walking to the embassy and getting acquainted with the duties/people/funny staircases there, going to my boss’s house for dinner, getting back at 8:30 to fiddle with the technology available (TV and DSL) and mostly unpack, figuring out the optimal way to use my European-style shower-that-is-not-a-shower, and finally falling into bed at 11 and sleeping very soundly :).

Today was a little quieter, consisting mostly of work-oriented stuff. I got a nice security briefing from our chief of security (who is called, interestingly enough, Mike :)). We did take about a two hour lunch break to go to a lovely little Italian restaurant, mostly in honor of the president’s recent successful visit and partly so that I could get to know folks. …Currently, it is raining. Hard. Not the “plish, plish” sort, but the “ker-plosh, ker-plosh” sort. The “slotted sea” sort. (This is why I am blogging instead of exploring.) My walk home was, of course, a very wet one, despite an umbrella, and I am now happily relaxing and drying out. Fortunately, when it does stop raining, the place stays light until about 10, so I should be able to get in a good five hours of fun after work most days.

I think I will be able to be very happy here – both in my apartment and in this city. My apartment is hugely spacious and well furnished. The State Department provided a large trunk for whoever lives here, filled with linens, hangers, towels, cooking utensils, flashlights, etc. Also, my boss and his family put some basic items in the fridge for me: milk, juice, eggs, bread, cheese, and a couple very tasty Braeburn apples, one of which acted as this morning’s breakfast.

The city itself is also lovely, though in a different sort of way. Its buildings are almost all old and ornate, but in varying states of restoration – Soviet communism didn’t do much for upkeep. It is, somewhat surprisingly, cosmopolitan. Not in the way that Washington or London is, but it is, for example, solidly trilingual. Every menu I’ve seen has been printed in Latvian, Russian, and English. …Actually, it reminds me a lot of Rome. The street sounds are similar and, like Rome’s, never ending. Even its smell seems more like Rome than other places. London has a clean smell, but mixed with cigarette smoke and fish and chips. Washington has almost no smell at all. German cities seem to fall somewhere between the two. Riga, though, has an “old European city” smell – kind of car-ish, kind of weirdly sweet with an acrid “after smell.” In the rain, the park that lies between me and work smelled very earthy and pleasant. It made me happy :).

Anyhoo, I think that covers the basics of my first bit of time here. I ought to go unpack the rest of my stuff and look into procuring some dinner…