Of Hotels, Beaches, and Books

*singing to self* “I’ve still got sand in my shoes…”

And I mean that literally.

I actually got to go to the beach today. Yay!... but then, it was only just. I spent about 6 hours cooped up in a small hotel room. Allow me to explain:

We had a “codel” (congressional delegation) come in this weekend. Normally, we’d’ve taken the day off, it being Memorial Day and all, but when senators decide to visit town, you roll out the red carpet. So roll we did. Part of this red carpet business was to set up a “Control Room” in the hotel where they were staying. There they could access email and news via computer and get assistance in all manner of things – changing money, finding the pool, making their door key work, getting their dry cleaning done, whatever. Eager to help out with the delegation, I volunteered to take a shift for a guy who was needed elsewhere…

So, I got to be at the hotel this morning at 0700, which meant being at the embassy at 0620, which meant waking up at 0500… yeah, not necessarily my most relaxing Memorial Day ever, but worth it. We (a Latvian embassy worker and I) got the pleasure of staying there until 1400 – which is about when the senators were supposed to leave Latvia – they left the hotel at about 0930. This all added up to a long time of sitting in a little room with really nothing to do.

The most significant thing I did all morning was to watch the senators’ baggage as it sat in the hall. They were taking it downstairs in loads and didn’t want any of it “walking off.” So I stood in the hallway with the Latvian equivalent of Randy Long and watched the bags. To pass the time, I had him teach me how to say, “You touch it, you die,” in Latvian. (Which happens to be something like, “Ietanet, miret,” in case you ever needed to know.)

Fortunately, this hotel was a nice, beach front one in Jurmala – a Latvian resort-ish area and near Riga. An American coworker of mine who knew the town was kind enough to get me out of the hotel and show me the main street and the beach. Walking down the street and looking at the little shops was a joy – it is smaller, cozier, naturaller, and shorter than Riga. Though the weather wasn’t exactly beach weather (cool with a stiff breeze – enough that I was glad I was in a suit) it wasn’t bad. We walked back to the hotel via the beach. In order to get the true beachy feel, I took off my loafers and rolled up my pants legs. The damp sand was packed and easy to walk on and I did make sure to stick my feet in the Baltic (or the Gulf of Riga, if you want to be really picky). It was cold. …It was, incidentally, in putting my slightly sandy feet back in my shoes that the sand got in there. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it all out.

That trip, however, only took about an hour and left me with about three to go. I kept myself occupied by reading Starship Troopers (which I had brought with me). This was a good thing, because I had three hours to sit and contemplate the fact that I had gulped down a banana and some orange juice at 0545 and had some coffee at about 0930… and to kick myself for forgetting the granola bar I’d meant to bring. I was rather hungry, with not enough money on me to spend in the ritzy café downstairs. …But I am digressing…

Starship Troopers. It’s a good read and I’m about halfway through it now. The political philosophy behind it, however, tends too far toward conservatism to sit well with this mostly-libertarian (or “classical liberal,” however you’d like it). I would read along and, at intervals, lift my head from my reading and let the book sit in my lap while I contemplated it. (Incidentally, this is how I read most books. I think it’s why I’m such a slow reader. Anyway…) These contemplations mostly consisted of internal philosophizing and argumentation that I didn’t want to foist on my Latvian comrade. So I read and mentally argued, read and mentally argued.... And this kept me thoroughly occupied for the three hours. I even had the joy of finding the following quotes – two sublime, one ridiculous, but of personal interest:

On truth:
“Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them.”

On value:
“The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion … and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself – ultimate cost for perfect value.”

On… yeah :):
“We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time – we’ve never been told to go down and capture all left-handed redheads in a particular area, but if they tell us to, we can. We will.”
I kid you not. Guess he’s never met a left-handed redhead, huh? ;)

On that note, I shall close. May you all have a blessed Memorial Day. …I better go shut some of my windows, it’s getting rather cold.