Riga's Art Nouveau

I made sure that one of the things I did on my first day in Latvia, was to seek out Riga's art nouveau area.

As the town is easy enough to navigate, you can find it without a map, if you just know the general direction you need to head.

 These few streets were full of beautiful details, coloured buildings and quite a lot of cats...

The area had an 'emptier' feeling an the rest of the town, I suppose this is because it is a little out of the centre, so there aren't the shops, pubs and markets to draw people here.

  

Not far from here, there were a few museums (which I didn't have time to check out unfortunately) as well as a really stunning park.  Seek out.

~ Mid Winter Festival ~ Latvia

In Lativa 'Christmas' is know as the Mid Winter Festival.

Much more to my liking.

Unlike the UK, the decorations weren't sickening, tacky, or crass.

There wasn't the feeling that some gross light sequence had been hung up, out of place, down the centre of an unwilling street.  

The town appeared to be blanketed in beauty, it seemed so natural for it to look so stunning.

There was far more thought put into how the decorations would slot into their surroundings, the creativity expressed in their design was so refreshing, so special.

These snowman figures were one of my favourite - there was a line of around six of them, on a row of trees at the outskirts of this green.  The bodies were attached near the top of the cone, so they bobbed and boogied in the breeze.

It really was a winter wonderland, I felt like I was wondering through a fairytale the whole time I was there.

'Christmas' markets were still open in the centre of the Old Town, the buildings themselves were pretty to begin with.  Imagine how my New Years felt, stood in the centre of all this, watching the town's firework display, with a surprisingly-nice bottle of cheap Russian champagne.

Perfection?  Certainly my most memorable NYE yet.

Old Town, Riga

Beautiful, charming, snowy.

December 2012

Expenses

of Lativa NYE trip

cards cards cards

I got a good amount of them today

 This one is my favourite of the season ~

 "...it's topsy turvy, like you..."

This is one I bought in Latvia, but it's not for me

2012

I went to Australia
I bungey jumped
I met kangaroos, kualas and pythons
I swam in the Great Barrier Reef
I started running
I stopped drinking
I went to Prague (I started drinking)
I saw the Olympic road races
I turned 25
I got the best present I couldn't even have dreamed of
I cycled 70 miles in a day for Age UK
I moved house
I ran 26.2k for Canine Partners
I met some amazing people this year
I saw some awesome bands
I saw some awesome places
I went to Latvia to see the new year in
I had a lot of fun


2013 has a lot to live up to

finished

Last night I finished the second of the purple socks I began knitting earlier in the month.
This one got done a lot quicker than the first.
Day off well spent.

I haven't knitted socks for over a year now, so I didn't really bother with a tension square, or a complex pattern.

They'll definitely get a lot of wear though, if a touch on the slouchy side.

I got the pattern for free from this blog or you can find it on Ravelry.