Day 35: Right at home in Riga

Last night was the first night in few months where I have been in bed and asleep as early as 11.30pm.  I really need to sort my sleeping pattern out before I leave Latvia. My alarm rang at 6am and surprisingly I actually got out of bed within minutes. It must have been all the excitement for going to Riga for the next 3 days to film a jazz festival! After a second attempt at making porridge and a two hour car journey, my film crew and I finally arrived at the main concert hall.

You can just feel my excitement here, can't you?

After we were given our staff merchandise, bright pink tops for the girls and sea blue for the boys, we had to visit the radio station located in Old Riga to get some very important sound equipment for filming later on (and to have a sneak peak at some of the jazz bands rehearsing!)

Look at the architecture on that!

One crash course in how to use a "handy recorder" later, me and the other intern were free to roam around Riga for 4 hours until we had to report back to base. I am rather ashamed to say this, but the first thing we did was hunt for the closest McDonald's. We were starving and it was the first thing we thought of. Not very cultural of me is it?

As we were walking, something caught my eye (this seems to be happening a lot lately). I turned around and saw this glaring at me in the face.

I want to go!

My competence with the Latvian language is becoming better day by day (if you can count numbers as competency) and so before I got my hopes up reading "23rd August" in Latvian on the poster kept them right down. Seeing Lady Gaga in Latvia would have been amazing.

It felt so lovely just walking through the park, not having to worry about time; 4 hours was long enough! Whilst we were admiring the beautiful riverside scenery, we spotted a tea house tucked behind some trees. As soon as we saw it, we had to go in.

Wouldn't you?

Sitting on a bench, overlooking the river with book in hand, time just flew by and before we knew it, we had to head back to the main concert hall. Sounds easy, but not being from Riga, we got kinda lost. Okay, okay, VERY lost. I suppose that's one way to sightsee...

A striking cathedral I noticed when checking my compass.

Eventually, we made it back to where we needed to be and split off into our pairs. I have been assigned to work with the project manager's brother. Luckily for us, the two concerts we had to film were based in the most beautiful part of the city: Old Riga. When the first concert started, I was just getting used to the jazz music, tapping my foot from now and then. But then when the second concert began, there was no stopping me! Hands clapping, head banging, hips swinging. All while holding a camera! Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I did have to restrain from erratically dancing for the sake of the film. 

I also took some sneaky pictures when filming the performances and this has got to be my best:

Karlis Auzans all caught up in the jazzy moment!

After each concert, I had to interview the artists. I was so inspiring to hear about their passion for music, or as jazz singer Sofia Rubina - "feeling as free as a swimming fish". That's one way of putting it I suppose. As the evening was coming to a night, I thought it would be great to get some interviews with the audience members. Me and my filming partner looked around to "fish" out any young, English-speaking Latvians. In the end I just had to sit down next to a girl and ask her politely. She couldn't refuse. 

My bush.

We sat back down at our table, but I wanted to do just one more interview with someone, anyone! I didn't know where all this courage had suddenly come from. It was then when my filming partner whispered in my ear "the couple sitting behind us [on the same table] are English". I turned around and asked "would we be able to interview you for our filming covering the festival?" to which they replied with huge smiles on their faces, "wait, you're not Latvian!". We started chatting as if we have known each other for years!

It's funny how the smallest things can make someone's day...