Day 46: Skating on thin ice

After a quick team meeting early in the morning, I wondered what to do with my day. The weather was better than yesterday and seemed as if it would stay that way. I was literally down to my last santims (the Latvian equivalent of British pennies) but I've been dreading going to the bank to withdraw money, mainly because of the charging fees from my bank, the exchange rate and the Latvian ATM machine - but it had to be done.

There would be no hesitation here!

I felt so much better afterwards; paper money in my hands once again!

I wouldn't mind one of these.

I felt so good that I went on a little shopping spree, for food that is. The only downside was that I had to carry three heavy bags back to the dorms, trying not to break 10 eggs as the heavy bag they were in smacked against my leg with every step. I reached home safely, arms still intact (just about) and eggs perfectly formed. 

When I was walking home, I was just looking around and trying to hide any look of struggling with the bags when I saw a girl with a "Tesco" bag; Tesco being my favourite and most regularly attended supermarket back in England. It was clear from her walking away from the bus station that she travelled outside of Valmiera to find the supermarket. I like Tesco, I do, but I wouldn't go to all that trouble for milk and bread.

Nice try.

Me and the film crew were meant to go ice skating this evening to get some fun footage of possible leisure time activities in Valmiera, but unfortunately it had to be cancelled: the rink was closed due to technical reasons. So I did the next best thing. I watched Ice Age 4.

Even Scrat got to ice skate! Well, ice was easily available to him...

Hopefully we will try to reschedule the ice skating for next week. If not, we have a full week of other filming planned so not to worry! Now, where is that chocolate I bought earlier...

"Those who always have a sense of appreciation and gratitude never reach an impasse in life" - Daisaku Ikeda