Day 63: I'm a local star!

With the sun shining in the sky, I woke up bright and early this morning to go to an interview. It was actually me being interviewed this time, rather than the other way round. The local newspaper in Valmiera have a different guest feature in every weekly issue and this week the newspaper requested an interview with me and the other intern. With his tape recorder, the journalist asked questions about choosing to come to Latvia, expectations of the country and experiences so far. At the end we had to say a short quote directed at the readers of the newspaper. Mine was as follows:

"Thank you for embracing me into your town and culture. The nature is beautiful, the food is amazing. I will definitely take some of Latvia back to England with me"

Cheesy? Maybe, but it does the trick! The article will be in Latvian but I'll try to get a copy of it for the sentimental value anyway.

I attended both of the lectures today, one about the communication of environmental awareness and the other again about ideas of sustainable tourism. I enjoyed both and found them really interesting, but the one concerning communication was the most relevant to my degree. I even took part in the creative task that the Latvian lecturer had assigned. Split into smaller groups, we had to come up with a way of communicating an environmental issue in an attractive and symbolic yet provocative way. We ended up acting and miming a television advert, with me as the narrator and representative from the imaginary "Latvian Tree Protection Agency" and my colleagues miming as the endangered trees and a rare bird. I sounded like one of those people from an insurance advert.

Working hard.

After a long day of hard work and hot sun, some of us participated in the social activity planned for the evening: ice skating again! I must admit that my skating seemed much better this time, perhaps because there wasn't the stress of filming hovering over my head. But I did fall over once...

I'm not quite as good as that yet.

The UK team and I have arranged to practice our singing performance for the song and dance festival tomorrow lunchtime. Amazingly, one of the team found a scarf with the Union Jack on it in the shopping centre today and will buy some blue, white and red ribbon for us to decorate ourselves with! I'm feeling good about this. Even if the singing is off-key, at least we will look somewhat aesthetically pleasing. I'm sure if the Queen was here in Latvia, she would be proud of us.

Something lovely happened today. On my way to one of the lectures, the receptionist handed me a package and two more birthday cards. The package had come all the way from Japan! The temptation to open everything for my birthday is gradually increasing to a peak... just 2 days to go... I can do it.