Jurmala is a suburb of Riga, the capital of Latvia.  Jurmala is also known as the Beverley Hills of the Baltic as it is the summer home of wealthy Latvians, Russian pop stars and well to do Scandinavians.  There are also writers and artists cottages as well.  Jurmala has long been a spa town and people still come for spa treatments that cost a fraction of what they do elsewhere.  We are just a few blocks from the beach which is a 35 km stretch of powdery white sand studded with sand dunes and bordered by fragrant pine forest.  The water is surprisingly warm—we’ve already been swimming. We have also been doing a lot of bike riding on the beach since we bought the new bikes. We saw swans swimming in the sea on our ride this morning—quite a beautiful sight. We aim to get fit by all this increased activity.

As for our abode—it’s not a beach house as expected but a third floor 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment.  It’s not oceanfront but it is riverfront.
	The views are quite nice of the river Daugava and a really beautiful old brick church with a spire.

  

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It’s a little cramped but hey it's got a bidet and a washing machine dryer in one and a Jacuzzi tub. The people from ESG (Kent’s company in Latvia) have been very kind as they stocked the place with food, sheets etc.  Denis picked us up at the airport and it cost him a broken leg he smashed it on his motorcycle on the way home from picking us up.  Hope he doesn’t hold it against us—or the fact that the office burned down shortly after we arrived.  It’s like we are a reverse good luck charm. Yikes. What next?

     We are enjoying the Latvian people and not just the ones from work.  They are quite friendly and tolerant of the language barrier.  Latvian is unlike any other language that I have studied.  They keep saying that it is easy—that everything is pronounced the way it looks.  Then why is laci pronounced large…. Ah just another challenge which is really part of adventure right.   Bye for now, Marianne