A Sick Week!

Literally...this week I was lucky enough to wake up with a fever, sore throat and a head ache. Its especially fun when you have to also teach screaming kids for four hours. I was, however, blessed to only have it for a couple days. Some of my roommates have been sick for a week or so now. I attribute my healing to my amazing mother and the package she sent me. It was filled with mac'n cheese, fruit snacks, chocolate (bulk), cookies and hot cheetos!! I kid you not, the hot cheetos cured me. So thank you again mom, it was so nice to have a little present from home! Actually, this whole week I have felt so much love. I am blessed with so so many people in my life that care and love for me and I am so very grateful. I receive so many texts and videos from people back home wondering how Im doing and if everything is ok. It makes me so dang happy to know I have so many supportive friends and family. Love you guys. Thanks for everything. But really, things are better than ever out here. Im so close with the other teachers and we have so much fun. 

Not supposed to pick favorites but I mean c'mon... how could you not love that little face. 

This weekend was our first trip out of the country! Saturday morning we headed up to Riga, Latvia!  I was so dang excited and I didn't even know what Riga was. It was a four hour bus ride and we got there around 11:30am. We had the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday to get to know Riga. We really didn't have too many plans. There were a few things we wanted to see, but other than that we walked around, danced to some street music, ate some food, walked around the markets, sang in the park and took lots of pictures in the cutest streets ever. 

We love early morning busses!

As we were walking down the street we saw this place called "street fries" so of course we stopped there for lunch. 

One of the must do things on our list... The Riga Chocolate Museum. It was only 4 euro to get in and we got a ton of free chocolate candies, a cup of straight up, melted, dark chocolate heaven, and I guess some history of Riga chocolate... but the cup of chocolate was worth the 4 euro alone. I also got to try some raw cocoa beans and we got to make our own chocolate bar that had a message on it. The chocolate museum was definitely a highlight. 

One word - HEAVEN

Cocoa bean wall

They had weird photo booths - this is only one of the creepy pictures we took haha. 

Fun times and a for sure belly ache - worth it. So funny story, after the museum we were waiting for the bus to take us back to the middle of town. Our head teacher, kelsi, found which bus we needed to go on and we were somewhat giving her crap about it not being the right bus, but no one checked we kind of just went with it. Also, we had the account for ILP takeover this week so she posted about us not trusting her for directions. SO anyways we hop on this bus and we are on this bus for a LONG time. Kelsi finally says "how much do you guys love me? because we are on the wrong bus..." She showed us how far away we were and I remembered that she had posted about us giving her crap for not trusting her directions and I lost it! I started laughing so hard and I couldn't stop. All of us thought it was so funny that she was so dang confident haha. It was hilarious. So we got off at the next stop and rode the right bus back into town. Good times. We spent the night dancing and singing in the park and looking at more buildings lit up at night!

On the bus, before we realized we were heading the wrong way. 

If you look closely you can see the classic golden arches. We spent the night at the tree house hostel. Super awesome first hostel experience. Still weird, but so cool. We did pay a little extra to have an all girl room but we still shared the bathroom space with everyone. So I would be brushing my teeth and a random guy would walk out of the bathroom stall...going to take some getting used to. Super cool concept though. It cost about 9 euro for a bed (breakfast and wifi included!) which is soo dang cheap!! We met a super nice lady from Ukraine who gave us more yummy chocolate and we met a guy from Vienna, Austria that invited us to karaoke with him. So many people from everywhere! When we would tell people we are from america they would immediately say "woah! thats far! why are you here?" The down side to this hostel was it was right above a bar, so I got to fall asleep to the sound of shattering glass and screaming drunks. Day two was pretty relaxed. We really just walked around and saw pretty stuff...

Takes special focus to not slip every time you walk around here. 

Found this random unicorn. 

Ice skating/dance party on the Baltic Sea! What?! 

What a weekend! And to think its just the beginning blows my mind, Im so excited for life. We had the bus practically to ourselves and next thing we know we are back in our sweet little apartment here in Vilnius. Another country for the books. Latvia, to be honest I will probably never return, but it was a fun two days! Much love from Lithuania!