Latvia by www.born2travel.it

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02. 06. 2009 Riga (LATVIA)

So many emotions! How lovely to hug my dear friend Martins and Rita again. Martins, my little friend, the one I used to sneak into the disco 10 years ago because he was 16 and not allowed in, is now a man, is married, has a 3-year-old daughter: Patricia.

He is a man. To me: a brother!

We spent the whole afternoon chatting, endless rivers of words trying to tell each other about the last years of our lives!

In the evening I drove through the Latvian roads to Jelgava, where I will be staying, in the Audi that the kind Maris entrusted to me.

Sitting astride the window, I jot down my first thoughts, a little confused… The cat Pucsi strolls over my diary and I think of old Ripsi… A very old dog, by now deaf but still alive… Immortal…

Ten years ago… I grow but I live…

Beautiful girls walk beneath my window and every time I am enchanted! God really did his best when he created the "Latvian female"!

I feel this mission, or at least the idea of it, has already changed me.

What will happen there? And above all on the way back… The important thing is to return, as the Americans say: "Alive and in one piece" [Ed. note: "Vivo e intero"].

03. 06. 2009 Jelgava (LATVIA)

This morning, while we were doing the shopping at "Rimi" and I was wandering the streets of Jelgava, I thought to myself how attached I feel to this country. Perhaps because I feel it closer to me, after my Italy, and that is thanks to Krists and Martins.

In the evening, dinner at Anda and Leo's. On "Gustava iela" everything has changed.

Everything is renovated, refurbished. That little house is gone, replaced by three delightful and very dignified flats, well kept and modern.

Leo proudly showed me many photos of my friend Krists, from when he was in the United States at flight school, in Estonia flying, and he moved me when he discreetly pressed into my hand a keyring with a photo of his son aboard a military aircraft and whispered: "This is for you"! I will carry it with me on the mission. It will protect me.

I met Linda, Martins's wife, very pretty and polite, and little Patricia: a little terror but beautiful!

A typical Latvian dinner in memory of the old days. Potatoes, yoghurt (actually a very similar cream), salad and meat.

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