One Little Jar of Peanut Butter.

Okay so school "started" this past Friday (sept.. 1st) here in Latvia, but my first official day of classes starts today (wed. sept. 6th). I guess I lucked out you could say, three fake days of school for Corrine.
The first day of school here was nothing like the first day back home at old Hayward High. At nine o'clock all the kids reported to their schools carrying loads of flowers. My school is called The Cesis Friendly Appeals State Gymnasium. (there is a shorter name...but it's the abbreviation of the school in German I think...?) We then stood outside for almost two hours of speeches and welcoming. The school gave awards to those students who had a average of 9 or higher in their marks from last year (roughly 4.0's). There were also gifts and awards given to the people who had helped repair the school over the summer holidays. I was introduced and welcomed to the school being presented with a little stuffed toy owl (the school's symbol), information on the school (in English), and a kiss on the cheek by some nice boy with a funny name. We went inside and gave our teachers flowers, and lots of them, and then were dismissed for the day. (so my first day of school ended at around 11:30, not too bad)
Monday we reported to school at nine, some classes earlier some later. The first thing on the list to do was to set the teams for Tuesday's Sports Day, with the big event being a huge orinteering contest. There were two team captains; Martinš (who is about 5'3''), and Mia (who is about 6ft)..Itt was a pretty funny picture, the two of them standing in front of the class. After the teams werechosenn (I was put on Mia's team) the teacher pulled out a map of the US and had me talk all about it, Wisconsin, Hayward, and myself. When I was done they asked me questions, about what kind of music I liked, my favorite movie, sports and classes at my high school, but my favorite question was from a boy named Helmut. (I keep wanting to call himhelmett)
His question was this, "Is your high school like it is in the movies?..Youu know, thequarterbackk, thecaptainn of the Football team is the coolest kid and he always dates the head cheerleader?"
We then went to the library and got our books for the year, and then the school day was over at approximately noon.
Tuesday was Sports Day, and was a great deal of fun. My team had a lot of trouble getting started, for some reason we didn't have a compass and couldn't read the map very well, so we spent roughly 20 mins going in circles. Finally something clicked, it was simple, follow the map! It shows you exactly where to go..Okayy maybe some little boy pointed us in the right direction..Butt I did first say we had a rough time getting started...
We managed to finish the course in a little over an hour reaching all 12 check points, and today at school we'll find out just how bad or good we really are. And so once again my school day was till just about noon, but hey, I'm not complaining or anything.

Now let me back track...
Saturday was the Cesis District Roller Ski Sprints, it was an up hill skate sprint that was just about .5K. I showed up at the course early was handed a pair of roller skis and a bib and told to go try them out. They were fine, I was a littleshakyy...I hadn't been on roller skis for over two weeks, and had done a little to much classic this summer. Myqualifyingg round was good setting me high in thewomen'ss rankings, and in my semi finals I was racing the best skier in Latvia my age. We skied head to head the whole way, at the peak of the hill I pulled ahead, but with about one meter to go I tripped up and got beat by a nose..Itt was a pretty good photo finish. I went on to take third place in the women's finals, and got to stand on thepodiumm and get a pretty medal.

Later that day we(Dace and I) went to Liva's house, one of Dace's friends. Liva's dad owns and runs a big brick factory here in Cesis, that has been operating for a very very long time. The red square in Russia is made from the bricks from his factory. So, well...their house is huge...I mean really big and they even have a great big angry dog to go with it. As soon as we got there we had to wash our hands and were showed into thediningg room to eat, and eat a lot. (Liva warned us not to eat before we came...she was right) Her mom made a ton of food, ribs, salad, potatoes, some more pork, some more pork, some more potatoes and a giant water melon. It was one of those table's where you were like "woah" and then knew that you had to eat everything before you would be allowed to leave the table..Wee ate everything, as Liva's mom watched us from the doorway.
We then took a sauna...because well they are crazy about their saunas here in Latvia, and it just so happens that Saturday is sauna day at Liva's house...so we took a sauna...
After getting out of the sauna and putting on our normal clothes we were ushered back up stairs to eat pancakes, lots of pancakes, but these were Latvian pancakes filled with meat. And once again we ate everything as Liva's mom watched from the doorway with a very pleased look in her eyes...I did say when I first got to Latvia and they gave me plate of food, just looking at it, I knew that they expected no one to starve here.
After we were completely over full, Liva's dad took us home were we immediately found the couches and both agreed that was much too much food for anyone.

Okay I think that is it for now.
I will post later about my first day of real classes
Until then, I miss you.

oh yeah about the peanutbutter, which I've missed so much...when I got to Liva's house her mom ran up to me and gave me a jar of peanutbutter. They searched all over Riga for it, and found one small jar of it just for me!