A friday like all the others

Ieva offers me to drive me to the uzbek embassy to get a visa (the closest one in Switzerland was in Berlin and it takes between 2 and 4 weeks to get a visa). I'm told 3 days are needed to transact one. Great, it means I would be getting it on tuesday next week, just one day before I leave.... but then they specified 3 WORKING days. It means until next friday, since the visa section opens mon, wen and fri, 3 hours/working day... did I hear "bureaucracy"?

Ieva proposes me to visit Jurmala, a balneario resort 20 min by car from Riga. The water is dark, rather cold and very quiet. The sky is blue and the cool breeze makes the sun bearable. The sand is thin and adapts to my body as soon as I lay on it. We chat and relax...

Around 5 we drive back to Riga, to one of those many big dark red cubic buildings from the ex-soviet era. It is the beaux arts association house (or something similar). Ieva is supposed to select some of her paintings for an exposition and at the same time, just by chance, the inaguration of young artists takes place and we are invited to the aperitif. I get to know some of the people there, specially the old man (nothing to do with a YOUNG artist) with a long beard and a strange suit. When he left I found out he was a beggar... I understood that the smell didn't come from the cheese only!

After that we get somewhere to watch the world cup game between Germany and Argentina. Ieva is so captivated by the game that she starts reading the newspaper. Germany qualifies for the next round and we go to the appartment for a rest before the crazy friday night fever in Riga. I closed my eyes and opened them at 4 am... "I should be dancing now, I should be dancing now"...