The Beginning of the End Pt. 2 (In which I rant about what I miss and what I will miss)

What do I miss most about America? (This question goes beyond family and friends, because it feels like those are the most obvious answers).

·       Trader Joe’s. Bro all I really want is sweet potato gnocchi with sage and butter sauce. I think I might cry and fall on my knees upon returning to my true homeland (the free sample section at TJ’s).

·       Speaking English and feeling normal. It’ll be rather strange to be able to hear other people’s conversations and actually understand all of them. Also, I’d like to not fumble over my words and be able to eloquently say more than, “no, I don’t have a membership card for your grocery store.”

·       Manners and personal space. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to hold myself back from punching someone in the face out of pure frustration (see also: the fatal mistake of grocery shopping at noon, prime babushkas shopping hour).

·       Smiling. The other day a woman smiled at me when I was walking down the street, and my first thought was “why the f#%$ is this woman smiling at me?”. Realizing that this was my first (very aggressive thought) was rather sad.

·       Hygiene. I could talk about this one for hours but I’ll leave it at that.

·       Actual spice and flavor. Put more than a sprinkle of black pepper on a dish in Latvia and half the population will panic.

·       Recycling. This one goes out to Emma Knapp- the most passionate person about recycling that I’ve ever met.

·       Volleyball. In the last few days of class we’ve taken up the nasty habit of playing soccer and volleyball in the break room, until one of us hits the ceiling and we realize we could actually get yelled at. Even the few minutes to passing back and forth with Andrew (who is the only one who can really understand my ranting about “just volleyball things”) have made me realize how much I miss playing. I made the decision to miss my senior season in college to come here and I’m incredibly grateful, but it was a little saddening to see just how much I miss little things like peppering.

What am I going to miss about Latvia?

·       Grocery shopping every day. No joke, I probably go a grocery store at least twice a day. For anyone who knows me well, you know I have a wacky love for shopping for food (which really isn’t that shocking once you see that I just look at pictures of donuts while cycling in the gym). Also, the produce here is different, and I fear I may have to spend many many many more dollars to get anything close at Whole Foods.

·       My host family! In a place as strange and different as Latvia, it can be hard to feel at home. Thankfully, my host family took every effort to make me feel welcome and care for me over the last few months. Lada, my host mom, is iconic and has taken me under her wing. My host sister Eva hugs me on a regular basis and it’s been nice to have someone my age, especially as an only child. Jusef, our cat, remains oddly charming with his balding Crookshanks haircut (that’s a Harry Potter reference for those of you who somehow happened to miss the biggest series of our childhood). My vocabulary in Russian can’t explain how happy I was to be part of their family, even if for just a short amount of time.

·       All those weirdos from West Point. We joke a lot about each other’s schools, but there’s no denying that or experience here wouldn’t be the same without the friendships we’ve formed with Andrew, Erin and Hailey. There’s nothing that solidifies a friendship like staring at someone during a presentation and asking them to find the Russian translation for the word you’re trying to say as the professor stares at your semi-squeamish soul.

·       Candles. Lighting up these bad boys is the first thing I do when I get home. Also, fire scares the ish out of me so it’s been nice getting more comfortable lighting matches.

·       Laima chocolate. There’s a very legitimate reason as to why Latvians are so proud of this national treasure. If you’re ever trying to woo me, a bar of their dark chocolate with almonds and cherries will do the trick quite well.

·       Riga Black Balsam (only the black currant flavor). Latvia’s staple alcohol- the group nearly gagged after trying the original flavor for the first time, but this bitter is a favorite for almost everyone, and the part of me that gets carried away easily wants to bring back a whole suitcase full of it, but thankfully I have a (small) sense of self-control and I’ll import more from this great country if I ever need it.

·       Traveling to other countries easily. I’m the kind of person to plan out everything for a trip/event weeks in advance, but it’s been refreshing to take some trips as a group that we hadn’t anticipated (weekend trips to Riga, Latvia’s capital). We’ve thought through a lot on the fly and I’m an expert™ at finding boss AirBnBs, and all of that is because it’s been easy to travel. I don’t anticipate traveling to so many countries so quickly (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland) for a long time to come.

·       Free time. Life at the Academy is usually filled to the brim with obligations, bells ringing, and cannons blasting (not really on the last one). Here we tend to go with the flow, and by flow I mean the schedule Larisa writes. Occasionally the flow consists of a hurricane of Russian and political science classes, but lately it’s been a puddle of language exam prep. We’ve taken a “rest” semester, and we’re prepared to grind when we get back.

  ·     Alyona, our Russian teacher. Alyona was freaking awesome- she would talk to us about a different life under the Soviet Union, the perspective of a Russian-speaker living in Latvia, and only scold you a little if you’d forgotten some basic Russian grammar. She also let us watch Scooby Doo in Russian when we came to school dressed as the characters (more on that in a later post). She’s everything you’d ever want in a language teacher- an academic mom with nice handwriting and a tendency to watch us get carried away with our shenanigans.

·       Being credited by Andrew’s host mom as the reason America can sleep peacefully at night because of how tall and strong-looking I am. 

·       Riga. Even though I haven’t left Latvia yet, I can’t wait to come back to this city. Most of the people who know it in America reference it as the setting of some episode of “The Bachelorette”, which makes me want to scream into a pillow (violently), but this place will have a special place in my heart. There’s nowhere I’d rather гулять.