Usk Sketchmas Day 21 - Busker & Mini Printmaking

 This prompt for Usk Sketchmas gave me a problem. We don't have buskers anywhere near here. You can find them in Manhattan, but I wasn't going to travel  1 1/2 hrs to sketch one. I had to resort to working from a photo for this sketch as much as it bothered me not to be working from life this time. Anyway, this young man was playing the xylophone on the street in Riga, Latvia when I was there for my nephew's wedding in 2018 and I snapped his picture. It came in handy.

The Patchogue Sketch Club met on Wednesday night but we didn't sketch. The Patchogue Arts Council had arranged for a workshop @Festive Mini Prints With Artist Andrea Cote which we attended instead. We had fun.

Laurie, Mareille, Cindy and I were making stencils to use on our prints.

Kaityln was working and Mike was looking on.

Maureen was at the press.

My prints and ghost prints.

Back to Latvia

Two years ago at this time I was in Riga, Latvia for my nephew and his wife's wedding that took place after I attended the Porto Symposium. Thinking about that time I looked through my photos from Riga to find something to sketch tonight. Doesn't this restaurant look fun with the cows on the building and the floral decorations?

And here is the happy couple, Joe and Angela who got married then. Their wedding ceremony and reception was on the beach.

Traveling Home

I left for the Riga airport fairly early, so I had breakfast after I went through security. There was such a cute pastry place in the terminal. I should have done a sketch of the cafe itself too but the breakfast looked too good to pass up sketching it.

The trip on Norwegian Air from Riga to Stockholm was pretty short, about 55 minutes, but I had a layover of quite a few hours at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. I was told my gate area wouldn't be open for several hours and that there were restaurants and shops down the other end of the airport. So I walked around quite a bit to get some exercise and checked things out. I did find out that Sweden doesn't use euros so I didn't have any money to buy anything. I did find a nice, interesting looking restaurant upstairs away from the craziness of the boarding gates. I sat at a table there for a long time doing these two sketches and then reading for a while.

This guy was checking his phone and snacking on something. I liked all the meats hanging from the ceiling. The restaurant was Italian.

This father and son had just finished eating when I decided to sketch them, but I was fairly sure they weren't going anywhere for a while. The boy was playing video games and the dad...checking out his phone. lol

I was there for quite a while and decided that the food that everyone was eating looked good. You ordered at the counter of the restaurant and could only pay with a charge card so I didn't need to worry about the currency. My very late lunch was pasta carbonara and a beer...not quite what I would think of as typical Swedish food. lol But it was quite good!

I walked around a little more but still had a little spare time so I found another location and sketched a few more people.

All of these were done on one single page that looks like this.

Out of all the flights I took, the flight from Stockholm to NYC on Norwegian had the strangest security. We stood in line to have our tickets and passports checked and then on another line where we were asked questions. They wanted to know where I was coming from. When I said I went to Latvia for a wedding they wanted to know the family name of the couple that got married, how long I was there and all kinds of other things. They questioned everyone thoroughly. While we waited for our tickets to be scanned I was talking to the ladies behind me. I told them I thought that now they knew more about my trip than my husband did. lol Anyway, the rest of the flight went well. US Customs had a short line and I was home on time!

Latvia Part II

My hotel had a nice continental breakfast and they stored my luggage when I checked out at 11:00. My family was arriving on a flight that got in at 1:00 but they would have to pick up the rental car and figure out how to get to me. I suggested that I just meet them at the rental apartment since my hotel was in a pedestrian only part of the city and it would be hard to figure out where they could pick me up. We would decide once they picked up the car.

I went out to do some sketching. I went back to Dome Square where all the Buddy Bears were and sketched the view there.

 

Since I still had time before I expected to hear from them I did another sketch down one of the streets in the old town.

Here are a few more photos from Riga.

When I heard from my brother we decided that it made more sense just to go to the rental apartment which was about 15 minutes outside of Riga in Marupe. The woman at the hotel desk called a cab for me and made sure he knew where he was going...and off we went.

When we arrived at the property I didn't see my brother, but I found the homeowner who showed me where they were. There was a second house on the property and we were renting 1/2 of that. It was very nice with 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and a living/dining room all on two floors. Like the rest of Latvia it didn't have AC but at least it had big windows that opened wide to let in light.

We were all hungry and needed groceries so we ventured out to the grocery and what seemed to be the only restaurant in the area, and not Latvian but Italian. lol The food was good and the beer was cold and we were together which was what mattered. 

My nephew who we hoped to see that day was in transit. He had gone to pickup his 7 year old son who was in Germany with Joe's ex-wife, and their flight back to Riga was cancelled. They wouldn't be arriving until the following morning, so we just hung out at the apartment for the evening.

Latvia, Part I

The next part of my trip was getting to Riga, Latvia. My nephew and his girlfriend had just moved there and were getting married there. Since I was "in the neighborhood" I decided to travel there. I was flying Finnair from Madrid to Helsinki and then from Helsinki to Riga. Since I was already near the airport I just hopped on the Hilton courtesy bus to the terminal. Things went well. I was meeting my brother, sister-in-law, and niece the following day but I had one afternoon and evening in Riga alone. After taking a cab from the airport I checked into my hotel which was in the historic center of Riga. The lady at the check-in counter was very helpful and gave me a map of the city as well as a recommendation for a place for dinner and dessert. 

The restaurant, Alus Seta was cafeteria style and very unusual inside, so after I finished eating I did a sketch of the interior of the restaurant bar area. 

I didn't realize it but sitting a little bit behind me and off to the left was a young girl who was maybe about 14 who was sketching me. She came over with the sketch she did and wanted me to have it. She was from Italy, loves to sketch, and was so happy to see me sharing her hobby. I told her I would only accept the sketch if she signed it for me. Then I taped it in my sketchbook. She was so thrilled! I wish I had something with me that I could have given to her in return. Her parents thanked me too and said that it was special for her to give the sketch to me as a gift.

In Dome Square right around the corner there was a wonderful exhibit of "Buddy Bears" which have been traveling around the world. There are 140 of them, one for each country that is part of the United Nations and each was decorated by a different artist. The exhibit hopes to promote world peace. Here are a few of them that I liked. They were so fun!

I walked around for a while taking photos in the old town and hoping to wear off some of the delicious dinner I had of lamb shanks, roasted potatoes, salad, and blintzes. I wanted to have dessert at the other place that was recommended, Rigensis, one of the oldest bakeries in Riga. It was hard to pick from all the choices but I settled for this sort of napoleon-like slice of heaven. It looked so pretty on the plate that I had to sketch it.

My only problem with Riga is that at this time of year the high temperature is usually about 76 degrees, but they were having a heat wave. Air conditioning is nearly non-existant! My hotel room was uncomfortably hot!!!