Apartment of the rising sun (or not)

Post by Katie and Net

On Friday we ventured over the river to explore the other side of Riga, visiting a Russian monument, the National Library, which is quite an impressive piece of architecture, and a cat cafe.

We also planned our session for the next day, where we would be visiting a unit in Valmiera. To get there in time, we set off in darkness to catch the 7.30am coach for our 2 hour journey.

This was our biggest group yet, with around 40 Scouts and Guides for the 1st session. We started off with the inflatable globe throwing name game and then played zip zap being, where you send the 'zip' around the circle in various directions. We had planned to have 4 activities that groups could rotate around, and were able to quickly adapt this to 5 activities with so many participants. I ran an activity where the group has to balance a stick on their fingers, and then lower it to the ground without anyone letting go. It's deceptively tricky. Net played Robot, where one person is blindfolded, one person can't speak and another can't hear, and they then have to guide the blindfolded person to a destination. Sarah K ran Paper Islands, challenging groups to get from one side of the room to the other using a few pieces of paper to avoid touching the floor. Sarah S's groups had to work together to move a string hoop round while they were all holding hands. For Laura's activity, each member of the group acted as a different part of a body, and worked together to blow up a balloon and walk together before popping the balloon.

 About 30 Cubs and Brownies showed up for our 2nd session. We started with the globe name game again and followed with Make me a...shape. This time one group made a fully moving bus and almost disappeared down the corridor entirely. Our next activity was the True or False WAGGGS and WOSM game to learn facts about the two World Organisations that the Latvian Scouts and Guides are a part of, and the World Centres corners game. We finally sang Get Loose and Alice The Camel and exchanged badges.

Afterwards we went out to lunch with two of the Scout leaders, Martins and Artis, who also showed us around Valmiera including a great view of the surrounding countryside from the top of a church spire, a BMX track and a forest with a treehouse and playground! 

We eventually got back to our apartment 14 hours after leaving, having travelled 210km, and had a very busy day! Our next couple of days are relatively relaxed so we've got some well earnt recovery time...