It's not planning unless there's cake!

Post by Sarah K

Tuesday started off at a fairly leisurely pace, as we rested in the apartment and Net cooked us lunch :) We wandered down to Riga train station and got a train to Lielupe, which is at the Eastern end of Jurmala, and headed to the beach.  It was a bit colder today than it was last week so Laura and I decided not to go for a swim, but we had an hour or so relaxing as a team on the beach, running, doing yoga, playing frisbee and eating our sandwiches.

Sarah S, Laura and Sarah K doing some beach yoga

We left the beach and aimed to take the most direct route to the school to meet the Sea Scouts.  Laura decided that the best way to get there was to walk straight through the forest (without using a map!), but thankfully we arrived in plenty of time and didn't get lost!

We started the meeting by playing Granny Tag, while narrowly avoiding running into trees, and then went inside for woggle making.  We had only managed to figure this out this morning, and therefore it was a bit of a challenge trying to teach them!  Valdis (the Sea Scouts leader) supplied us with some leather to use for the woggles, and Laura and myself set about trying to explain what to do.  We found that it was actually easier doing a practical demonstration in smaller groups and therefore split the group, so there was one of us to 3 or 4 scouts.  They all eventually managed to make a woggle (some more successful than others), but they seemed to enjoy the activity and will be trying it again!

Once again, our trek back to the train station was through the pitch black forest....but this time we managed to actually find a lit path and was not as scary as last week!

Wednesday was a day filled with planning....and planning we only do when there is cake.  So after lunch with Laura's friend Karlis, we found a new coffee shop called Kuu'ka which does amazing cheesecake and gluten free chocolate cake (which made me really happy!!!!!) and settled down to plan our meeting for Vabole on Thursday.  We were told by the leader that we could do anything we liked, and therefore threw a few ideas around before agreeing that it should be all about international Guiding.  We settled on doing a craft to represent each of the WAGGGS World Centres (more on those in tomorrows blog!), and decided that we would need to spend the evening making prototypes in order to be prepared - think Blue Peter with 'here's one I made earlier'.  Once planning was complete we jumped on a tram and headed back to Riga Unit 66.  However, this evening we were meeting with the Cubs and Brownies, rather than the Scouts and Guides as we did last Thursday.

Planning in Kuu'Ka cafe

We had decided on a bit of an international Guiding and Scouting theme for the meeting this evening.  We began by playing a zombie name game, followed by a sitting down game which caused much laughter as it involved sitting on other people.  Then we played an international version of Connect.  We then moved on to complete a couple of crafts to represent two of the World Centres.  We made St George's cross flag badges for Pax Lodge in the UK, and Festival Snowflakes for Our Cabana in Mexico.  For all the other World Centres we played some games - for Our Chalet (Switzerland) we played the Moo game, for Sangam (India) we played Gecko (fast becoming the teams favourite game!), and for Kusifiri (Africa) we played Elephant football.  We rounded off our evening of fun playing Kung Fu jungle, which the Cubs and Brownies were very good at :)

The Moo game...

Once we made it back home we started prepping our crafts for our day with the Guides in Vabole - but more on that in the next blog post!

The GOLDen Autumn

Post written by Net and Sarah K 

After the craziness of the day trip to Valmiera, we were lucky enough to have 2 days off to recover before the next week of training and meetings. We had met up with Laura's friend Karlis a few days before and he had suggested taking us to Sigulda - a town next to Gauja National Park, which is very picturesque. Karlis recruited one of his friends, and we jumped into their two cars and off we went! I slept for the entire journey, but I'm sure it was beautiful on the way... 

We arrived at Sigulda and our first stop was Turaida castle (although we got distracted by a church and a couple of other things on the way.) At the castle, we climbed the rather large tower, up some very narrow staircases - not great with rucksacks and a large amount of tourists! We spent a considerable amount of time discussing how we would convert it into our house - there's going to be a balcony all the way around, and a campfire room! After a difficult route down, we continued to investigate the rest of the castle, and found some buttons to play with. 

Next we had a walk around the sculpture park, and other exhibits, and found a big pile of leaves to jump in (yay for GOLDen autumns :) ) and then headed to find some lunch - proper Latvian food - meat and potatoes! We were then taken to the bobsleigh track which unfortunately was being used for actual bobsleighing, so we couldn't have a go (we're not sure if our insurance would have covered it anyway!) but it was fun to have a look around. After this, we headed back home, and I slept again - it was dark this time, so I don't think I missed as much! 

Back in the apartment, and we decided it was time for some pampering - facemasks, nail varnish and smores were all in order :D A few more of the bubbles that I bought the team were blown as well - not just any bubbles though, these ones don't pop! (it's Tuesday now, and there are still some stuck to the wall...) 

Monday found us in our favourite teahouse, curled up on the floor cushions - we were actually there to plan! We spent just under 3 hours there, planning for the rest of the week, particularly for the Training Day we have on Saturday. It was very productive, and the proximity to cheesecake definitely helped! 

In the evening, we were lucky enough to have an evening with Liga, and she took us out kayaking!! We headed off down the River Daugava, and then along the canal, and back out to the river. We didn't quite manage to see a beaver, but there were loads of ducks, and the bridges were lit up along the canal and were awesome to float underneath. Thanks Liga! 

Afterwards, we were all pretty exhausted, so it was time for bed. 

Today we're off to Jurmala again, and we're teaching them how to make woggles, so we've spent the morning teaching OURSELVES how to make woggles! We'll let you know how it goes in the next blog post.