October ♥

Heey! :)

Finally I'm here with a new post :) Didn't actually realize that I haven't written anything here since August, and it's October already. I will try to describe everything that happened, but this post will be quite short (mostly consisting of photos), as I want to sleep - today I woke up at 5 a.m. to watch F1 practice in Korea :D I'm weird, I know.

August ended with one great event - party at Kolka with my biologists for 1st course - Night on the Cape :) I helped to organize everything and also made a control point with my friend Anna at Night Track. Was fun (it's always fun to stick people together with adhesive tape :D ), and also my boyfriend joined biologists this year, so it was double fun to stick him :D

Chilling while 1st course is having fun :D

Well, we helped also a bit :) 

We went home on Sunday, 1st September, and at the evening we had one more event - student celebration Aristotelis, where students from every faculty of University of Latvia get together at Dome Square and try to show everyone they're the best. I guess, you know which faculty really IS the best? ^___^

1st course at Aristotelis :) You can also see me on the right :)

My lectures started on 2nd week of September, and I guess that I will love studying for Master's degree as much as I loved the Bachelor before :) This year I have 8 courses - Practical Biometry, Animal Evolution, Animal Ecology, Practical Entomology, Innovations (this one is obligate, and it's about business and economics, don't like it), Topical Problems in Biology, Ichthyology & Fish Ecology and Limnology. Quite much to learn, but it's ok, I like it. We already made some experiments in Ecology and Entomology courses - we had to collect all invertebrates we can find at our homes, then we tried to find invertebrates in different types of soil, and also we are feeding millipedes with different vegetables and see how they're growing :D

Cute ^___^

As lectures are only on Thursdays and Fridays, I'm working for the rest of the week. It's not so hard as it sounds, as now there are almost no samples at all, but I'm feeling like a zombie if I have to wake up at 6 a.m. every day :( But it's still fun - for example, one day we received a package with cannabis plant :D

Cannabis & view through my window ^^

One more challenge I accepted in September - I moved to my boyfriend's place, so I feel like an adult now with all these things I have to think about and do. But well, if I will have to live in Finland alone for half a year, I must get accustomed to it...

A little river near our house :)

And, of course, I can't do without parties, as many of my friends have Name days :) The best party was Evita's Name day, as we celebrated it at the lake shore. Me and my boyfriend leaved at about 3 a.m., but some people stayed until sunrise :D

Me & both Evitas :)

All of us :)
And yes - I have some more photos in my camera, but I'm too sleepy to write a normal post. Hopefully I'll soon show you photos from two little bike trips (to Dole island and to Stiene to collect mushrooms) and from Sweden (finally :D).
P.S. And tomorrow (06.10.) me & my boyfriend will celebrate 6 month together :) Today we were walking in the forest and making hedgehogs from pine needles :D

Have fun & take care! ^^

Eesti ^^

Hey there! :)

Today I will tell you about my little trip to Estonia last weekend. I didn't plan to go to Estonia this year, but me and Katja wanted to meet somewhere finally, and as I have the job and not so much time, we decided to meet in Tallinn, not Helsinki. So me and my boyfriend went to Estonia last Saturday night to see Katja and Henri :)

First interesting thing about this trip was that we didn't go to Estonia by bus this time, but by Scania truck :D While we were waiting for the car (it was about 2 a.m.) we were standing in the forest singing Latvian songs, but soon the driver collected us and at about 7 a.m. we were in Tallinn already. As Katja and Henri came a bit later, we had some time to walk around the city and collect some caches :)

This time I won't write much text, just put many photos in a long, long post, as I'm lazy and not feeling well :/

Admiral ship

Estonian museum of architecture

Fat Margaret's Tower ^^

Photopost: The Tall Ships Races 2013 in Riga (43 photos)

Heey, my dear readers ^^ Last weekend I had a chance to visit a great event called The Tall Ships Races 2013 and see awesome sailing ships once again. Last time they were here in 2003 and I still remember how nice it was then. So this time I also couldn't miss it. First I went to city center to see the ships close to me and on Sunday I also went to Mangaļsala to see how they sail to the sea. So enjoy the photos! ^^

Photopost: The Power of Waves (15 photos)

Heey! ^^

I'm here with a new post again :) The weather is very windy recently, so yesterday I decided to go to Mangaļsala after work to catch some waves. And I want to show you what I've got :)

A very long post.

Heeeey, my dear readers! The ones who still remember me and keep waiting for a new post after almost 3 months of silence from me :) I'm finally back and I'll try to write more often. For last 2 months I didn't have any free day at all, but now I decided that I must finally write something here, as many people even don't know anything about my life. In short - everything is awesome! ^^ So, get some tea (at least I am drinking tea right now, as it's quite cold outside) or something else and prepare for many-many photos and long stories :)

May started quite interesting, as me & my friends from Biomimicry Design Challenge team went to Sweden. I will show you photos and tell about the trip in the next post, now I will just say that everything was great. We walked around Stockholm, I met many new people on the ferry (we're now friends with one guy from Liepāja), had a crazy party, watched hockey with many fans and even touched an elephant! ^^

On 8th of May me & my Dad went to Jaunciems as we do it every year to take photos of windflowers (Anemone nemorosa). Of course, it was raining (I have my personal cloud, I guess, as nobody got the rain that day, just me), but we managed to take some photos I like :)

Windflowers ^^

Much more of them ^^

Little river of Langa

The house of beavers

Happy Icegirl ^^

Heeey! ^^

A month passed since I wrote here something about my life, so I think it's time for a new post with some photos and news.

First of all, some time ago I was at our zoo again :) I finally bought myself a new camera I wanted for a long time (Sony A37), so I had to try it. It was raining, so it was quite dark and I didn't take many photos, just enjoyed the walk and animals ^^

The wolves were so cute and played with each other ^^

Lemurs love this big old turtle :D

You know I love polar owls ^^

Another day I visited almost every place in Riga, as I had an exam in nature photography and needed some photos for it. First I went to the sea in Mangaļsala, then to Langa river in Jaunciems, then got to the city centre and walked to Arkādijas Park to take a photo of waterfall ^^

Daugava river.

House of the Blackheads.
And these are 3 photos I handed in for the exam. We had to take a photo of landscape, macro photo and photo of flowing water. I got 10 for these ones ^^

And about some other news. 2 months ago I finally got dental braces. I wasn't ready for them for 7 years or more, but I told you already that I have some crazy motivation this year to do anything. First week was crazy, as I couldn't eat anything (I just drank yoghurt :D ), now I also have to think about what I eat, but it's quite ok. And the funniest thing is that I told that I will stop going to parties, I will sit at home, learn Finnish and so on when I'll get braces. My determination was ruined at first day already :D In last 3 weekends I wasn't at home almost at all, everyone's asking me to go somewhere. Two weeks ago my friend Nikija organized her birthday party in Latvijas 1. Rokkafejnīca, and she asked 3 awesome Latvian rock/metal bands to play there  - Wake Up, Rebel Riot & Bloody Heels. The event was awesome, my neck hurted so much the next day after crazy headbanging (guys from Bloody Heels are my bf's best friends, so we had to stand in the first row and be crazy! :D ). Some party photos (I checked out the rest of them and understood that it's better not to put them anywhere :D ):

Me, Anna, Evita, Mārtiņš, Sanda, Evita, Linda, Sigita and Laura at Evita's birthday party (23.03)

Me & Santa at the same party, we had some crazy photsession at the end :D

Then I handed in documents to apply for ERASMUS program and I got there ^^ Only 11 people from our faculty had a chance to go to another country (of course, if you want to pay for everything, everyone can go). And I will study at Itä-Suomen yliopisto in Joensuu ^^ So happy that I got to the city I wanted, and I'll have a chance to visit many concerts of my favourite Finnish metal bands, learn some more Finnish and meet awesome people. Now I have some time until September, and then I'll have to think about documents and everything else, and in January I'll already be there ^^
One more thing related to my studies I still can't tell you (hopefully I'll know about everything in May, I just don't like to tell about things before they happen), but the one I can tell you is that this Wednesday I'm going to Sweden for a couple of days ^^ We decided to go somewhere together with a group of people from our biomimicry project, this time just 4 of us are going, others will do it later, as it's impossible to plan everything so that everyone could go. This month I also finally opened my velo-season, it's quite late, but spring was really cold this year ^^ And yes - I have the most amazing boyfriend. By the way, Katja, I would love to introduce you to each other sometimes. I guess, it will be interesting for you to talk with animal & nature-loving vegetarian who listens to metal, is crazy fan of Lord of the Rings (I also watched the first movie finally! :D ) and other fantasy books/movies, writes stories & poetry and is born almost at the same day as you (12.12.) :D
Ok, this post is already really long, so I'll end it now and prepare for Sweden slowly ^^ By the way, today I passed (hopefully) another exam in practical ecology, so I will have lectures only on Wednesdays until June. But, of course, I have to write my bachelor's work & also make a prezentation about wolves, really don't want to :D
Have fun and take care! ^___^ And listen to metal ^^

Innsbruck, Austria, 2008

Heey, my dear readers! ^^

I guess it's time finally to write another travel post, which will be about beautiful country called Austria. I was there during the same trip around Europe I told you before in March 2008. Unfortunately, we spent there just one day, so didn't see much of it.

Somewhere in Austria

First of all, you know that Austria has beautiful mountains? I never saw them before this trip, so the view out of the car window was simply awesome. I guess, I have more than 500 photos just with the views like this.

Sabaton, Eluveitie & Wisdom \m/

Heeey, my dear readers! ^^

Some time ago I told you that I finally got a ticket to one great metal concert in Riga. As it was two days ago, it's time to tell you about it. It was simply AWESOME! I still haven't got my normal voice, my back still hurts from standing near the stage for 5 hours, neck hurts from headbanging (for 4 hours!) and even my fingers hurt :D I'm not used to such crazy activities now, but it was totally worth it!

Wisdom

There were much more people than at Amorphis concert, me & my friends were there an hour before the concert (when they just started to let people in) and there were already people near the stage, I had to stay in 2nd row again. But I love this club for a possibility to be so close to bands on stage even if you're not in a front row ^^ It's not possible in those big concert halls.

First ones to sing were guys from Wisdom. And even though they were a support band, they were so great. Those 40 minutes passed like a few seconds.

Eluveitie

Then came Eluveitie, the band I wanted to hear the most that evening ^^ Unfortunately, Anna was ill, so the band didn't play songs that she's singing (like A Rose for Epona), but still the show was amazing. And, as I already said, I love being so close to the stage.

Sabaton

After Eluveitie I went to buy some water, so when Sabaton started to sing, I was already in a huge crowd. And people went totally crazy :D I thought that even at metal concerts Latvians are calm a bit (as we're in Northern Europe after all), but I was wrong. We were jumping, yelling, singing songs and so on, I even thought that I can't become so crazy as I was then :D

And I still wonder if guys from Eluveitie & Sabaton really went to drink some beer with their fans, as they promised :D I had to leave even before the show was over to get to the last bus (I hate public transport for this), otherwise I would stay to check :D

And here are some videos for you :) Sorry for the shaking image (especially in Sabaton video :D ), I couldn't stay calm even while shooting videos :D The atmosphere was too crazy!

Wisdom ^^ I love the moment when Gábor is asking `seriously? It's a heavy metal concert!` :D

Eluveitie ^^ Thank you so f**king much!

And finally Sabaton ^^
Have a nice day/evening! And listen to metal! \m/

Verona, Venice & Lake Garda, Italy, 2008

Heey! It's awesome sunny weather outside that looks like it's spring already, so my today's post will be full of many sunny spring photos. And the country this week is Italy! ^^

We went there after seeing Brno and Austria (next post will be about Austria), and first city we arrived to was Verona. You know that this little city is famous because of Romeo & Juliet :)

Statue of Dante Alighieri & streets of Verona.

People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy ^^

Hi! :)

I'm finally here with a new post (actually I have to write my bachelor's work (again), but it can wait, I guess). Just watched UEFA CL game between Barcelona and Milan, and my favourite Barca lost 2:0. Games in this season really aren't as nice as I thought, as my favourite teams almost always lose. But well, let's wait for the finals in May :)

First of all, I finally got a ticket to the concert I told you about some time ago ^^

It turned out that some of my friends are going, too (biologists love metal ^^), and I can't wait to see Eluveitie (and also Sabaton)!

And I also wanted to tell you about one awesome bar I discovered last week in Riga. My crazy blonde friend Linda was asked to play her violine at Valentine's day in Karjala bar. Of course, she asked me to go with her. I usually don't celebrate Valentine's day (and not because I'm forever alone :D, I just have my own opinion about this `celebration`), but this time I just had to go, as this is a Finnish bar. And I really got this Finnish feeling ^^ At the table next to us sat the owner of the bar, who talked with a former rock musician (in Finnish ^^), some Finnish guys came in for a short time, and a show on TV even had Finnish subtitles ^^ (how many times did I mention a word `Finnish` in this post? :D). I must definitely go to that bar once again sometimes :)

And some thoughts again (I always start to think about life if I'm writing posts after midnight). Have you ever heard that every person that comes to your life changes it somehow? I didn't believe in it, but now I have totally changed my mind. When I had a birthday party, I met a person (I met him before, but didn't knew much), whose thoughts really changed my view on life. I started to think about things that I want to change in myself (not only the appearance). And I really have some crazy motivation to do almost anything - for example, I wasn't ready for contact lenses for years, and now I've done it. There are two another big things I started to think about (can't tell you yet), hopefully in two weeks I'll know about everything :)
And a song for you ^^ This one is my favourite this week.

Have fun and take care! ^^

Photopost: Ice sculptures, Jelgava 2013

Jelgavas ledus skulptūru festivāls 2013 / Фестиваль ледяных скульптур в Елгаве 2013

Hi! :)

It's a tradition already to write here about ice sculptures every year in February (you can see photos from 2011 and 2012 in my blog). On Saturday I was in Jelgava to see them again. This year the weather was bad, as it was quite warm and cloudy. And almost all sculptures had little white roofs above them, so I don't like my photos this year. But well, sculptures are beautiful and you must see them ^^
This years theme of a festival was Planet Ice.

Girl on the Moon / The wise men possess the highest heights! (sculpture from SEB Life Insurance)

Authors: Sergej Tcelebrovskii & Andrei Molokov (Russia) / Author: Kārlis Īle (Latvia)

1st place in team sculpture category

Ice-flower

Author: Vadim Polin (Russia)

Sympathy award

Black and white / Flying above the waves

Author: Donatas Mockus (Lithuania) / Author: Alexey Verbitskiy (Russia)

1st place in individual sculpture category / 2nd place in individual sculpture category

Photo sculpture

Authors: Inese Valtere - Ūlande (Latvia) & Donatas Mockus (Lithuania)

Queen of Ice Kingdom / Last hope (hoping to find a cold, penguins visited Jelgava ^^)

Author: Sergei Tcelebrovskii (Russia) / Authors: Agnese Rudzīte - Kirillova & Maija Puncule (Latvia)

Solar rings

Author: Mathew Thomas Foster (Great Britain)

3rd place in individual sculpture category

Planet "X"

Authors: Mathew Chaloner & Mathew Thomas Foster (Great Britain)

This sculpture fell down about a minute after I took the second photo :( It was too warm this time.

The Gods of ice

Authors: Ruslan Korovkov (Bulgaria) & Irina Taflevskaya (Ukraine)

Frozen howl

Authors: Vytautas Musteikis & Kestutis Musteikis (Lithuania)

2nd place in team sculpture category

Touch the Sun

Authors: Kārlis Īle (Latvia) & Vilius Matutis (Lithuania)

3rd place in team sculpture category

Ice-flowers / ICEdora

Author: Kārlis Īle (Latvia) / Authors: Ivan Loktyukhin & Vadim Polin (Russia)

"Sportland" favourite

Day and night - time off!

Authors: Marina Erkovich & Elena Subbotina (Russia)

Photo sculpture

Author: Ainars Zingniks (Latvia)

They know that I love penguins ^___^

Koskenkorva ice bar

Authors: Inese Valtere - Ūlande, Kristaps Krolls, Aleksejs Geiko (Latvia) & Donatas Mockus (Lithuania)

Escaping monotony / The little Prince

Author: Mathew Chaloner (Great Britain) / Author: Inese Valtere - Ūlande (Latvia)

Mythical ice angel landing on the ice planet (a saviour of a new age)

Author: Darren Jackson (Great Britain)

Ice reflection / Escaping the captivity of permafrost

Author: Kestutis Musteikis (Lithuania) / Author: Dzhulustan Markov (Russia)

Where the snowflakes come from?

Author: Elena Subbotina (Russia)

Photo sculpture / I am not here

Author: Kārlis Īle (Latvia) / Author: Krists Zariņš (Latvia)

Torre

Authors: Eric Mutel (France) & Franziska Agrawal (Germany)

Below-ice fishing

Author: Maija Puncule (Latvia)

What do you think about this year's sculptures?

And have a nice day everyone! ^^