Bob has taught the Ethics in social work course in Riga for three groups and has taken it "on the road" to branch campuses of Attistiba in Smiltene and in Daugavpils and today he is in Rezekne. Smiltene is a small village of about one hour north east of Riga dating back to 1359. We stayed at a guest house on the grounds of a local technical school and ate in the cafeteria for lunch, scene above and at the guest house for breakfast and dinner. It is in a lovely location of a former manor/estate set on a hill above the village. Attistiba provides Bob with a driver and an interpreter so the logistics of the trip are very smooth. The photo above shows the guys when we stopped at a kafejnica . Daugavpils, as you can tell from the photo of the Russian Orthodox Church, is influenced by its proximity to Belarus. We stayed in a lovely hotel, one year old, with internet connections and a fine restaurant. The menu showed the Russian influence with beet soup and stuffed cabbage. Even the bottled water came from Georgia, a former soviet republic. Daugavpils is the second largest city in Latvia. We had hoped to visit a former fortress built to repel Napoleon's armies on their way to Moscow but the time and weather didn't cooperate. However it is visible on google earth and we could see the vast size and evidence of the earthen works. The drive along the Daugava River on the return to Riga was scenic with the sun setting over the river and the evidence of fall in the color in the leaves.
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