... and they are gone

Yesterday, my parents left town again.
In the evening, we checked in via skype...

They were pretty happy about this visit, and amazed at how Western this part of Eastern Europe had become, contrary to imagination. - Things I had been saying, one for the Iron Curtain which we still have in our heads, and the other regarding how the Baltic was strongly Soviet-controlled, but always oriented more towards Northern Europe rather than Russia.

Well, we visited quite a few places.

Not least, the visit to a kindergarten with my mother worked out. Indeed, it worked out very well, with Mrs. Lapina from Agenskalna gimnazija using a break in her teaching to serve as our guide and translator (and I did understand some of what was talked about and even conversed a bit in Latvian ;) . She's a real treasure!
It was very interesting: A rather different kind of organization and somewhat different intention. The case in point: Children going on to elementary school are expected to be able to read. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to understand their tasks, after all.
(In Austria, a child is expected to read freely in the 3rd. grade of elementary school, not necessarily before then. A child able to read when coming out of kindergarten is seen as probably being pushed too much by its parents.)

All right, we came around much more - with my dad to the Olympic Sports Center, I want to mention - but I won't go into detail. It was pretty touristy, in our very own ways, though. In other words, quite a break from how I'd recently been living here.

Yesterday, it was back to Austria for the parents, and back to teaching for me. And it's getting quite crazy: So many things coming up that there aren't all that many lectures left to the semester. But now, I need to get ready for going to school again...