This will be a rather long entry due to how much happened on this day.
We awoke at about 9:30am, fully adjusted to our new time zone. After packing up our gear, we got a coffee at a wi-fi café, and then checked out a few of the shops in Old Town. We then went back to the Sports Bar to watch the All Blacks second test against France (does not seem to matter where we are in the world, we can always watch the Blacks) - a fairly dull victory. As with yesterday, when we were in the Old Town area, we kept running into people who we know, that is, the people who are also in Riga for the wedding.
After the rugby, we all piled into the bus that was organised to take us to Birini Castle (the venue for Patrick and Sanita‘s wedding), about an hour from Riga. The Castle and its surround were impressive, sitting on the bank of a lake. After we got there we checked into our hotel room, and went to the castle to enjoy some pre-wedding canapés with a traditional Latvian wine type drink that had flowers in it.
The ceremony itself had a very nice setting, being right out in front of the castle in a gazebo on the lake. The only unfortunate part from our point of view was that the entire ceremony, except the vows, was in Latvian. We could follow the general gist of what was going on though. There were a number of individual and group photos followed by some Latvian games that were a mixture of bizarre and fun. They included checkers played with cider cans as the playing pieces, a kissing race game, and a game where you had to try and hit the orange off your opponent’s spoon. The groom also had to throw a bell into a big tree, which was full of bells from previous marriages there.
After the games each couple had to walk down a coloured ribbon, which, depending on the colour gave an indication of what your life together was going to be life. We chose the gold ribbon, and it meant happiness. When the bride and groom arrived back from their photos, the groom had to stand on a plate wrapped in a towel, and the number of big pieces it broke into was the number of children they would have. After a few attempts, the plate would not break, however, the bridesmaid said that this meant that their children will be strong.
Next was a delicious dinner and some well spoken speeches. We were sitting with James Jordan (a friend from when I was younger), Matt Smith (a friend who I studied Computer Science with) and a friend of Patrick’s from Argentina, all of whom work with computers - so there was a fair bit of geek speak. There were some fun traditions at dinner that whenever anyone clinks their glass, the bride and groom had to kiss, and whenever anyone started stomping their feet, the bride and groom had to get under the table and kiss.
Throughout the evening, the bride got kidnapped by some of the guests and it was the groom’s task to go rescue her. Also, whenever anyone left any of their gear anywhere, it would get taken and put into lock-up (read tomorrow to find out what happens to it). Of course it wouldn’t be a Latvian party without drinking straight vodka, and there was plenty on the tables.
The band played a mixture of Latvian and popular English songs, and after a while, and plenty of drinks, the Latvians were dancing to the English songs and vice-versa. It seems that they have a lot of American music here in Latvia and the Latvian’s knew the words to some of the English songs, despite for the most part having very little comprehension of the English language. The dancing went on into the night, and them some Gypsies (who we later found out were not invited) turned up and taught us some traditional Latvian dances, and one weird game involving a carrot and a bottle. Apparently the gypsies were expecting to get paid, but as they weren’t invited, all they got was an opportunity to eat some of the leftover food. They also delayed the midnight part of the ceremony for about an hour, which involved the bride and groom sitting on their mothers’ laps for the last time.
The dancing continued into the wee small hours, and got a bit carried away at one stage when one of the Latvian boys and one of the Kiwi boys had a dance off to “You can leave your hat on” and both got down to their underwear. At the time we went to bed at 3:00am, it was still quite light! After that the remaining few people went down to have a dip in the lake, and the Latvians did not require any swimwear.
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