Weekend trip to Hansa-city Bremen


How it all began? So we, me and Roland, decided to use that moment when the days of cheap airfares and go to Bremen to enjoy last autumn days.

Arrival

Hostel we reserved (hostelbookers.com) already one month in advance and it was 10 min drive from the airport and the center of Bremen (Bremen Southend Hostel, southendhostel-bremen.de).

The flight went smoothly and already in Bremen, we decided that weather is too good to go with public transport and went on foot, enjoying the Bremen office and later residential areas. First, we wanted to go to Hostel, but because we did not have a city map, we went to the center of Bremen. First we saw a bridge over Weser river with small market under bridge. There was able to buy clothes, shoes, lamps, of unknown origin discs, toys and everything that in the home can be found. Next to the main square, on Saturday morning in full swing at the beautiful St. Petri church was another market.

There was able to taste fruits, cheeses and German favorite dishes. We both didn’t taste this time, because the row was too big, and if you do not know exactly German, then read descriptions and titles of food is not possible. As has been thoroughly tourists we ate nearby in the “Subway” sandwich and salad fast food restaurant. My very surprised, that a normal coffee shop, with ordinary dishes there is a rarity. There is generally sandwich, pizza and kebab street-shops on every corner.

St. Petri Church

Later we went look St. Petri Church, which is simply charming and famous Stadsmusicantien (City musicians), or better known as the Bremen city musicians. Touched the donkeys legs. It was a moment of time when should be made a wish. Didn’t miss also Roland’s Statue and the town hall. Walked trought the old city and went to the hostel, on foot.

Hostel (Hostel Southend Bremen)

The hostel was a small and nice and hospitable. In hostel Staffordshire terrier (Deby) were waiting for us. The only minus was the fact that the communal areas (a reasonable room and rest guest room) was over-smoked. But it wasn’t so on next days. But we closed eyes on that, because the fee was really small. We shared room with another girl from New Zealand, who had already toured from June to America and now is in Europe. And she knew of Latvia. We were gladden. Later went to the center.

On Wednesday evening there was intensive shopping, we went to some stores, but I was disappointed to see full shelves with no-size sweaters by the extremely high prices. And quickly went away from there. On one of the main small street I found the shop where on a normal money I bought two blouses. In Latvia for that money I couldn’t buy. Look at passages with shops and went to nearly located cafe-bar drink the famous Beck’s beer.

Undīne and beer

Beer was good, we stayed up to the closure. I should say that they are closing at 20:30 - 21:00. Back in hotel in room slept “as a kill”, the same can not be said for our roommate, Roland’s snore was very loud.

On next day we decided to sleep longer, because most of the shops are closed. Slow walk along the river. In river’s right side was the woman sitting on a bench and played African drums-”djambe”? Went to Central station, to take a look in ethnological museums. Paid each of EUR 6.50. The museum was a huge with three floors. Able to view the largest world’s cultures, stuffed animals and things that are associated with each culture. Houses, food, clothing, etc.. Already after the first floor legs were in pain. The third floor just couldn’t anymore walked trough. It was decorated as an ancient and the modern of development of a port-city of Bremen. Had the opportunity to step on the simulated ship’s deck and the master’s room. Funny, but tiresome. When we went out it was already dark.

TAV in Bremen. Undīne

We decided to eat in a cafe. Found the “tav” (tav-bremen.de), which had enough deliciously goulash soup and pasta with a sauce of Bologna.

TAV in Bremen. Rolands

Went to Botterstrase and home to sleep. We were so tired and went sleep already at 21:00.

Next morning wake up was early on the last day to view Schnoor and buy gifts for home. First, went to the central station for fried chestnuts, realize that I am wasted 2 euro, wasn’t tasty. Taste was something slightly from sweet potatoes and something else. Look “Mühle am Wall” (cafe-restaurant mills).

At St. Petri Church was again street market, where I bought Brie cheese. Then Böttcherstrasse tea shop with the odoriferous almonds, Advent and Christmas teas. And Schnoor. Miniature streets and small shops. Like a gnome house. This remind me Prague “Zlata ulicka“. In one of the stores bought the small earrings. Very nice. Evening spent settling bags and see and photos, impressions.

Good-bye from Bremen for us was very nice. Rain and wind. We came at the airport as a “wet rat”. Such was our Bremen. It is a pity that couldn’t view Rhododendrons park, but I liked. And also Roland enjoyed. Anyway, it was intended as a simple holiday trip.

Photos: flickr.com/photos/rolandinsh/tags/triptobremen/

*changed

Note from `rolandinsh`: I recomended already Hostel to my coworker.

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Twitter Halloween icons (emotions)


I was just twitter~ing and saw that it possible to ad emotions to twitter tweets. After short searching on google, here isresult. As it will be hard to remember, I’ll post them here for future tweets.

twitter halloween icons

I’ll keep them here for next year’s Halloween tweets

>o< }:o{
+-( 8-#
`O :-[
[:-]-I- X-/
∑:*) ( | )
<|:~( (|:|/)
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Halloween’s event in office (+photo)


So far only once (as far as I remember) I was attending to Halloween’s event. This year we were “celebrating” at work. Everything was as it should be - pumpkins, candles, spiders and “witch vomit”.

Till now I was escaping from such events, but this time was OK.

Most interesting for me was the “pumpkin bowling”. Of cause some people were wearing facial masks, but as I still don’t like them, I didn’t wear anything.

This was just in few words about what happened on my (first) in the office.

For pictures, look in flickr: flickr.com/photos/rolandinsh/tags/halloween/

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“White night” 2008 in Riga. Baltā nakts 2008


Yesterday with my girlfriend we went to “White night”* in Riga. As we haven’t been for long time visiting any cultural events. From wide program, we went to just few. Like IDM music (at “Spīķeri”), tram of fairy tales and Sigur Ros movie “Heima”. For me important was to visit places where I haven’t been, like RIXC and “Spīķeri“.

It was raining and cold, so we miss some events. Still, we started RIXC, where we could listen to Universe. :)

While idea is great, we couldn’t stay so long to listen, because it was like listening to old radio with no tuned station on it. But still. I like idea, because it shows multimedia can collaborate with science.

“Heima”

Next stop point was Sigur Rós movie “Heima” in Vērmanes garden. Actually I haven’t seen so much as I would like… because it was raining (again). We watched just some 10 minutes, then we left.

Tram “God”

Like next stop, if we can say so, was tram “Tram vertical route: God. Nature. Work” with special “White Night 2008″ connection. The idea came from last year (2007) to give the public transport, in this case the tram, an added value.

baltanakts.lv: “Special festive trams will be put on the route thus marking some fundamental topics of human existence, which this time are taken from the title of the well-known trilogy by the Latvian writer Anna Brigadere − God. Nature. Work.

It was last tram. So our was “God”! :)

baltanakts.lv : “The tram is turned into a spiritual sanctuary. Everybody has its inner faith and feeling that makes one believe in oneself and search one’s own spiritual paths. The space that inspires oneself to self-confidence, to love towards other people, that marks one’s individual uniqueness, advocates tolerance and intellectual strength. “

Circus Night in Arkādija

With tram came to Arkādijas park. As we came just 15 minutes before event is closing there, we miss “Circus Night in Arkādija” with puppet and circus show. Nothing left to do, just turn back to center. To Spīķeri.

VIDEOGRAPHY III: SPACE TEXTURES and “Pink house”

By visiting  “Pink house”, near Spīķeri, I wanted to see some special pig in it. (Story about pig will come later in some other post.)

IDM “dance floor”.

VIDEOGRAPHY III: SPACE TEXTURES - Concert with the participation of German, Japanese, Lithuanian and Latvia visual, video and audio artists. Most of all, whom I saw, I liked Dj Brain & Cliché

* =

Project “European white nights
is a public event free of charge that invites to discover (again) and capture the city environment (again) with the help of contemporary culture.
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First bloggers picnic in Riga (Andrejsala)


Last week in Riga (Andrejsala) was First picnic for bloggers of Latvia. At least for bloggers, who are living in Riga. Organizer of picnic was Artūrs, who is well known in Latvian “blogosphere” with different activities and promotion of events. In a good way!

Undīne. Blogeru pikniks

On picnic were different rank bloggers. Why rank? Well in Latvia and Latvian writing blogs and web-journals (klab.lv ala livejournal.com) there were discussions about ranking and how to rank. For example, when I came to this picnic one of the first questions was “Do You have domain?” And like this it was all evening. No wonder, that I with my girlfriend left for a while, because our friend has nameday (Rūta).

Continue reading ‘First bloggers picnic in Riga (Andrejsala)’

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Depending on free web services like twitter, feedburner and more…


Last week I couldn’t log in my ancient Yahoo! account. Actually I just needed to tag my newly uploaded photo on flickr.

Free service

Problem.

After several tries to log in, iI decided to drop some lines in flickr Help. I got very fast answer. After sending mail to flickr support, I got answer, but without help. I new

only that my account couldn’t be deleted as I can upload images. After some e-mails from flickr Team, there came calm period. So last Friday I send same e-mail to

Yahoo! as flickr is under it.

Solution

After 4 days (including non-business days) I’ve got me account back!

After all

After this, I started to update all my accounts to fill with more than 2 e-mail addresses from different providers.

Free services

As we know that there are many applications for twitter, flickr, feedburner which are based on these services. After little crash of Twitter, I decided to cut out all free

services from my all web pages. Free services I left as alternative. Therefor now You have possibility to read my RSS via feedburner or from here.
Some time ago flickr was free from Yahoo. Now when Yahoo owns services which I am using, I’m not so sure to not loose them, because of forgetting some password or

4 years ago written childhood hero :)

Yahoo! = upcoming.org + flickr.com + …

Scary for business!

[unfinished]

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Social activism! NGO and blogging in Latvia


FistTo be social active!
With all Internet development in Latvia, some days ago I trough about meaning of “social activism“. If it would be connected with Internet, we could say it means to post comments on blogs and about happenings around (for example, in news). It become more easier when You have Your own blog (in Latvia, for example, free blog service on nee.lv). In that case people can spread their attitude and/or opinion. It can be done alone or cooperating, for example, get involved in some non-governmental organization (NGO), like creative group MYSTYLe art or some other. In Internet it`s like separated community. There is fewer Internet accessibility, but activities are more cruel about information, because Internet let You save anonymity, but out-of-Internet, people have to identify yourself with your own words.I have very often answer on questions like “Why You are in this (MYSTYLe art) organization” or any other non-profit project. Answer is simple: I like what I’m doing. NGO’s are using blog(~s) as a tool and communication channel in the same time.I’m so happy, when I see that some organization is using blog as report of activity. Right now in my RSS reader are some feeds from other organizations blog posts. Currently it’s just official information, which appears as copy-paste of press releases or description of projects (summary or full). Hope, that in near future I’ll coax MYSTYLe art to write in blog style :P It’s in process for now (like out web). From other latvian NGO’s I liked JASMA activities in LiveJournal.com, where they have blog. Of course, it’s as well little bit formal, but at least looks more sprightly.
Another project with youth participation is “jaunieši vēro” (youth is watching), where they have blog on Blogger.com. For me it look like journal more, than blog (*?). Content, at least for me, is little bit boring, because it’s oriented to regional youth and local municipality, where youth are watching how they are working. But posts are more alive and emotional as others which I have saw.In posts youngsters are writing from what deputy were eating in lunch till evaluation of pappier work. Something similar had LJP with Saeima (Parliament of Latvia) where young people, most under 21, were judged speech of MP’s.

PS This is not direct translation of my post in latvian. This short version adapted for English blog.

This is republished from old blog.

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Hello reader! About rolandinsh.com “re:fresh:ing Notes”


Rolands Umbrovskis a.k.a. `rolandinsh`My name is Rolands Umbrovskis. I’m from* Latvia. This will be my blog in English. I’m periodically writing blog in Latvian since 2004, but most often since October 2007, when I left my job in Marketing company and started as freelancer. Since then I had a lot of time to write and read blogs. So restarted to do it myself. Now I want to try also in English.

Why I restarted to write? Just had more time and I wanted to have more experience in Internet marketing. So since November 2007 I made some experiments with my web pages. Currently I have little list of domains in different fields which are registered under my name.
So here they are: (in order I made them)

  1. e-art.lv - for my projects and creative experiments. Currently under “e-art.lv” creating some webprojects and support for Latvian youth organizations;
  2. www.rolandinsh.lv - my homepage and domain in Latvian;
  3. kurjers.lv - courier/messenger service list of Baltic states;
  4. guerrilla.lv and guerrillas.lv - currently unused. Saved for future;
  5. and now rolandinsh.com for English speaking people;
  6. Currently administrating mystyleart.lv and 2015.lv (both are for “creative group MYSTYLe art“);
  7. …and some others for some companies.

What I’ll be writing here about?

At first I want to say that I’m not the only one who is and will write about Happenings in Latvia. Some weeks ago I noticed, that one of Latvian most popular blog onkulis.com also started to write in English.
I’ll be writing about myself like Onkulis and some creative and cultural activities from Latvia and Baltic States. Beside that, another topic will be “marketing“, because I’m currently working as marketing manager and Internet content specialist in international company. I’ll repost my best articles (IMHO) from Latvian blog. And of course about work and daily life, like my volunteer works and projects (commercial and non-profit).
So it become, that here You will read about:

  • Latvia
  • Baltic States and Europe
  • Youth
  • Marketing
  • My work
  • My travels

I’ll not try to limit myself only to these topics, but these were most published in my Latvian blog.

About travels. Actualy this post was written during my business trip in Vilnius.

*thanks to Undine

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