Life on the Vine

For work Tom has traveled to Riga, Latvia a couple times.  The company that he has been doing security consulting work for since October is building the new U.S. Embassy there.  In April I took a long weekend and flew up to visit.  Tom had been in Riga for almost two weeks when I got there.  After the weekend we flew home together. The CIA World Factbook states that the name "Latvia" originates from the ancient Latgalians, one of four eastern Baltic tribes that formed the ethnic core of the Latvian people (8th-12th centuries AD).  The region subsequently came under the control of Germans, Poles, Swedes, and finally, Russians.  While a Latvian republic emerged following World War I, it was annexed by the USSR in 1940 - an action never recognized by the US and many other countries.  Latvia reestablished its independence in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Tom was staying at the Elefant Hotel, which is less than a mile away from the work site.  He pick

As promised I'm going to share some of my photos from our day trip to Venice from Vicenza over the long Memorial Day weekend. First, to set the stage, here is some information about Venice with help from my Rick Steves "Italy" book.  Venice is comprised of 100 islands connected together by 400 bridges.  The city was founded in a lagoon 1,500 years.  During the Middle Ages the city was an important go-between for East-West trade and became very important and wealthy.  The city's importance dwindled with the discovery of America and other routes to the Orient.  The wealth accumulated prior to this decline funded continued high living and partying into the 17th and 18th centuries.  When the bones of Saint Mark were smuggled into the city in AD 828, Venice gained religious importance and it's most important square is called Piazza San Marco. Today, tourism is the city's life blood. To get to Venice we took the train from Vicenza.  It was a pretty quick trip.