Who Would Have Ever Thought?

No Reflections on Current Trends in Theology or Culture today. For those of you who don't yet know, my closest friend, Gabrielle Farris (President Farris, or Gabi for short) will be spending the summer in Riga, Latvia working for the State Department. Wouldn't France or England have been better, why not Italy or Spain? Who can know the mind of the State Department? Though it seems they have made a pretty good decision, first in choosing Gabi for this internship and second for sending her to Latvia. She will be working at the embassy in the capital city of Riga, and she will get to employ the Russian that she has been learning. Since I didn't know much about Latvia, I thought I would learn about the place where Gabi will be living and working. Latvia was formerly part of the USSR, and its official language is (guess what) Latvian, though many people also speak Lithuanian and Russian. It lies between Estonia, Russia, and Lithuania and is on the coast of the Baltic Sea. From the pictures that follow, you will see that Latvia is an incredibly beautiful country.