Riga's 800th Anniversary Celebration
August 19,  2001

We were woken at 6:00am to a Latvian rock opera.  We thought  they were testing the speakers
but the music continued, although there was a fair amount of stopping and starting over.
As we were heading to breakfast at 8:00am they were playing a recent  song by the
Red Hot Chili Peppers.

                                                                                                                                                                  photo by Tracy Leigh
Austin  says "Happy 800th Anniversary" to Mom with flowers at breakfast.

On to the celebration...

Celebration map
The map shows the areas where different activities took place.  The green area is
where the dancing took place.  Orange was the food area.  Yellow was singing.
Purple was the costume area and this is where we started.

                                                                                                                                                  photo by Tracy Leigh
A series of  floats were used to display costumes through the ages.  This is
Bishop Albert founding Riga and preaching to the pagans in 1201 AD.


More pagan conversions in 1225 AD.


There were several city blocks of dancers, young and old.


Mom was pulled into the fun by a man with a tall black hat.


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