Riga - It's Over

Final exam day.  I went to Aiga Čikste’s office and waited while she ran off copies of the test.  Made my final thanks.  Sent a “goodbye” email to Prof. Šavriņa.  Made a mental “goodbye” to the equipment office; no more lugging PowerPoint projectors in and out.

I spent the rest of the day wandering restlessly until the room was cleaned, then packing and then killing time in the hotel room until class.

I felt a little guilty sitting at the desk writing my diary while the students plodded through the exam, but I had no reading material.  Every once in a while I scanned the faces, imagining seeing desperation … once I saw a smile; that was encouraging … Did I use simple enough English?  After about ½ hour, Ineta and Jānis (Širs) turned in their papers.  Oy!  Was the exam too easy?  Maybe for them; the rest are still pondering.  Was the exam too short?  Aleksandr is having language problems—but is he asking for translation help only in hopes of my giving him a hint?  Pekka and Joanna are sharing an eraser, tossing it back and forth between them across the aisle…Svetlana looks lost…Ineta looks smug.  Every word I used to write the questions is suspect—did I pick the right words, words that accurately convey the question?  Ineta comes up to the desk; she wants to contact me, to move to the US; I give her my card.  Marija looks lost, so does Mārcis.  Agris turns in his paper and leaves at 6:55.  Joanna turns in her paper at 6:56.  She brought cupcakes; she stays.  Aleksandr has another “language” question—caught on the word “judiciary,” forgot what it sounds like.  I tell him to write whatever word he thinks it is as best he can; spelling won’t count.

Within an hour, all had handed in their exams.  Those who stayed were happy to pose for a class photo.  Before they all got up to go, I made a short speech about how impressed I was that they could manage to take a highly technical course in a foreign language.  I haven't begun to grade the papers.  I can send the grades in via email.

And that was that.  Back to the hotel to complete my packing and prepare for an early rising.

Final thoughts: enjoying a daily routine that's a mix of familiar and different...learning how to teach, learning how to adjust the course material as necessary, to be attuned to what interests the class, to note when you've reached the edge of their attention span and move on to another topic...to learn how to draw out class discussion...I learned as much as they did, perhaps a bit more.

Riga - Winding Down

The weekend was livened by Slava's birthday party on Saturday night and an unexpected jaunt to the suburbs for lunch with him and his wife on Sunday.  On my own, I visited the National Art Museum on Saturday morning and attended a concert in the cathedral on Sunday night.  The art museum consists of two floors in a palatial building.  The collection is almost entirely of paintings, there are a only few pieces of sculpture and a couple of cabinets with pull-out drawers displaying graphic work.  Latvian artists followed the major trends in 19^th and 20^th-century European art: Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Art Nouveau, Abstract Expressionism.  

Enjoyed chatting with Slava's friends at his party, held in a small restaurant near the cathedral.  Lots of toasts, downed with vodka.  It was not easy getting myself assembled Sunday morning!

 

Now it's Monday morning.  Time to pack because of early leave-taking tomorrow.  Time to send goodbye emails to Prof. Šavriņa and Aiga.  Goodbye to Rimi, the supermarket across the street; goodbye to “Pelmeni,” the fast-food restaurant where I frequently got my after-class dinner.  Last time with the students tonight-- the exam.  Hope I haven't made it too hard; hope I haven't made it too easy.

Riga - A Sense of Accomplishment

So…tonight’s the last class.  The exam is Monday evening and I don’t count that as a class.  I prepared 50 short-answer questions, mostly true/false, others “check the box” or write one or two words.  I would think that three hours would be enough to answer 50 short-answer questions, even in a foreign language.  That’s over three minutes per question.  I bought a box of candy and two screw-top bottles of wine for the occasion (my Swiss Army knife isn’t the one with the corkscrew, dammit).  Couldn’t find plastic or paper cups; hope they can snitch them from the cafeteria.

I spent most of the day working on extra presentations: defamation, fraud and nuisance and a last-minute show on intentional infliction of emotional distress.  Went out for about two hours, got back to the hotel just as it was beginning to rain and it rained steadily until class time.  The forecast is for light snow later tonight and into tomorrow but doesn’t seem they’re expecting much accumulation.  So what to do for the weekend?  There’s Slava’s 60^th birthday on Saturday evening and I’ll probably be able to get to the national art museum during the day.  I also hope to attend a concert at the cathedral on Sunday evening.  Otherwise, not much else.  I’ve read the two paperbacks I brought with me, and The Economist.  And one can spend only so much time staring at a monitor screen.  I’ve missed regular exercise, although perhaps I can comfort myself with all the walking I’ve been doing.

Class tonight culminated in triumph.  I ended it ½ hour early for the “party” and brought out my pitiful (in my view) offering.  Which was not pitiful at all in the students’ opinion; the chocolates (box picked totally at random) elicited admiration.  Over the too-sweet wine (they did swipe cups from the café) and chocolates, they told me my class gave them exactly what they were looking for: practical aspects, not legal theory.  They eagerly grabbed up the souvenir pens.  We had some great discussions about such weighty topics as traffic tickets and McDonald’s (a lively debate among the students when one of them announced that McDonald’s should be outlawed for selling unhealthy food).  The sound of an intense classroom argument was music to my ears.

Now I can kick back and enjoy the weekend—no presentations to prepare; the exam has been sent out to Aiga for copying.  This adventure has turned out exactly as I’d hoped.  What a great feeling to have imparted something useful to a receptive audience.

Riga - A Routine Day

I passed on the hotel breakfast and spent the first part of the morning researching cases for additional presentations, then stepped out into dry, clear (well, cloudy but no mist) day.  Enjoyed a cup of coffee and a pastry at a local kondittorei much more than lining up at the breakfast buffet in the hotel.  Walked more, shopping more than anything else, for last-minute gifts.  Passed a building sporting the Latvian and Icelandic flags, sign saying something about a “partnership.”  The halt leading the blind in economic terms, I thought.

And then back to the hotel for more fun with PowerPoint.  Class went well, but I barely made it with the material I’d prepared.  Worse, without time to edit and review, I saw gaping gaps in the outlines, areas where I should have made slides, and typos.  Still, the cases I selected provoked lots of student comment, and that was the goal.  Tomorrow is the last class before the exam and I'd promised to bring some celebratory libations.  They're already moaning and groaning about the exam.  I think they can handle 50 short-answer (mostly true/false) questions in 3 hours.

Riga - Adventure

Today was an adventure, a challenge and an endurance test.  I had determined earlier in the week to go to Sigulda today, as it seemed to be the only opportunity, weather-wise.  The forecast was for a cloudy, but dry day and for snow the rest of the week.  The adventure was in heading out of the city on my own, trusting to railroad and map.  The challenge was to accomplish this with time to spare before class.  The endurance test was what happened when the weather didn’t behave as predicted.

I headed to the station, not far from the hotel, far earlier than necessary but figuring it wouldn’t hurt to have all the time in the world to find the ticket counter and the platform and get a bottle of water.  Those chores done, I sat stony-faced and staring blankly ahead like everyone else in the terminal until it was close enough to departure to face the cold on the platform.  The train was a commuter-type train, narrow, two seats on either side of the aisle, not one of the European compartment trains.  No sooner had I taken my seat than a man walked into the car, plopped a shopping back reeking of cigarette smoke on the seat next to me, and began a spiel in Russian for some flashlights he was selling.  He moved on seamlessly to shill woolen gloves.  He was followed by another peddler, who offered superglue, some hardware and a magnifying glass.  I don’t know if either of them made any sales.

As we headed north on the Riga-Cēsis line, snow began to swirl down and across the window.  The view was virtually entirely pine and birch forest, 60’ trees on spindly trunks, the pines tufted with green.  The sky was dull off-white and snow began to coat the ground thinly.  At Krievupe, I took a photo.  At Silciems, the train doors got stuck closed, people vainly banging to get in (and out).  A lady sitting next to me, who had got on the train a few stops before, exclaimed “Nightmare!” in Russian and we traded barbs about the efforts of the crew to fix the problem.  After maybe 10 minutes, someone finally figured out what to do.

I had not expected to hear Russian outside Riga, but the Russian population pervades the area.  Even in Sigulda, on the station platform—although not in the café I stopped in for a quick cup of soup.  More on that later.  Sigulda is only 30 miles or so from Riga but from the vast swathes of forest separating them, it might well be in another province.  There’s little urban or suburban sprawl here; each village or town is isolated amid the forest.  Or at least, that’s the way it appeared from the railroad.  It might be different if one takes the highway.  Occasionally I glimpsed cultivated fields.  On parallel tracks, we frequently passed Russian freight cars.  The tanker cars, labeled “oil” or “gas,” were invariably stained black, betraying faulty filling safeguards.  Great concern for the environment, I thought sarcastically.

Sigulda is a popular tourist spot in Latvia but I doubt anyone from elsewhere needs to make a special trip to Latvia to see it.  It is located at the edge of the Gauja National Forest, and is the site of a variety of outdoor activities more suited to summer.  The caves were recommended to me, but I limited myself to checking out the castle.   At one end of town, there is a remnant of an old castle with a newer castle just across the (dry) moat in front.  After some aimless ambling in a picture-postcard snowfall, I realized that the map I’d got from my hotel reception wasn’t going to be useful.  I stopped at a local hotel and got directions.  The train schedule left me no more than an hour and a half to see Sigulda on foot, so my options were few.  The castle was one kilometer away, said the young lady at the hotel.  I did a quick calculation: I had arrived in Sigulda shortly after noon and the next train to Riga was at 1:49.  The train after that was two hours later and would not get me back in time to change for class.  Thus, heading out of the hotel, map in hand, I figured that wherever I was at 1:00, I’d better turn back.  I marched on, practically the only person on the street, past low, comfortable-looking houses, a modern-ish apartment complex and parkland, getting somewhat anxious.  Every clump of birches and pines, with their high crowns, seemed to hide a church steeple or a castle tower behind them.  Snow sugared the sidewalk, creaked softly under my hiking boots.

I passed a white-steepled church that would not have looked out of place in Vermont.  Rounding the back of the church, I saw a gate in a wall about 500 feet ahead.  It had that  “castle” look and indeed, it was the entrance.  The sole visitor, I walked down the tree-flanked avenue from the gate, imagining I was the mistress of the place.  There didn’t seem to be any museum, so after a circuit of the front lawn, and a gaze behind the new building to the ruins of the 13^th-century structure, I retraced my footsteps—literally stepping in the prints left in the snow, just for the fun of it.

I made it back to the town center with time to spare for a meal, which I hadn’t bothered with all day.  The cafeteria, in a small brownstone building, clearly catered to locals; a clutch of schoolkids wandered in just after I sat down with my bowl of solyanka.  It’s a meat borscht, with the traditional dollop of sour cream, and it satisfied more than a gourmet meal could have.

Back in class, feeling as if I'd covered everything and had nothing more to add, I had an inspiration.  Near the end of the period, I put my cards on the table, telling the students we were going to have extra time tomorrow and Friday because most of the stuff I had planned to cover would be of interest only to lawyers, and was there anything they might like me to prepare special?  They brightened up at the idea: they want to hear about cases, interesting ones—like kids asking for stories, it seemed.  One student missed my jury presentation and asked for a repeat.  Another asked for information on immigration (hmm, there’s a sub-text there…).  So I have something to work with.

Riga - A Meeting and a Party

I met with Aiga Čikste on Tuesday morning.  It was more of a “how-nice-to-finally-meet” encounter than a meeting for information.  There wasn’t really much information to impart anyway.  I cleared up some details about the exam on Monday, about turning in grades and marking papers, and that was about it.  Aiga is a graduate student; she accompanied Prof. Šavriņa to the conference last week (which was in Germany, as I found out from Aiga).  Prof. Šavriņa returned by plane; Aiga and other students spent two days on a bus.  Rank has its privileges.

Tuesday was chill but dry.  I headed toward the national art museum (as opposed to the museum of “foreign” art, which I visited last week) but found out it was closed on Tuesday.  Since the sun was out, I strolled around the city once more.  Bypassed the history museum, as it seemed to focus solely on armor and weapons.  I was amused to note that the plan of the exhibits divides them into the following periods: 8^th-16^th centuries, then comes the 20^th (what happened over the intervening 500 years?), which itself is divided into parts: the Russian revolution; the brief Latvian independence period of 1920-40; World War II and the “Soviet occupation” -- a none-too-subtle message -- ending with the post-1991 period.  Continuing my stroll, I revisited the open-air markets, which seem to be in every town square in the Old City, reviewing once more the same selections of amber, woolen hats, mittens, scarves and whatever, wooden trays, spoons and whatever, hot wine and cider, snacks and coffee.  Father Christmas hung out in one square; American and Latvian Christmas pop tunes were background music.

Class tonight was on the jury system and we went through exercises of voir dire and jury selection.  They got the idea behind jury selection, which I thought was impressive considering that juries are not part of their legal system.  

I ended class 1/2 hour early, as promised, so that we could all troop to Pekka's apartment for Finnish Independence Day.  He lives about a mile from the university building, in an apartment that strongly reminds me of a SoHo or Greenwich Village pad.  Narrow, dank halls, narrow, curving staircase, peeling paint, crumbling plaster, ends of wire and cable protruding from the walls.  Inside, however, all was reasonably neat.  I would up chatting mainly with another Pekka, the boyfriend of one of the women in my class.  They had just left a reception at the Finnish Embassy, where Pekka is an attaché.  I think perhaps we two were the oldest there.   And perhaps the only two with full-time employment.  About a dozen students had gathered, not all Finnish.  Pekka, our host, read a brief history of Finland, taken direct from Wikipedia and freely corrected by the crowd.   Finnish delicacies included Karelian pasties, which are dense pancakes made of rice with a rye coating, and thick slices of warmed cheese.  Both quite good.  The multi-national atmosphere reminded me of the parties at Columbia's School of International Affairs so many years ago.  I might well have enjoyed the Foreign Service.  Or not.  No way of knowing.

Riga - Meeting Prof. Šavriņa

I had a 10:00 a.m. meeting with Prof. Baiba Šavriņa, liaison between CILS and the Faculty of Economics and Management.  Both she and her assistant, Aiga Čikste, who did most of the work setting up my schedule, were away last week on a business trip.  For our first face-to-face meeting, I anticipated a scrutiny of my course, a review of the syllabus, of the draft exam, with suggestions for improvements -- anything but a collegial chat, which is exactly what we had for an hour and a half in her cluttered, homey office.

Prof. Šavriņa is fifty, plus or minus, with dyed reddish-blonde, shoulder-length wavy hair and an open, pleasant face.  Over coffee prepared in her personal French press, we compared notes on our respective countries’ problems and methods of teaching.  She had just returned from a week-long conference and is taking off on Wednesday for another in Paris.  She won’t return until after I leave.

The professor is enthusiastic about the CILS program; I think that it perhaps enhances the university's reputation that it attracts U.S. lawyers to give seminars.  From her, I learned that Latvian students are too demanding of their rights and insufficiently dedicated to their responsibilities, that schools don’t devote enough resources to gifted kids (like her son) and that the Latvian birth rate has declined so precipitously that by 2015 there won’t be any university-aged students.  Her son is 24 years old and “good with computers”; she laments his refusal to pursue a doctorate – from what she described, he just doesn’t want to follow in mommy’s footsteps.  And he’s probably enjoying life at home—no bills, his laundry gets done.  We spoke of dogs and horses; she has a Newfoundland-Labrador mix.  Latvia is making use of equine therapy for handicapped children; some wealthy people are raising horses for use in movies.

Prof. Šavriņa sees Latvia’s situation very differently from Slava.  For her, Russia is no friend to Latvia; Russia resents Latvia and has always envied its Western links; Russia is trying to draw the Baltics back into Russia’s orbit.  Further, Russia is unreliable to do business with; Moscow can shut down entry of exports and a Latvian exporter would have no recourse to collect damages.  She related with fresh indignation an incident in which the Latvian ambassador got splattered with red liquid during a press conference in Russia.  (This happened in 2008.)  What does she think of the future of the euro?  Prof. Šavriņa says things are too much in flux to predict.  Latvia is supposed to join the euro zone in 2014; it remains to be seen what will happen.  She is asked to discuss this issue frequently on TV and in the press.  Too bad we won’t meet again; there were loads of questions I would have liked to ask.

I left the building and headed back to the hotel in a steady, chill rain.  I had hoped to walk around some more but….  Treated myself to an overpriced lunch at the hotel, but it did “hit the spot.”  Spent the rest of the before-class time in room, handling work via email, drafting more of final exam and reading.

Class went OK today; it was motions and trials, which are not exactly the most fascinating things for non-lawyers.  A few of the students like to spin wild scenarios, like ones to justify why a witness’s marital history should be relevant in a personal injury case.  I let them bounce the ideas around; it keeps the class from getting passive.

Riga - An Old Friend and a Palace

Lucky I check my email.  This morning after breakfast I asked the girl at the desk for train information.  She printed out the schedule for Sigulda and I was set for a solo adventure to this outlying town, which has a medieval castle and some other attractions.  Back in the room, passing time because it was too early to leave, I found an email from Slava saying he’ll be over at 12:00.  Forgot if he’d said anything about that on Thursday—“oops” if he had and I hadn’t checked my email this morning.

I was feeling rather woozy from the time difference—didn’t seem to notice it before now.  I was a little wobbly on my feet going down the stairs to breakfast.  Took a nap afterwards, still felt unglued.  Hoped it was nothing worse than jet lag.  Well, it might be worse than jet lag but so far, zinc tablets seemed to have stabilized the situation.  Wonderful, wonderful zinc!

Slava came alone.  The rest of the family was occupied getting Dima and his family settled in their new apartment.  We drove to Rundale Palace, about an hour outside Riga.  It is a true Grand Palace, built for the 18^th-century Duke of Courland as a summer vacation getaway.  “It’s good ta be king!” says Mel Brooks.  Or duke.  But when you’ve seen one ornate 18^th-century palace, you’ve generally seen them all.  Part of the palace had been restored over the last 20 years, and it is an admirable job.  Room after room of parquet (we had to put shower caps on our shoes), murky portraits, damask-covered walls, over-carved chairs, putti, ceilings bedecked with zaftig women—oog.  Not a place to take your shoes off and have a beer with your buddies.  Aristos—who needs ‘em, I kept thinking in room after room after room.  Throne room, ball room, small rooms off the ball room with Chinese porcelain on shelves that look like rococo wall decorations (reminded me of the room at Neuschwanstein in Bavaria).  The duke’s and duchess’s separate apartments (bedrooms, dressing rooms and studies); clothing in display cabinets, some of it reproduced, some genuine.  One of the rooms displayed genealogies on the walls along with the portraits.  The current Duke of Courland has a name too long to be of any use* and according to a quick Internet search, is 403^rd in line for the British monarchy.  I wondered what he does to pass the time.

Slava and I had a good day together, walking and talking about life and such (as well as I could given my stumbling Russian), just two old friends shooting the breeze as if there were no years or distance between us.  He’s not happy with the state of world for the following reasons: Latvia thinks too much of itself, Latvians are too nationalistic and won’t speak Russian; too many young people emigrate to Poland, England, US, wherever; farming is neglected… Hmmm, I wondered about that last observation as we passed acres of smooth green fields, obviously cultivated.  Slava explained that these are only because they’re near Riga and that farms farther away were abandoned.  He complained that no one wants to buy Latvian produce; they want less expensive Western European produce (um, that's the free market and besides, don't we all want cheap food, I thought).

Slava is happy with Putin and Medvedev and the current Latvian president.  He doesn’t like the multiplicity of political parties in Latvia; he likes our two-party system (which seems to be about all he likes about the U.S. at the moment).  He resents the fact that Latvians are bitter about Stalin’s deportations; he pointed out that Stalin murdered Russians as well.  Yes, I remarked, but when it's a foreign leader who's murdering your people it's harder to take.  His reply: Latvians were prominent in the NKVD and elsewhere in the Soviet hierarchy; they participated in their share of atrocities.  Can't deny he has a point.  In general, Slava complained, the Latvians are too wrapped up in the past.  Latvia used to be the leader in Soviet-bloc manufacturing, he lamented; Latvia produced high-quality rolling stock and radio equipment; now all the factories are abandoned (well, yes, I thought, that was in the Soviet days when they weren’t competing with the West).

A thick blanket of clouds covered the sky as we drove past wide, empty vistas punctuated by old farmhouses, shallow rivers and birch copses.  Once, the sun slanted through, sending down shafts like those in a Tiepolo painting.  We didn’t stop anywhere to eat.  By the time Slava dropped me off at Valnu iela, the street that marks the eastern edge of the Old City, I almost fell into the first eatery that looked as if I could get away with wearing jeans.  It was a tourist trap but it did what it had to—served food and beer.  But even before that, I walked into the bookstore I usually pass on my way to class.  I was drawn by “Books” in English on the storefront (also in German and Russian) and they did have a table and a shelf of English-language books.  I just basked in the pleasure of the smell of a bookstore.

Back in snug hotel room-- oh yes, respiratory system is flashing alert status…glad I stuffed those Tylenol capsules in the medicine bag at the last minute.  Briefly debated whether to put clothes back on and run down to supermarket for juice and extra water, but only briefly.  Alert status means immediate action.  Thank Heaven for capitalism—a supermarket with all modern conveniences, including a big box of OJ, right across the street!  Now to battle the cold with fresh ammunition.

___________________

*If you insist: Prince Ernst-Johann Karl Oskar Eitel-Friedrich Peter Burchard Biron of Courland

Riga - On Being Free from the Schedule

The drumming of rain on the rooftop this morning was actually cheering.  It meant I had no objective reason to drag myself out of bed.  I had even turned off the alarm on my cell phone last night to mark today as an “off” day.  When I opened my eyes, it was almost 10:30, well past time for the hotel breakfast.  After a coffee from the bar, I went out briefly on errands, then returned to work up a mini-presentation on jurisdiction.

By the time I checked the local clock, it was 3:30 and I had marked down services for 4:15.  At any rate, I got to the synagogue and was told the services had started.  All I saw was a small group of men sitting around a table, probably studying.  The shammos led me past them to a screened-off area for the women.  It wasn’t a place for praying at all, just a line of tables and benches.  One table was set for Kiddush with plastic wine cups and paper plates holding some unidentifiable ingredients, probably fish and carrot sticks.  A stony-faced woman wearing a standard-issue Orthodox hat (resembles an upside-down saucepan) rejected my offer of help.  I meant help as in setting the table, but maybe she thought I was being patronizing.  We sat at opposite ends of one of the long tables, she thumbing through a humash; I wondering what was supposed to happen and whether I’d made a mistake in coming.  Was I an intruder, a gawking foreigner and a non-Orthodox woman foreigner at that?

Then the evening service began behind the partition.  I could hear the voices of men and boys (or at least one) chanting and the familiar Hebrew words now and then.  Their pronunciation was very broad Ashkenazic, hard for someone who’s used to modern Hebrew, and the melodies were sung in so many different keys I couldn’t even tell what the tune was.  Even if I could, it wouldn’t have been familiar.  But just knowing what was going on wore off the awkwardness and the feeling of estrangement.  I was no longer an anomaly; this was my place.

At the end of the service, the men gathered around the tables for the Kiddush.  Both the cantor and the rabbi, unmistakably Chabadniks by their dress, greeted me with Shabbat Shalom (or maybe gut shabbos and I was the one who replied Shabbat Shalom.  Whatever).  A small plastic wine thimble was placed on the table for me and filled.  No conversation—this was still the service.  We all held our glasses while the blessing was pronounced and we all drank up in one gulp.  The cantor’s cup—the actual Kiddush cup—was filled to overflowing and wine dripped off his fingertips as he held the cup and recited the blessing.  A symbol of plenty, the overflowing of life, joy, everything the Sabbath is supposed to represent.  I hadn’t seen that gesture since college, I think, and I was pleased to recognize it.

After the Kiddush, people seemed to be leaving the room and I didn’t notice anyone calling for the motzi, the blessing over the bread, which starts a meal.  I wondered who the platters were for but was not tempted to find out, lest I be invited to actually eat what was on them.  I followed one man up the stairs as he made his way out, figuring it was as appropriate an exit moment as any.  No questions were asked of me, no special notice was taken of me.  I was there; I was celebrating Shabbat with the community; that was all that was important.  Who I was or where I came from made no difference.

On the way back, I stopped into the De Gusto café next to the hotel for dinner.  I was the only patron; it was about 5:00 and I suppose Rigans observe European dinner hours, i.e., late.  A salmon on champagne risotto and a glass of Riesling came to 8.4 lats (about $17.00).  I got coffee at the local newsstand in the covered shopping mall for a lot less than it would have cost in the restaurant.  But I was content to have had a “grown-up” dinner as a change from the nightly take-out.

Riga - On Connecting with the Class at Last

Tonight’s class was all that I had hoped for.  The students began to participate and we had some lively discussions about legal cases on both sides of the Atlantic.  Distributing the class-project materials tonight helped, but I had hoped they would already have read the hypothetical cases I had made up and given out a couple of days earlier.  I recall that we were told the students would not likely do homework assignments because they were already so busy with their other work.  Rather than wait for them to do the exercises on their own – which might be a vain hope in any case - I made them read the cases during the break and then led them in discussing the exercises in class as a group activity.  I had created two cases, one a slip-and-fall in a Riga hotel and other, a products liability case involving a medication manufactured in Latvia and sold in the U.S.  I used these cases in exploring discovery and evidence issues this session.  I’ll use them in upcoming sessions for picking a jury and for getting across the ideas of jurisdiction and minimum contacts.

They found strict liability hard to grapple with.  Lord knows, so do many U.S. attorneys.  If the manufacturer provides instructions and warnings, its duty is considered done in Latvia and no suit would succeed.  As for my hypothetical slip-and-fall, they figure it’s the injured person’s problem and he’ll just have to deal with it.  Seems they still have a vestige of personal responsibility that we’ve somewhat pushed aside.

One of the Finnish students announced at the end that he’s having a party for Finnish Independence Day on Tuesday and would I agree to let class out at 8:00?  He’s inviting everyone (me included), which I assume is the bribe to get class dismissed early.  I told him he’d have to get the entire class to agree, which he didn’t think would be a problem.  He’s a bluff fellow, sounds and looks more Russian than Finnish but has a characteristically Finnish name.  I would feel better running this by my “minders” (who are away this week anyway, which makes me wonder how much they’re minding).  I don’t know what the protocol is at all.  At times it seems very much like a U.S. university but at other times it seems less organized and at still others, more formal.

Grabbed Russian take-out tonight, the same as last night.  There’s a chain here called “Pelmeni,” which specializes in the small Russian dumplings of that name.  One of my favorite Russian dishes, especially with sour cream.  And the scallions to top off with were real scallions, not some freeze-dried analogue.  Washed down with Cēsu beer bought from the supermarket earlier this afternoon – so far, the best beer I’ve had but on the sweet side.

Riga - Going with the Flow

When Slava called to cancel our day out this morning, I was relieved.  It’s still difficult managing mornings - it never is easy, no matter what the time zone - and I also had thought of some additional material for class last night while I was lying in bed hoping to get to sleep on Latvian time as opposed to U.S. time.  Strict liability is a concept I last parsed in law school and I could tell it was confusing some of the students (probably the rest are too far gone in confusion even to look confused).

Since I was already dressed to go out and the day was clear, I took advantage of the opportunity to go to the top of St. Peter’s tower.  The cathedral was badly damaged in 1941 and that’s about all of its history I absorbed.  Built of brick and in Gothic style, it stands on the site of an older church of which the tower was entirely wood.  The replacement tower is of the same design as the wooden tower and there’s a small elevator to take tourists up near the top.  The view is panoramic but not really picturesque.  A lot of roofs, basically, which is what you can expect to see when looking down at a very old town where streets are narrow and houses jostle each other for space.

Returning via a random path to the hotel, I found an establishment billing itself as an “Amber Museum” in a charmingly secluded area, almost like a private street.  The “museum” was just an excuse for an elegant gift shop offering high-end sculptures and display pieces incorporating amber as well as the usual selection of jewelry.  I paid 1 lat ($2.00) to see a room partially paneled in amber, like the room in Pushkino, Russia, and displaying amber samples with trapped insects.  Some of those, too, were for sale.  The proprietress switched on the video screen for a history of amber, she said, but first I had to wait through a celebration of Latvian heritage.  Nice, but not related to amber.  But it served to remind me that nationalism is still alive, which I think we sometimes forget in the U.S.

And so back to the hotel, for lunch and class prep.  Perhaps a nap.

Riga - Gaining Stride

A markedly better session tonight, perhaps because I was dealing with subject matter, not personal trivia.  Two "new" students showed up (ones who hadn't been there last night), there was good class participation and the time didn’t drag with nothing to say.  Even still, I had to stretch the session a bit and the presentation itself was over after 2½ hours of the 3-hour class.  During their break, while the students scrambled to the cafeteria before it closed, I figured out that I could stretch empty time by asking the students questions about their experience with legal matters.  That filled the last ½ hour nicely.  

From them I learned that warning labels on cigarette packs, liquor bottles and other items are not unique to America.  I learned that their acquaintance with U.S. law is by way of “Social Network” and “12 Angry Men.”  I described various cases I'd handle; they described pension scams (collecting grandma’s pension after her death and so forth).  I described the separate U.S. state systems and the federal system.  We even got into conversation about a few constitutional issues during the slides on the U.S. Constitution.  The 2^nd Amendment was a principal source of interest and astonishment.  While droning on about the U.S. government system, the three branches of government and the organization of courts (trial, appellate and supreme), I kept alluding to instances where their future (or current) employers might be affected by a lawsuit: whether they'd be sued in federal or state court, whether the case would be settled or tried, how long it might take-- anything that might maintain their interest.

As I walked back from the university at 9:45 p.m., I thought longingly of Chinese take-out. But then, taking a shortcut off the main drag, I saw a Turkish kebab joint.  That'll do-- and hallelujah, they have takeout!

The earlier part of the day was mostly a repeat of yesterday-- walking around Riga.  This time I ventured east, into the "modern" part of the city, to explore some shops and sites I had noted down from Internet research.   It was a bracing morning, perfect for a ride.  But I had no horse, not even a bicycle.  My first destination was supposed to be a gallery in the "Art Deco" neighborhood of Riga, famous for houses built in that style.  The gallery was nothing special and the Art Deco buildings were more rococo than Deco.  Too much facade sculpture and not all of it in the really angular style of that period.

Continuing to wander back toward the Old City, I got a bit lost but found the Art Museum.  Housed in the former stock exchange, another 19th-century grand building, the museum exhibits mainly paintings and porcelain.  The ground floor featured an exhibit of contemporary Latvian artists working with glass, who'd entered the Venice Biennale.  Apparently, Latvian artists have a traditional affinity for Venice; can't say I blame them.  Most of the works were conceptual, clever when good, gimmicky otherwise.  Paintings in the upper-floor gallery were 17th century onwards, none noteworthy, and very few beyond the 19th century.  Maybe there's a modern art museum somewhere.  The porcelain is pretty extensive, Chinese export ware mostly.  There's a tiny room with an Egyptian mummy and related small artifacts.

And so the routine emerges.  For an extended stay anywhere, an efficiency apartment beats a hotel anytime.  More privacy, more flexibility about meals.  However, I have solved the basic problems.  I will explore one-day excursions tomorrow or Thursday.

Riga - On Filling Free Time

For my first day in Riga, the university dispatched a staff member to give me a walking tour at noon.  Having a couple of hours beforehand, I did my own exploring.  Having been to Riga before, I was free of obligation to take in the usual tourist sights and excursions.  I could just enjoy the charm of walking at leisure in a well-preserved, life-sized antique.  Riga was a member city of the Hanseatic League.  There are a few 13th-century remnants remaining and a lot of buildings from other centuries besides.  It's the perfect setting for a sword-and-sorcery adventure. The synagogue is in a back alley close to the hotel.  In fact, everything is close to the hotel in the old part, even a small, enclosed shopping mall (which is modern).  It would be at home in New Jersey with its Christmas lighting and its little boutiques.  I noted the supermarket there with triumph—I'll beat the high cost of living here (and the highly inflated exchange rate) by stocking up on incidental food for room fridge.  The weather was windy and cold but at least not raining.  Occasionally, spits of rain—hail, even—come down, but it stops after a minute.   Typically Baltic, except that by now they should have snow.  I can use Russian practically everywhere, which is an unanticipated advantage.

Madara Kirsa, my university-assigned guide, walked me around the old city again, explaining a few historical facts.  Her more useful assignment was to show me the university building and the room where I was to teach.  She is a graduate student, but if she mentioned her specialty, I didn't catch it.  She speaks superb English and has visited NY and Miami briefly.  The classroom building is large and traditional 19th-century and on the inside resembles hundreds of academic buildings throughout the Western world (and maybe elsewhere): worn stairs, scuffed halls, walls patchworked with notices.  I tried out the ladies room, which exhibited the same institutional dilapidation as toilets everywhere else (such as in courthouses) but with one notable exception—there are no toilet paper rolls in the stalls.  There’s a giant toilet paper roll on the wall when you walk in and you take what you think you’ll need with you.  Janitors probably love that, but I can’t say it’s a user-friendly idea.

I liberated Madara as soon as we finished in the classroom building and walked around the city some more, looking at souvenir kiosks, noting few items of potential interest.  By 3:00 I had exhausted the possibilities of Riga for the day.  I made plans for some further exploration tomorrow outside the bounds of the old city (which is not the sum-total of Riga).

Riga - On Completing My First Session

"Getting to Know You" should have been the theme song-- if any of the students would have recognized it, which is highly doubtful.  I designed the first session as CILS advised: background about me, where I live, my professional history.  Seven out of the 11 registered students showed up.  All spoke excellent English and a few had a good background on the U.S.  Some have had work experience, indeed, are working while attending school, and that livened the discussion.  They were far more interested in class participation and far more relaxed and informal than I had been led to believe.  As a result, my introductory PowerPoint slides on the geography, history and culture of New Jersey went a lot faster than it would have with a group that had less background.  In such situations, flexibility is vital.  I skimmed over parts when I realized that their interest was flagging.  Nevertheless, two left after the break.  We'll see if they return when the real content is presented.  I dismissed class ½ hour early, when the question-and-answer trailed off.

The students are all in the business school; there are no law students.  This is not the best match for the CILS Senior Lawyers program.  I had geared my course to law students and I'm sure everyone else in the CILS program did, but that’s not what these students really need or want.  At least I structured the course to present the practical details of what happens in a U.S. civil suit, instead of legal theory.  Once I got the course outline up on the screen, I think the students got more confidence that this might potentially be useful.  They might someday be employed by a company that is sued in the U.S.-- and won't they make an impression when they know what's going on!  Or so I hope.

Their questions focused on the empirical: how does one train for the law, could a lawyer accept money from a party to not sue that party, how many hours does a lawyer work?  While telling my war stories about working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day at my first law job, I introduced them to the phrase “billable hours.”  They were suitably astonished by the fact that New Jersey, one-third the size of Latvia, has a population of 8.7 million and 50,000 lawyers.  They're looking forward to the case studies I had crafted and which the staff will photocopy.

In sum, there has been the unexpected and the expected.  The unexpected, at least, has not been problematic, a good sign for the classes to come. 

Riga - An Inauspicious Arrival

We landed in Riga in drizzly overcast this morning.  There’s no one to meet me. They probably didn’t pay attention to my email about the flight change.  I couldn’t get hold of my university contact, as it’s Sunday.   Lost an earring.   Felt foolish hanging around the airport.  Weighed my options, then grabbed a cab to hotel.  Got into conversation with the cabdriver, who’s Russian.  He says the majority of people speak Russian in the cities.  I knew that Russians were a significant proportion of the population of Latvia, mainly thanks to Stalin’s machinations but I had also thought the Latvian government was actively suppressing the use of Russian.  Guess that’s not working as well as the Latvians might like.  If I can get around in Russian, I’ll feel a bit more in control.

At least check-in at the hotel went as planned.  Small place, snug, in heart of town.  Room is nondescript, with the bare essentials.  Don’t recall being so disorganized with setting up before.  I throw stuff out of the suitcases on the bed, on the chairs, on the desk, without any sorting, paying special attention to getting the suits and blouses hung before the wrinkles harden.  Gradually, I make a semblance of order.  The lack of drawers and of sufficient hangers complicates things, also the lack of shelf space in the bathroom.

Tried phone again with mixed success.  Still unable to connect with my university contact.  I send panicky email to the phone rental place, then try calling another number, that of my friend, Slava.  This time, I get a connection.  It’s a peculiar set-up: make the call, get a “call refused” message, wait a few seconds and then get a ring back and the person’s on the line.  I wonder: was the university switchboard closed because it’s Sunday?  Good thing I have email as back-up.  But this does not enhance confidence in this phone I’ve rented.

But this day will end happily.  Slava and Luda will come over and we'll got out to dinner.  Tomorrow begins my schedule and presumably, contact will be established.

Riga - On Being in Transit

After packing and schlepping, after navigating the check-in bureaucracy and the security theater, I plant myself at the gate and bask in the liberation of being in transit.  All I have, all I need rely on, is with me, like a backpacker.  There’s a sense of being in a separate world, neither “here” nor “there” as I wrote on another trip.  A strange economy in this world, though: how do these shopping concourses, with their apparel, games and jewelry kiosks stay in business?  Are there really enough customers wanting this merchandise, so overpriced?  Do people really buy last-minute gifts here?  And here’s a store selling luggage—how many people buy luggage at an airport?  A baggage disaster would require a handy luggage kiosk, but that can’t be a steady source of income.

Transatlantic flight went as usual (thankfully).  At Helsinki airport passport control the official asks the usual questions, questions he knows the answers to because they’re in front in front of him on the computer monitor: Been to Riga before?  When are you leaving, do you have a ticket for your return flight?  Some new ones: What will I be doing in Riga?  Teaching.  Teaching what? Law.  To whom?  Students at university.  He probably has those answers, too, on the monitor.  Just testing my honesty.  Officialdom knows too much.

At the gate for the plane to Riga, I changed from jeans and shirt into better pants and sweater with scarf.  I practiced “Pleased to meet you,” in Latvian.  As it turned out, I needn’t have bothered.  More in next blog post.

Ready for Riga

I'm crushed.  Three days before departure and I got the class list.  Only 14 people signed up.  My colleague who taught last spring had 25.  Maybe it’s the timing of the seminar, so soon before the Christmas holiday?  Or the topic?  Will my chef d’oeuvre on the U.S. court system be viewed by only 14 students?

Take a deep breath; this is not all about you, said my other voice.  With fewer people, there will be more opportunity for spontaneity, for discussing other topics, for being flexible with the outline.  There will be more cohesion (perhaps) and a greater likelihood of student participation in question-and-answer and in projects.  For the others who didn’t sign up: their loss!  Perhaps they will want to audit—if such a thing occurs in European universities.

In reviewing the class list, I spot one clearly Indian name, one Finnish, one Russian.  I recognize several names as Latvian but others could be either Russian or Latvian.  Too bad I bought 30 souvenir pens!   That was a month or so ago during a special trip to midtown Manhattan to hunt souvenirs.  It would have been risky to wait for the last minute on that particular chore.   CILS expects us to hand out souvenirs to the students and gifts to the professor, a kind of goodwill exercise to keep the universities interested in the CILS program.  That’s my take on it.  No, I’m not cynical; I’m just a realist.  The gift to the professor I can understand, since the university is putting me up at its cost, but really, giving students a gift for attending one’s class? I suppose I can give some of them as random gifts—Slava’s grandkids, for example

The gifts make it a challenge to pack.  I could’ve stuffed in several more shirts, even another coat maybe, if I hadn’t had to schlep heavy gift books.  Oh well.  If I need anything, I can probably buy it in Riga.  Wow—what a fraught statement that is.  When I traveled to the Baltics in the old Soviet days, one could never, ever rely on buying any necessary replacement or extra item.  Amazing what times we’ve lived through!

On Attending a Wedding

I have been invited to a wedding.  That means dragging out the formal dress and giving thanks it still fits; digging out the evening shoes and the useless evening bag, which can’t hold all the necessary items.  And packing the minimum amount of basic necessities for an overnight stay.  And hoping the traffic doesn’t delay my arrival or that any of the other dozens of things-that-can-go-wrong go wrong.

So far, so good.  The logistics go well and I arrive in time.  Now I must deal with the event.  The rabbi is excruciatingly “PC” and blathers on about what the bride and groom like, admire and treasure about each other.  This could have been omitted.  We know they have positive feelings for each other; they’re getting married, for cryin’ out loud.  And we could have been spared the successive prayers for empathy, openness, compassion, love and whatever else their getting married is supposed to improve in the world.  They’re one among millions of couples getting married; their union is not going to have that much of an effect.  Besides, we’ve been sitting patiently long enough; let’s eat.  (This is, after all, a mostly Jewish wedding.)

But even when we’re released from the lofty sentiments and allowed to party, we face a preliminary heat: the cocktail reception.  In a crowded room with insufficient tables, waiters and waitresses pass around hors d’oeuvre trays just out of my reach.  The noise of chatter mingled with piano music presses on my ears, jangles in my skull.  I escape down the hall, somewhere, anywhere where sounds are muted and I can recover a semblance of psychic balance.  When the stress ebbs, I return to make inconsequential conversation, hard enough over the background noise, harder still to grope for worthwhile things to say to people I barely know.

Finally, we are permitted to enter the ballroom for the sit-down dinner.  More loud music, to make conversation even more of an effort.  Music composed after 1956 is not meant for people in floor-length formal gowns to dance to, nor is it meant as background music.  Nor is it meant for women in high heels (if men want to wear high heels, they can bloody well dance in them if they think it’s so exciting).  I take off my shoes in order to dance and take heart from the admiring glances of other women in evening shoes.  I’m further validated by the sight of still other women who’ve taken their own shoes off.  So I manage to do what has to be done: eat, drink, congratulate, dance – and leave as soon as acceptable after the dessert.

I think people should elope.  It spares many of us a great deal.

On Napoleon and Conquerors in General

I don't know whether Napoleon is universally admired (except, perhaps by the French) or whether Alexander the Great is considered a hero outside Greece or Macedonia.  Both were complex men and the achievements of both included positive things along with blood and mayhem.  Napoleon toppled much of the medieval structures that permeated Europe and introduced the idea of "civil" society; i.e., a society that was not based on a state religion for the regulation of human activity.  I doubt that even Napoleon's most fervent admirers would downplay, let alone deny, the carnage his conquests produced.  Alexander marched east leaving devastation and death behind but established a link between eastern Europe and Asia that endured despite different empires and religions.

One can debate the merits and demerits of empires, but I have been particularly amused and confused to hear notionally progressive people comment admiringly on empires, for example that of Genghiz Khan.  His present-day admirers note that it was said (by whom, I forget) that a woman could walk from one end of the empire to the other bearing a load of gold without being molested. That's after he piled up mountains of skulls, so I guess there were no people left to molest travelers.  But some folks persist in liking centralized power for supposedly keeping things (and people) organized.  And to give the devil his due, empires have the effect of bringing people into contact, which has advantages.

Our history is never totally abhorrent, let alone totally benign.

On re-re-reading Tolkein

Having finished the stack of library books (and having no time to troll the shelves for more) and having finished the week's magazines, I was desperate for reading material.  I can't eat supper without a book propped front of me and what else is there to do afterwards?  TV has many channels of nothing to watch; the Internet has many more Web pages of not much at all.  I was in the mood for escape fiction, and fantasy is my favorite type.  There are hundreds of new titles out, but as with the library, so with the bookstore: no time to troll through the shelves.  Besides, so much of the new stuff seems juvenile lately.  More on that perhaps in another blog. 

I took down my dog-eared paperbacks of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  "The world's only four-book trilogy," quipped my friend Rick in our college days.  Why not read them again?  I forgot how many times I’d read them before, but enough time has passed that many of the details are hazy.  One test of a good author is whether you can discover new things in his work each time you read it, and Tolkein is no exception.  In previous readings, I had recognized the shift in author tone between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, the similarity between the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the stages of a chess game, and Tolkein’s focus on vegetation and terrain.  I wondered what would strike me this time.

This time, I was struck by the borrowings in Tolkien's tone, sometimes quaintly medieval, sometimes downright biblical.  I was also struck by the formality of the characters' dialogues.  Their speech patterns were like oratory, not conversation.  Suitable for heroic literature, as Tolkein intended.  I looked for Tolkein's anti-modernist bias, which reviewers and critics had noted.  It was there, at some times more subtle than at others, downright overt in the final volume.  In the second volume, Orthanc, Saruman's tower, and Mordor itself are described in terms that one might use for an industrial wasteland.  The "ruffians" who cause all manner of sorrow in The Shire in the last volume are a cross between fascist gangs, industrial union-busters and communist commissars.

As before, I noted the difference in tone between The Hobbit and the books of LOTR.  The Hobbit is whimsical.  Its tone reminds me of Kenneth Grahame’s tone in The Wind in the Willows.  In both works the author occasionally breaks into the third-person narrative to offer dry observations on the characters and the situations.  There is a consummate "Englishness" about the worlds of both; both authors exalt their characters’ tidy homes and orderly, ordinary lives.  Tolkein’s hobbits abhor adventure; Grahame’s Mole frantically sets about to rescue Rat from heading off to sea after his imagination was fired by the stories told him by a wandering seaman rat.

Like The Wind in the Willows, there is a stream of wry humor running through The Hobbit, as if Tolkein himself couldn’t really believe he was writing a story about a small humanoid dodging trolls and slaying dragons.  My favorite example is the scene in which Bilbo, having rescued the dwarves and brought them to Lake-town, catches cold and can only say "Thag you very buch" to the dwarves as they toast his health.  The fantastical adventures juxtaposed with stuffed-nose dialogue—what could be more drily English?

Once we enter the world of Lord of the Rings though, the mood is quite different: lofty, formal, elegiac, nostalgic, even gloomy.  Although it’s the same world as that of The Hobbit, we’re given to understand that the civilization which nurtured Bilbo and his contemporaries is fading away even as its greatest threat, Sauron, is vanquished.  With Sauron's fall, nothing will be as good as it was before the One Ring was destroyed.  Even when the Ring was in play, when all the good guys of Middle Earth were fretting about Mordor's threats, they told themselves things weren't as good as they were in the Old Days and were never going to be.  Their gloomy prediction is borne out when in the end, with the One Ring gone, the Elves must leave.  Their rings no longer work and their exquisite forests and dwellings must fade.  At the moment of triumph, Middle Earth loses something unique and noble: the elves, who are the acknowledged superior to humans and hobbits, not only physically but also in taste and culture, like the English aristocracy.  The humans who remain are a lesser sort.  Aragorn, the only human who comes close to the elves in stature (and who has the unique privilege of marrying one), is the last of the Dunedain, “supermen” of a past age.  We don't really know where they came from (unless The Silmarillion provides that information) and why, exactly, they were so superior, but Tolkein makes it clear that he considers humans and hobbits a comedown on the Middle Earth evolutionary scale.

Whence comes this nostalgia for the Good Old Days?  This phenomenon goes back to the Greeks, if not before.  The Greeks believed in a first age of gold, followed by one of silver and now ("now" being 500 B.C.E.) the disappointing, degraded age of copper.  Maybe every human civilization has tales of a better, more heroic and virtuous past.  Anyone who seriously studies history knows that the old days were not at all wonderful.  Maybe it's a universal human habit to think the past was better.  Maybe it originates from thinking about childhood when everything seemed to be so easy.  But anyone who really reviews his or her childhood will come up against rough spots: the helplessness, the lack of control, the petty humiliations visited by siblings and classmates.  As with individual lives, so with history.  The past was rife with incurable diseases, food shortages, hard labor and little opportunity for individual betterment.

Exalting the past seems irrational, but Tolkein plays it straight in LOTR, in contrast to his wry irony in The Hobbit.  Perhaps the suspension of irony is necessary to produce heroic literature.  Indeed, there's not a trace of irony in LOTR, let alone humor.  No one cracks a joke; although there are a few occasions marked by song and merriment, but they are fleeting.  Not even violence merits irony in LOTR.  War in Middle Earth is a means to achieve glory and to accomplish something worthwhile, as the dying Theoden says to his nephew Eomer.  No disillusioned pacifism for Tolkein; the epic tale he has to tell must have drama and what more intense drama than war?  Epics can't be built on economic activity.  Heroes don't import and export; glory isn't accomplished by growing crops.  After Sauron’s defeat, Tolkein must end his tale because he has nothing more of interest to write about.  Aragorn will be presiding over a kingdom that is no longer under threat, and his subjects will have to make a living.  You can’t make a heroic fantasy novel about that.