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.