Ramble On - Foreign Service Specialist

  2020 is finally done. It hasn't been one of the world's best years in my lifetime, even though it's been relatively good for u...

  Almost everything in Riga is closed on the weekends while the pandemic continues. We were pleasantly surprised to see the art museums are ...

Next stop is Algiers, Algeria! Algeria is a country in the North Africa region. The similarly named  Algiers is their coastal capital on ...

I wrote about the Foreign Service assignment process in these blog entries from 3 years ago:  Mid-Level Bidding Game and  Mid-Level Bidding...

  Lielvārde is a little town along the Daugava River about an hour drive southeast of Riga. They have a reconstruction of a wooden castle si...

Siguldas Viduslaiku pils (Castle Of The Livonian Order In Sigulda) is a great place to hang out. The castle compound has some interesting sh...

Daugavgrīvas Cietoksnis  is a fortress originally built in the Swedish Livonia in the 17th century. There's more history at the link but...