Visiting
Olga
and Sergey
Our primary purpose is visiting
Latvia was to visit with Olga and Sergey, a young Russian
couple that we knew from the Beach Village in Thailand,
where we both own houses. Several years ago they moved
from Moscow to Latvia and began to build their dream house
there. Although we had seen photos online of the house in
progress, nothing prepared us for experiencing the real
thing. Nestled in the woods of Amatciems, it is a modern
take on traditional Latvian houses. While the outside was
a updated treatment of the traditional wooden
houses with a roof that extend nearly to the ground, the
interior was a high-tech haven straight out of Architectural Digest. The photo to
the left offers an aerial view of their property, while
the photo to the right shows the entrance.
The interior of the house is modern
in every sense of the word--the decor is of Scandanavian
minimalist design, and it is a high-tech household. The
photo at the upper left shows the view of the living room
kitchen area looking from the master bedroom, while the
photo to the upper right shows the left hand side of
the room, including Olga's workspace and a
view of the surrounding area. The
photo at the lower right features the kitchen areas, while
the photo at lower left shows the back deck and its scenic
view. While our apartment in Kuala Lumpur is pretty high
tech, this house is straight out of the Jetsons. It was a
truly automated house, from the robo vaccum to the
wifi-controlled Hue lights (too many to
count).
The door was onlocked via the phone and the lights in the
rooms were triggered by motion
sensors. It was almost incogrous, this juxtaposition of
the high-tech household in this bucolic area.
Aerial
View
of Olga's and Sergey's House
Of course one of the great pleasures of visiting
friends is breaking bread together, and we had some memorable
meals at the house. The photo to the left shows the meal the
first night, trout that Olga picked up at the supermarket in
Riga, along with fresh tomatoes and chicken grilled by Sergey.
Not pictured but no less memorable was the mushroom soup
whipped up by Olga, featuring several varieties of local
mushrooms they gathered on their walks through Amatciem's
forests. A sample of these delicacies may be seen in the photo
to the right.
When not visiting the nearby sites or dining on
local fare, we spent time walking around the forested areas of
Amatciems. While doing so, we
discovered Olga's and Sergey's passion for gathering
mushrooms. We did set aside one walk for the specific purpose
of learning how to spot these delicacies. Olga gave us a
master class in mushroom spotting, with Sergey not far behind.
Tracy had good success finding the funghi, while Dale was
happy not to have come in contact with poison ivy. The photo
to the left shows our intrepid hosts in action, while in the
photo to right shows Tracy displaying the results of her
search. Dale was reminded of why he never liked the Where's Waldo books.
