12. Oktober

   I went to the Riga by bus from Tartu. Bus was going from 7:30 till 11:30. I arrived at Riga Bus Station. The weather was beautiful. After some time wandering around in Bus Station, I met Inese. She brought me by a minivan, which was driven by the school's principal himself. I was also greeted by another exchange student, a finnish girl Kaisla. She arrived on 5. October and will be staying until 30. October. I engaged in a conversation with the people in the minivan.

  I was driven by a dormitory, located on a small island not far away from Riga's city centre. Small island is called Kipsala. The dorminory was modern and quite luxurious, from inside and from the outside as well. Later I was told it's the official dormitory for Riga Technical University's students, but I was accommodated here since Janis Rozentalz's school does not have an official dormintory. When I reached the spot, I signed some papers here and there, I got the keys and Inese made a little tour to my room. Inese organised it so that for tomorrow, there is going to be another student to meet me and Liza, and guide us to the school. No lessons were planned on my day of arrival, so I took the day off and explored the mall nearby called Olimpia.

13. Oktober

  I woke up and rushed in front of the dormitory. Me and Liza were greeted by another student called Milda. School was within 20-minutes of walking distance. At first we visited the Inese's office, where she brought us up to date about school's schedules, rules, details and faculties. 3 girls (Milda, Patricia and Sofia) also met up with up and gave us a tour around the schoolhouse. It was a 5-story building. Later I also heard that I am going to have lots of computer-related subjects, while Liza and Kaisla will be having more fine arts-related subjects instead.

  First lesson was Sculpture, where we had to make a shape out of a paper strip and model a sculpture based on that paper shape. After that I had a break, I went outside for a smoke with couple of students, who were all very eager to meet me and bring me up to date with school's rumors and general gossip.  After that I had a painting class, where teacher asked about which colours am I accostumed to use, and I responded: Acrylics, so she got me some acrylic paints from the nearest shop. I was still out of some art supplies, so me and Kaisla went to the nearest art shop after the lessons and I bought my supplies.

14. Oktober

 I was a little late on Wednesday, since I got a little lost on my way to school. On the morning, Inese told me that we can make student cards, which are necessary for making bus cards. With the bus cards, I could use public transportation within Riga for free. Later, I continued the work with my sculpture. Next lesson was Graphics.

  Next lesson was Photo, where we were introduced into the process of bringing a photograph to life. In that class, they made a picture of me for the document photo, which was convenient. I sent it to Inese. Later on, I visited a music shop Randoms and bought some Baltic Comicbooks, which were supposed to be quite popular in Latvia, according to my schoolmates.

15. Oktober

  When I arrived, the next lesson was Computer Graphics, where teacher could turn more attention to me, since it was a smaller group. The teacher was very helpful and friendly, he showed me some useful tricks on Adobe Illustrator, and left an assignment where I had to design a logo out of a word. I chose the word, which means "Friendly" in latvian. I got to use a very big tablet with screen built in, which was really Sci-Fi and wonderful. I really liked that class.

   Next lesson was Design Graphic. In that lesson, I learned about my homework, the independent task of decorating my own name letters on a white background, and designing a poster to be printed out later.

  After that I took a break and the group of cigarette smokers around school showed me various hide-out spots where they kill their time. We were conversing and gossiping It was fun.

  I continued on to drawing. We were drawing an antique Creek/Rome-style statue head. The lesson was funny, Kaisla couldn't stop laughing at how similar estonian and finnish sound like.

  After that, me, Liza and Ance went to the city centre to get the bus card. We waited for quite a while, and Liza was almost falling asleep, but it was fun, because Ance was curious about me and we had lot to talk about. At the end, we hugged each other and I returned to the dormitory.
  

   16. October.

  I arrived to school to begin with Composition in the morning. Lesson was kind of slow-winding, but somewhat independent task, so we each had our own tempos for working. After that there was a long break, during which I socialised around the school, and did my homeworks. By the end of the day, I made it to Painting, where I continued my painting on a cardboard canvas.

  

   19. October.

  Start of the week was  uncomfortable for me, since I have catched cold, but I still arrived to school to begin with Conceptual Composition. The teacher gave me out an assignment, which was very interesting: to make an illustration, or make a project out of telling alphabet with some words, using the same overlapping style for illustrations throughout the whole layout.

  There was lots of free time, during which I was slowly working on my other assignments. Including this, working on a presentation I am supposed to give on Tuesday,

 I continued by taking the last lessons to go on a down and make investments in some supplies necessary for the name-letters assignment.

  20. October.

   After the lessons, it was a big day for me: International evening. We had some tea and cookies while some students performed with a presentation about Janis Rozentalz's art school, history of Riga and about latvian artists. We were thankful, and after Liza I performed with a very cool presentation where I told something about myself, Tartu Art School, gave general overview of Tartu and quickly briefed on some of the known estonian artists. After that, there was presentation by Kaisla, who sung a song for us on guitar (Kaisla is a good singer) and who handed out some lakrits-flavoured sweets. After that, we continued to converse, eat cookies, drink tea and play introductory games, such as a version of "Simon Says". It was a lovely evening, and thanks to my great idea, we also made a really fun group photo, as seen in here: 

21. October

  I remember that on this day, I was feeling really under the weather and sick, so I had problems getting to classes on time. I had fever, cough and runny nose, but I figured that I couldn't afford falling behind in studies, so made the decision to go to school.

 In the evening, Me, Liza, Kaisla and Ance were going to Riga's Old town to check out some museums. Most of them were closed by that time, unfortunately, but we managed to visit one particular museum, very similar to Estonia's "KUMU" museum on the inside. With the student card, the good news are also that most of museums will be free of charge. Thank you Ance for organizing this evening! :) 

 23. October.

  On Friday, I was mostly preoccupied with doing my homework, and I had an incident where I lost my MP3 player, so I had to wander and get lost in the city center for 5 hours (I also snuck by a fast food place in during that time) until I reached the electronics store. Everything was expensive, but I "am not too rich to buy a cheap thing", so I finally bought a moderately priced MP3 player.