Riga, Here We Come!

Art Nouveau building at 13 Alberta iela, Riga.

It seemed like ages ago that had arranged the flights for both my brother (aka Bro) and I. He would be leaving SF about an hour before me and would arrive into Frankfurt airport about an hour and half after I landed.

Packing List & Getting Ready. The Baltics.

I've not spent as much time planning this trip as I have all the others mainly because I've been distracted with a lot of other things - especially with my photo submissions to CNN iReport which have gotten a lot of recognition including my Tarn Taran iReport being featured on CNN International!  Every month, CNN has a half hour feature (that plays several times each month) covering what the producers feel are the highlights from the month.  My submission was covered under "Best Images of the Month".  Woohoo!!  My 20 seconds of fame :-)

Amber.

Many years ago when my parents were traveling through Europe, my mom brought back an amber brooch for me. It's not a fancy piece of jewelry but it's one of my favorites. On my recent trip to Mexico, I had the opportunity to visit a small amber museum located in the town of San Cristóbal de las Casas, located in the state of Chiapas. It was a small museum but they had some wonderful art pieces there as well as on piece that had a very ancient scorpion encased inside. In 2009, on my trip to Mongolia, I learned about the healing properties of amber when I encountered a young girl wearing a large amber necklace. On this trip, I will be traveling to the part of the world that holds the reputation for having the largest and richest amber deposits - the Baltic Coast.

The Curonian Spit.

Kuršių nerija, known in English as the Curonian Spit, is a narrow strip of sand stretching 97 kilometres (58 miles) along the Baltic Sea in western Lithuania.   The northern part of the Curonian Spit lies in Lithuania; the southern part in Kalingrad, Russia.   The Spit averages just over a mile wide with a single main road running between dunes all the way to the Russian border.