Old Town in Riga, on Thanksgiving evening

The office couple, another couple who are here with Church Education, President and Sister Dance, Sister Harper and I celebrated Thanksgiving evening at a Mongolian BBQ for dinner, then walked to a little bakery for dessert. We walked through Old Town which is quaint, with cobblestone streets and very old buildings with wonderful architecture. The streets weave in and out of buildings and cars drive through where it looks impossible for them to go.

We had tickets to the opera, a Christmas gift from the Gublers, so walked to the opera house. What a magnificent old building. If you have ever seen a movie with a scene in an old opera house, that's what this looks like. The ceiling has intricate paintings, with gold leaf throughout. The seats and curtain are rich red velvet. Really beautiful. I'm told they have an opera every night and the seats are filled each night.

The seats we had were on the top level to the side and cost 5 Lats, which is about equivalent to $10. We had a very good view of stage left and the center, but couldn't see stage right. The singers were outstanding--every one of them. The staging was simple and clever. The opera was Handel's "Alcina." It was sung in Italian and there was Latvian translation on the reader board above the stage. So we couldn't understand any of it, but we had a program that had a summary in English.