Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Another Day in Paradize

This week saw the sale of tickets for the 25th Latvian Song and Dance Festival. One could either buythem through an online ticket agency www.bilesuparadize.lv or buy at a authoried sales outlet. As buying tickets online did not commence until 12.00, but at local outlets at 11.00am - I decided to try one of the local outlets. So at 9.00 am I made my way to the Dailles Theatre, only to find a queue some 200 meters long, so I made my way to Congress Nams - where to my delight the queue was only some 20 meters long.

Nearly three hours later !!! I had move within 10 meters of the sales desk, only to be advised that ALL tickets for the Grand Final were sold out. I later discovered that they had sold out within 2 hours of opening. So at that point I gave up and like many others I will be watching the event on TV. For those of you do not know that Song and Dance festival is held every five years and attracts some 1600 choirs and dance group, with over 40,000 participants.

 I managed to attend the Grand Final five years ago and it was an experience like no other - just a pity I will not make it this year. But to give you a taster see below and enjoy !



But for a week 30th June - 7th July - Riga will come alive - all we can hope is that the weather is good.

Now speaking of weather, it is now April, the 9th to be exact and yet as you can see from the pictutes below Spring has not quite Sprung ! Although it is difficult to tell when I took these photographs it was seriously snowing - this on the 8th of April.



 And the man walking the dog ? - well lets just say that the dog and the man share the same name, and he is a renowned hostelier and bar owner from down under !

Now in the years I have been writing this blog I have stayed clear of politics, with the exception some time ago of mentioning the number of political parties in Latvia. However one of the great politicians of modern times.  Margaret Thatcher - Britains only woman Prime Minister - has passed away - In style at the Ritz Hotel in London. Many of course disagreed with her politics - but none can deny that during her premiership she saw through major economic and social changes which in the main were for the good of Britain. I for one will always hold her in high regard.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home