The day can't be without beauties.

What was valuable for me in this trip – is a regularity and fullness of each day. Some days you talk with people, some days you dialogue with nature, yourself, and your friend-companion. 

That day we were walking neither fast nor slow, but definitely thoughtfully and carefully. Deliberateness and attention – are definitely our allies. You see much more with them.

So we were looking into the corridors of yellowing trees, were listening to the calls of departing birds, were smelling the autumn forest.

                                           

Abstracting from the trip poetry, will talk about the vital. More precisely, about something delicious. I will say in advance that it is not advertising or PR-campaign, it's just our love. Love for the ice cream :)
In Latvia we never miss an opportunity to eat a cone or an bucket of "Ekselence" ice-cream. Walking time is not an exception for us, so in the next little Veikals we found our delicatesse. Our generally accepted ice-cream is with peanut butter, I love the one which is with  pomegranate or cherry too (light sour emphasizes the sweet for good).

And we love the one that is in half-liter can (which is usually not enough) - with halva! So we advise you to arm with spoons, find not-flattened grass in the central park of Riga and getting the warm of the sun, scarf down this joy.

 

The same day I finally did what I wanted to do for long: to make a picture of a direction sign that Latvians put by their homes. In Russia we hang plates with the street name and house number, here houses or farms have their own names. I tried to find an explanation for the way homes get their names and what do they mean. As far as I understood and remembered, people are free to choose the name of their home, or they can keep the one that was given by someone before. Sometimes they mean something, and sometimes it's just a sonorous word. Anyway, it was always interesting to look at those signs, they whisper something about their hosts.

By the end of the day as it usually happens, we had to think how much further we should go, where to arrange the night. Our map was telling us that we were close to a forest, which is great. But there is also a small river, which is unknown: is it possible to cross it, is there any bridge, maybe - nothing.
So the decision was to ask owners of the house, which is by the forest, to see if there is still the bridge which we was promised by the map.

We were already not astonished by the marvel of people about our trip through the country. But before we didn’t experience the attempt of people to imbue the fear of the forest! The woman we met started to convince us fiercely that there are hunters who would not let anyone come into the forest, that we will be kept away by tan helicopter and that the bridge had been destroyed long ago, and that we would get lost there, and that we wouldn’t stay alive after.
Well, we thanked for the kind and encouraging words, and after half-minute thinking we went into the forest. Stephan loves helicopters very much, me – it is my dream to fly it. So we went ahead towards our dreams!
Ironically, just approaching the forest, we had heard the echo that very woman that was shouting at us: "You do not understand something? You will get lost there! You will be picked up! ".

So we waved goodbye and went further.

Forest was of an incredible beauty. Tall spruce, soft mossy, red fern. Beauty affected the heart straight away. All was as we love it. And someone tried to deprive us of it ...

We reached the promised bridge. Yes, half of it was destroyed, but the important thing is that the second half – was there, and it was still good! So we found a balance between our bodies and backpacks, and step by step we crossed the bridge, crossed the river.
Once we found our place for night - between the pine trees, on a plush moss under the bluest sky.
Such a simple happiness.