We flew into Riga the capital of Latvia, the 17th and final country of our trip and were met by Auntie Joyce, it was lovely to see her after so long. As she had a free day we spent some time with her in the city which was far nicer than we had ever imagined. As Latvia was once ruled by Russia we had expected ugly Soviet style concrete buildings but the city has a lot of character and has well kept often colourful buildings dating back to the 1200's. Over the next couple of days we explored the narrow cobblestone streets and visited the different sights of the city. There is an interesting bridge in one of the lovely city parks, young couples when getting married, engrave their names on a padlock, attach it to the bridge and throw away the key into the river, the bridge is covered with these padlocks. There is a lovely Medieval restaurant that we visited a couple of times, it's lit by candlelight inside and only serves food that was available in medieval days, bread rolls come wrapped in sacking and the bill in a small chest, with a lantern so you can see to pay!

We stayed with Auntie Joyce out at Todd and Ina Prouty's place in Kegums. We had a wonderful time there at convention with wonderful people, many of whom we had heard Auntie Joyce talk of so often so it was lovely to finally meet them face to face.

And so after 10 months we have arrived back home, back to see our families including our nephews Jack and Jayden who have grown and changed so much since we left home. Back to our own house where it feels so little time since we left and where we can unpack our backpacks and not have to pack them up again each morning! And finally back to work…and now our amazing trip is beginning to seem like a distant, wonderful dream!!