A to Z Blogging Challenge 2018: L is for Latvia

(My theme for April's A to Z blogging challenge is postcards. If you want, read my intro post).

I've always considered myself more knowledgeable than the average person when it comes to geography. When I was a kid, I used to spend countless hours looking through the atlas looking for exotic, foreign, unknown places. However, when I received a postcard from Latvia, I had no idea where that is.

So, I consulted ye olde Google. I can tell you that Latvia is between Estonia and Lithuania, but that only helps if you know where one or the other is. What I learned is that Latvia was annexed by the USSR (subsequently known as Soviet Union, Russia, Russian Federation, but you get the idea) in 1940. In 1991, it became independent again. So, no wonder I didn't find it on the map back in the 1980s. I probably learned something about the pre-1940 Latvia in school, but that's a lifetime ago.

Anyway, this card depicts the monument of Freedom, the Dome Square, the Convent Yard, the Liv's Square, the Latvian Academy of Art, and of course a panoramic view of Riga, the capital of Latvia.