Riga

Oh yeah, Riga. The capital of Latvia, a country of which you probably only have the vaguest notion, as did I before going there. While Riga does not live up to the Disneyland romance of Tallinn, it certainly surpasses it in terms of character; at least this was my subjective experience of the city.


For the four-hour bus ride to Riga from Tallinn, I joined forces with Aaron, a hilarious English lad from Liverpool whom I had met on my last night in the latter city. A bit under the weather from the experiences of the night prior, I slept most of the way, but did manage to admire the green beauty of the landscape (hey, this looks sort of like the Willamette Valley!). We arrived into town about 6pm and walked the short distance to the Old Town Hostel, which, oddly enough, is located in Riga's old town.


We were greeted by John, the wild Irishman who runs the hostel, and who reminds me a bit of Colin Ferrell's character from In Bruge. We settled into our acceptably clean rooms and went back down to the Irish-style pub, which happened to be the main common area of the joint. If I had any intention of toning down the party routine, my intentions quickly evaporated. Aaron and I went out for a Latvian-style dinner at a self-service eatery before returning to the hostel to "take it easy" until about 2:30am with John and a friendly Texan couple that we met, Joe and Amber.


In total I spent four nights in Riga, even though I initially only planned two there. During the days, I would undertake the obligatory cultural awareness excursions, taking an alternative walking tour to see the gritty reality of Riga and its modern history, visiting the seedy flea market where all sorts of paraphanalia could be had, witnessing my first ever opera (The Barber of Seville) and traveling to a nearby Baltic beach town by train, where we climbed a vertigo-inducing tower and got wet in this sea and in the rain.


At nights, and into the early moring hours, we would get debaucherous, going to locals bars or clubs, watching John bicker with American boys who were staying at the wrong hostel, or on one occasion dropping in on a house party thrown by the Latvian girls who worked in the hostel. If twilight wasn't breaking by the time you went to bed, it was not truly a successful night. And it is surprisingly easy to stay up until 5am in this place.


When it came time to leave Riga, we were ready. Aaron and I were both heading on to the capital of Lithuania, and we had been mulling over the idea of trying our hands at hitch-hiking. We got some cardboard and colorful chalk and a sign was made ("VILNA"). We got some sketchy directions on how to get to the highway and took a bus towards the edge of the city. We saw a highway and got off, but it probably wasn't the right place. We tried one spot, and then a better one in front of a gas station, and sat dumbly by the road holding the sign at passing cars. We got a few smiles, but no rides to Vilnius. We gave up after a couple hours and rode back into town to take a bus, making sure to get a couple of beers to celebrate our effort.

With our buzz on, we boarded the bus on the evening of May 14 and set out towards the next little Baltic nation in our path, Lithuania (leave no capital city behind, as I say).