Blogs from Riga, Riga Region, Latvia, Europe - page 16

well, this mornings was a pretty big waste of an entry, so i shall make up for that with this beast. and beast is most definitely the word to describe the majesty that is about to unravel on this here piece of networky canvas. i suppose i will start off by saying what i know, what everyone knows, and what is generally becoming more and more hard fact as time goes on. i love being here. it's not as if this is the most thrilling place on the planet, far from it. but it's just nice, and i'm a fan of nice. after another boring flight that wasnt even saved by the view (it was a cloudy morning), i arrived at riga airport and was just generally excited. ok, there are other reasons for that, but ... read more

My bus arrived into Riga at about 5 in the afternoon. I headed to the tourist info and convinced the lady to let me use the phone to call my couch surfing host. I talked to her and she said that she would come pick me up in an hour. We agreed to meet in front of the opera house. So I had an hour to walk around a bit. My first stop was..a McDonalds. Never...ever....in my life have I eaten at McDonalds twice in the same day, but in different countries. The experience was something I will never forget. From McDonalds I went to the opera house and waited. My host, Ieva, arrived and we drove to the apartment that her and her boyfriend Gitas live at. She had to run to her parents shortly ... read more

Riga is Fantastic! We arrived here on Wednesday morning feeling rather dehydrated and tired after our impromptu drinking session in Leipaja the night before, however we were met with smiling faces at our hotel and a lovely breakfast in a nearby cafe, enough to set us up for a days sightseeing. Riga (we were told by our drinking buddy the night before) is one of the "greats" and despite this rather dramatic build up we were not dissapointed, the architecture grand but equally precise, the cafe culture something more like Barcelona or Paris than the former soviet union and the range of restaurants reminding us of London. We visited the museum of the occupation of Latvia, which gives a detailed explanation of the history of the country from 1939 to 1991, chilling, intriguiging, we learnt things ... read more

As we settle into the seats on our ‘cheap as chips’ flight bound for Riga, the pilot makes his welcome-on-board announcement, ‘good morning ladies and gentlemen, today we’ll be flying over Norwich, Amsterdam then on to… Bratislava!!’ We have a bit of a laugh then consider the ramifications of actually ending up in Slovakia. So we check with the air steward who relays a message to the pilot. The second announcement comes over the loud speaker, ‘For those of you who were actually listening at this early hour of the morning, we are bound today for Riga, not Bratislava.’ Phew… With that sorted, our flight did end up flying north - not south - and a few hours later we’ve checked in at our backpackers in the centre of Riga, Latvia. When we left the UK ... read more

In Peterhof, a beautiful palace outside St. Petersburg, Russia, there are fountains that spray people when they step on stones. They appear to be random and automatic, but are in fact operated by a bored looking teenager, sitting on a bench, and pressing his foot down on a pedal. We've only seen one squirrel in the last month, in the gardens at Peterhof, St. Petersburg, and it was red! In Russia, the mullet hair cut is alive and well; I think we counted close to 25 in one day. The women in Russia are known for wearing high heeled shoes. They must have been insulted by my wearing Tevas (my "rain" shoes), because most of the women were giving me and my shoes dirty looks! We read in a guide book that they do wacky things ... read more