Day 4-5 (May 6-7) Next morning we had an early star leaving by 6am. Our hotel kindly packed us a breakfast, and then we were off to Riga by coach. About a 5 hour journey. Coming into Riga it seemed quite a depressing looking city with old Soviet style buildings or older buildings that had been neglected under Soviet rule. The bus dropped us off at the bus station next to the local food market, which was outside and inside 5 large aircraft hangers. The produce looked wonderfully fresh. After settling into our hotel we headed out to get a quick [View Full Entry]

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5h30 de bus m'ont mené jusqu'a la plus grande ville des pays baltes. J'en avais déja eu un petit apercu en Lithuanie, mais ici les mannequins défilent dans les rues a un rythme étourdissant. Jamais vu ca ailleurs ! Bienvenue au pays du metre quatre-vingts, des bottines sur jambes fuselées, des déhanchés redoutables, des crinieres ondulant sous le vent et des yeux clairs sous les Gucci noires. Comme si cela ne suffisait pas, le pays compte un taux d'alcooliques, touchant avant tout les hommes, parmi les plus élevés du monde (et meme le record mondial d'inertie... 7 pour mille !!) et, [View Full Entry]

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Lativa is another place, like Estonia that has recently been freed from the soviet's (ie 1991) thanks to Boris. But almost 20 years on you can still seem the impact it had on their lives from living in egg boxes, to speak your mind got you 5 to 10 years in the hardest salt mines that can find. The museum of occupation detailing the atrocities and mass deporations that took place from 1940 when Soviets first took over from the switch to nazi Germany and persecution of the Jews and the swap back again in 1944 to the Soviets who held [View Full Entry]

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In three days I will be traveling to Latvia- the great "unknown." Most people I've informed of my trip are stuck on the country; they have no idea where this Latvia even is. I am excited to dig deep into a culture that I have never experienced before, and rub elbows with some of the locals. Stay tuned... [View Full Entry]

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Since my first week of teaching in Berlin my female American colleagues have raved about a particular spa parlor in Riga, Latvia. I've been told that flights are cheap, and the spa treatments are too. All the girls have told me that come mid-March I'll be ready for Riga, and sure enough they were right! So, a colleague and I booked tickets and we were off for a weekend. Now I'll be honest, my plan was to spend the entire weekend being rubbed, scrubbed, and pampered, but as soon as I caught a glimpse of the beautiful city center, I wanted [View Full Entry]

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And so after a very long and interrupted nights train journey (border control at 3am where we had to take all our bags through individually) we arrived in Latvia at 11. We had met a group of students studying at an international school in St Petersburg on the coach who were going for a short trip to Latvia for a couple of days - we overheard that they were staying in a youth hostel and then realised that they were probably going to the same one (about a 2minute walk from the bus station and really near the happenings of [View Full Entry]

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В Латвию на праздник Солнца стояния [View Full Entry]

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Journey's End. Germany - Prague (CZ) - Kutna Hora (CZ) - Auschwitz (POL) - Krakow (POL) - Warszawa (POL) - Kaunas (LT) - Trakai (LT) - Vilnius (LT) - Siaulai(LT) - Riga (LV) [View Full Entry]

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boy is it raining. i'm not going to say jurassic park rain, but it certainly is raining. i'm wet, we'll leave it at that. i almost said to arta before that a bit of rain never hurt anyone, but that is one untrue saying that persists in the world. rain kills millions of people every year! just ask poor old bangladesh. i suppose thats probably something that acquits to social awkwardness, but i cant help but talk about things like that. it's another little part of who i am i guess. phew, introduction out the way. i'm in riga now, but [View Full Entry]

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Thursday, July 17’Th Here I am, in the cozy lounge at Raid und Draugis hotel in Riga. Eurolines left Vilnius at 10 this morning, and it toot 4½ hour to get here. Not surprisingly my first job was to find the hotel. It’s an exellent hotel in the middle of Riga. My room is no. 37. When this was done it was time for a little lunch and a look at the city. There are more tourists here than in Vilnius. That’s especially British low-cost-tourist that’s just here to get drunk. It’s quite annoying to be honest. I walk half a [View Full Entry]

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