Latvia-Riga

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A quick visit to Riga

This morning I woke up at 5:30 and headed out, in pitch darkness, to the bus station (I'm amazing with directions when I'm alone!). I bought a ticket for the 6:30 bus to Riga, and I was a little concerned that I felt a bit "crook" (as David would say), but there was a bathroom on the bus, which I didn't end up using but it put my mind at ease.

The ride took about 4 hours and I slept a good chunk of it. I arrived in Riga at 10:30 and decided to catch the 12:30 bus out of town, so I could at least say I spent 2 hours in Latvia.

I think Riga gets a bit of a bad rap: it wasn't much to look at, but it seemed sweet.

I needed some healthy food, so I ventured into a huge market behind the bus station. I bought 2 bananas (which I ate immediately), and a box of raspberries, which kept me happy on the bus ride to Vilnius. I had exchanged 400EEK and received only 18 Latvian-whatever-the-currency-is-called, which I thought was a bit of a rip-off until I realized that things only cost .30 or so. I twas another case of trying really hard to spend a little bit of money!

So I wandered around the old town, saw (and petted) the fluffy alley cats I'd read about, saw the once-forbidden Freedom Monument, stopped for a much-needed and sought-after chicken noodle soup in an empty Italian restaurants (with cute waites and Ramazotti on TV), then bought a piece of cake, a water and some Marlboro Lights, and that was my time in Riga. Not all bad, but I'm damn happy that I didn't have a whole day and night there because I think I would've been pretty bored. I pretty much did everything I'd wanted to do in 2 hours!

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