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Published: November 11th 2011
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Well it's back to the original plan after the little diversion. It was a bit of an Amazing Race sprint to get here though. Wanting to maximise the time in Rome and not overnight in Istanbul I had booked a flight back from Rome that had a little bit of a tight connection time. I had a vague hope that they would be able to check my bag all the way through as I was flying with partner airlines, very distant partner airlines as it turns out. With that plan scrapped it was the mad dash from arrivals through to departures via two lots of immigration. As tends to happen when you're in a hurry, the planets don't always align as good as they should. Turkey being Turkey there will be no going to the front of the queue at Immigration. Then your baggage carousel will be the furthermost one away from anything including the exit. Your checkin counter will then be at the other end of the terminal right above where you collected your bag, but you can make it in time. Then it's back through Immigration again and sprint down to the gate which is conveniently located down the
opposite end of the terminal.
But it all ended well and on the plane to Riga it is, after about four "oh I'm not going to make the flight statements". Got to say Riga is impressive for a nation with only a couple of million people. Over the years they have had a bit of turmoil with a couple of wars, a revolution or two and independence from the former Soviet Union. The old town is well and truly up there as far as those that I've seen. Very easy to get around and they have a currency that makes you think you're not paying much for anything (until you remember you need to double what you've paid). Fortunately the hostel that I chose in the old part of town was a magical little find. It's sister hostel is more of a party place whereas Blue Cow is a nice chilled place. Add to that a nice little restaurant downstairs and all is well. Having the private room on the top floor also made it very bearable indeed. The room was huge, bigger than my lounge and dining room combined, none of this six bunks in a closet here.
Elton John
Not bad seats really One of the things that I didn't realise when I was booking this part of the trip was that Elton John was playing in Riga. Fortunately the hostel had Marika who went well and truly out of her way to get a ticket for me. It seems that online booking system here only works if you have a local back account, if you want to print your ticket that is. Normally buying a ticket the day of a show means that they give you a parachute when you walk in. Not the case here, I managed to get a seat just to the left of stage close enough to be able to hit Elton in the back of the head with an empty wine glass if I wanted. I must say it is a bit refined feeling sitting watching Elton whilst you sip on a not too shabby French red.
Riga unfortunately due to cheap airfares has an influx of Bucks weekends, the upside of this is that there's some pretty cool activities that you can do. Having seen Cool Runnings a couple of times I was keen to try out bobsledding. Unfortunately when I arrived the season
hadn't opened yet and my chance to go "Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time!" may have faded into the do it another day box. But as luck would have it they opened the season the day before I was due to leave. So bobsledding here I come, there's a few options when you go out to the track. There's the four man one just like on Cool Runnings where the understated guy up the front drives and you bounce around in the back for 50 seconds having a force of 4G applied to you as you go flying down the track at over 100 km/h. I've got a couple of bruises to prove that one was fun. Unfortunately they don't send you down the full Olympic length track, but it's still a buzz. Then there's the front first in what looks like Sponge Bob square pants where you slide down the track at a more sedate pace of 80 km/h. The beauty of this one is you get to see all the curves as they are coming at you, very cool.
Dining out in Riga is a cheap and enjoyable experience, the restaurant
downstairs didn't stop impressing. Although that weird thing they do with the paper place mat and the dips hopefully won't catch on. While they had some delicious mains, accompanying everything with a jacket potato did detract from the standard a little. But the food and the desserts were still pretty impressive. The staff were very attentive and by the third visit treating me like I was a regular. Another good find was a wine bar just up from the Opera House. A few nice drops by the glass and yummo food to boot.
Then there was the bar just down the road where the veal ragu was quite tasty and the conversation with the Russian even more so. As he sat there in his outfit that had a bit of gold braid on the epaulettes I thought that this guy must be a ship's captain who had dropped in for a spot of lunch. Well if you think that a beer, glass of vodka and a coffee all drunk simultaneously is lunch that is. Turns out he was trying to set up a helicopter company in Latvia flying Mi8's that he had. All he needed was a country that
Aircraft museum
Right beside the airport there's some of the finest ex-USSR hardware. Didn't get a chance to have a proper look, but it looks impressive. would allow him to put them on the Civil register. He thought Australia might allow it, although if you have a look on the web, I'm guessing there wouldn't be much call for something the size of the Mi8. But what do I know about the aviation industry. Hopefully he wasn't off back out to the airfield to fly off to his next destination after lunch.
Next stop the chocolate box town.
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