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October 20th 2008
Published: October 20th 2008
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Autum has arrived here in Latvia now and the change of secnery is fantastic exp in the town of Sigulda where it is the 'extreme sports' capital of Latvia.
First though I arrived in Riga from Estonia and meet up with my host in the city and back to her place to have a quick chat, then out for a massive meal then heading out. She was working at a club in the city so that was perfect for me knowing someone behind the bar always helps. Also I got to meet up with a friend from Ireland that I had meet 18 months ago and it is always fantastic to catch up with people that you have meet on your travels again.
Next night in Riga just happened to be my hosts birthday party at her place and what a party it turned out to be! Friends come around with bottles of vodka, remember over here vodka is cheaper than water, so we were all on way to having a big night and 7am was the time home for the second day in a row but we had planned to go for a day trip to Sigulda so a couple of hours sleep andup soon finding ourselves on a train heading to the country. It was a Sunday and Autum in Sigulda is very nice so it seemed all of Latvia had the same idea as us and was going to the town. The sun was out though and it was a really really nice afternoon to be relaxing on the grass trying to put down some food. There are some very interesting caves to be found there as well so they were good to have a look in when the crowd thinned out a little.

After three nights in Riga I headed back to Sigulda to try some mountain bike riding and that was real fun, it was during the week as well so no one else around and could spend as long as I wanted on the track. I didn't realise the other day when here that there are several castles dotted around the area and having the bike made life heaps easier getting around. It was such a fantastic day out, quite, forests and no people was what I needed. The family that I was staying with whilst there were fantastic, the parents could not speak
KulingaKulingaKulinga

Longets waterfall in Europe
a word of english so that fun trying to cominicate to them but the kids were fine. The bonus about this place was the home cooking, my god could she cook! Traditional Latvian food best! Meat meat and more meat! Also in the supermarkets they have cooked up roast pork, beer or chicken for 1 Aus dollar for a massive slab of it, I was just living of that whilst there!
I have another example of how crazy things can get when backpacking and meeting new people, the two children of the family and I went bowling and had a couple of beers then next thing we knew (on a Wednesday) we were in a friends car having a crawl around Sigulda (population 4000) and finished up back at there place with some bottles of red wine which was a massive mastake! The head the next day was really bad! So two nights in Sigulda were up and it was a fantastic place exp this time of year!

I decided to head back to riga for another three nights next but made a samll detour to Kulinga and this town really spooked me. It was just creep with all
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These guys were awsome at chess! So so quick to play!
the old buildings there, the ones of timber that have not had a paint job for 200 odd years and the wind blowing the window shutters open and closed. But in this place is the widest waterfall in Europe at 240 meters across I think. It has only a drop of 1 meter but still it is the longest though.. So I was here for about 5 hours I think and that was enough to have a good look around and hop on the bus back to Riga.

So this time in Riga, not like the other three days here I actually looked at some sights around the town and the old town is magnificant. All the old town area in the citys I have seen are really good but this place sticks out quite abit from the rest, really nice it is. Of course I just happened to be here on a Friday night beofre I had to leave so we went to a short film festival on a boat first with my hosts and the guy from Sigulda who I had the pub crawl came along as well. Well in the end, same old story, to much vodka and beer but the short film festival was great! Each country who entered got to show one and the Australian film was funny as, about zombies taking over the earth and kids going around blowing them all up with what ever they could use, typical Aussie!


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Riga

Birthday party, drinking, games then clubs made for a fun night!!


21st October 2008

Place to come back :)
Isn't Latvia nice? :) Reading your blog I'm happy that I could host you and you spent so many days here! There are still lot of beautifull places around us you didn't see and lot of things you didn't do- but let's keep it till your next visit! :) Who knows- before or after we gonna meet in Tasmania!
6th January 2010

web royalty
It's really a good posting. I like it. It's pretty much impressive to me. i think others will agree with me. Good Luck. ;) webroyalty

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