Latvia

I bet Pancakes will LOVE this photo of himself.

The border crossing into Latvia was so easy. We literally drove across and that was it, none of the drama of getting out of Russia and into Estonia. We did the proper count of Ian’s countries on the way back from Helsinki, and Latvia was number 100 for him. He has managed to collect the nickname Pancakes while we’ve been on tour, because when we were in St Petersburg he wanted pancakes with strawberry jam for dessert, and even though they had pancakes on the menu as a starter, the waitress refused point blank to even ask the kitchen if they could do what he wanted. So apparently he argued it for ages with the waitress, then got in a funk and wouldn’t talk to anyone at the table for an hour. So Pancakes it is. We haven’t quite figured out what we can call Julie to match him, but Jam or Mrs Pancakes work quite well in the meantime. Anyway, so when we crossed the border into Latvia, we all sang, really loudly and reasonably tunefully, Happy Pancakes Day (to the tune of Happy Birthday) to Ian. On the public bus. There were people up the front with their arms in the air, cheering. Who knows if they understood.

Riga, the Latvian capital, was really really interesting. We went for our usual orientation walk when we arrived at 330 or 4pm, through the old town, which was really pretty.

I kind of thought there wasn’t too much to see, so we didn’t rush out of bed the next morning. When we did bother to get up, I went with Kat to see what was reportedly a really big organ (hahahaha) in the Doma. Unfortunately the cathedral was being worked on and was mostly behind scaffolding. Fortunately we could still get inside, and we’d picked our time perfectly and arrived 20min before an organ concert that we hadn’t known about, which was only 5 Lats to see (which is like €7). Unfortunately when we walked into the cathedral we couldn’t actually see the organ, and we spent the next ten minutes walking around to try and find it. Fortunately when the concert started it was pretty unmissable. The organ was actually right above the door we’d come in through, and they’d put scaffolding up all around it and taken some of the pipes down. The concert was only 20min long and was really cool. That organ could just about blow you across the room, it was powerful when it really got going.

Being Monday, there were only three or four museums open, but I really only wanted to see one of them, the Occupation of Latvia museum. It was excellent. It covered from before WWII until 1991, from when they were first taken over by Russia, through the German occupation, until the end of the time they were under Soviet rule. It was a hell of a lot of reading, and we were there for at least an hour and a half, but it was so interesting. I didn’t really have any idea that Latvia only regained their independence 20 years ago, or what it would’ve been like to live under Soviet rule. It was pretty shocking stuff. It’s amazing to think that Russia could just come in and force them to hand over the ruling of their own independent country, but that’s basically what they did. It’s also amazing that when the Germans took the territory from Russia in WWII, Latvians all celebrated with the German soldiers because they thought they’d been liberated. Imagine the come-down when you realised what was actually on the cards. I am certainly having my eyes opened on this trip.

When I finally finished reading everything in the museum (Kat was sitting reading her book by that stage), we went to see the zeppelin hangars!! Sadly there aren’t any zeppelins there anymore, it’s now a great big market, which was pretty cool in itself. I bought a big container of raspberries for 1 Lat. Once I’d eaten half of them I realised the bottom half were all mouldy, but I still felt like I’d had pretty good value by then. Luckily…!

Apparently, somewhere behind the zeppelin hangars, the old Jewish ghetto is still there, which after seeing the museum I was really interested in. I’d only overheard someone talking about it though, so we couldn’t pin down where it was. That was a real shame. Ian found it, but by the time we talked to him, we were out of time.

We also went Ruski spotting.  Amanda and Steve are having a very, very bad influence on us. We’re not very good at it because we don’t see them until they’re right in front of us, and then it’s really obvious and pretty rude if you take a photo of them...

That evening, Amanda organised the crew (Kat, Adrian, Steve, Amanda, Pancakes and Julie) to the Sky Bar, which was on the 26th floor of the Radisson Blu Hotel and had panoramic views of the city and really good cocktails (and cheap… loving Eastern Europe!!).  Amanda is an excellent person to have around.  She's very funny and open and off the wall and easy to chat to, and she spends lots of time on Trip Advisor finding interesting things to do and places to go, and then organising the group of us to go.  She and Steve have been travelling all over the place for about five months now, and this is their last tour before they have to go home and get real jobs.  Hahaha...  I mean, ohh, that sucks.  The two of them balance each other perfectly, Steve is softly spoken and calm and lovely, and able to deal with Amanda's very very high energy levels without getting wound up.  He's just taken to calling me Lozza.

At least Pancakes wasn't alone on the concrete in the middle of Riga.

Amanda's feet, surrounded by Kat's feet, Adrian's feet, Steve's feet, Jane's feet,

and potentially Sue's feet.

After the Sky Bar we found a steak house for dinner, which was exactly what we’d all been wanting. The steaks were goooooood.

Then we went home to bed. That was goooooooood too.  Sleeping's a very well-respected activity around here.