Rigaaaaaaaaaa

Latvia is very cold(-10 c).

24 hr. in Riga

9:30 Arrived in Riga
“Wow, this is a nice airport”

10:00 Got on bus going towards city center.
“Wow, this is a nice bus.”

10:30 Visit large statue of Vladimir Lenin
“I was expect Latvia to be a little more ... you know ... impoverished.”*

11:00 Walked around sight seeing in old city center.
Architecture in the historic center of Riga: Northern Europe, Gothic, and Modernism.
Stopping occasionally for food and coffee, and sadly yes including one Big Mac.

14:00 Decided that Riga was overrated

14:30 Found large market full of Latvian goods
Decided Latvia was better

16:00 Found ourselves in the outskirts of town away from tourist Latvia.
Decided Latvia was very cool again

16:30 Stopped in to a small dark bar for a beer.
Great place where locals were friendly, offering cheers ‘Prieka!’, and drinking glasses of strait vodka.

18:00 Went to the circus
The Riga Cirk is 108 old. It is hard to describe how cool the circus was. By modern standards this circus might seem a little pathetic, but being a small circus, ten rows of seats around a small ring, it provided a feeling for Baltic history. As a added bonus the rope dancing lady blew a kiss to ME, not Alex.

20:30 Began walk to Lido
Having marked the location of Lido on the map we began what became an expedition to dinner. After the first hundred meters the sidewalk ended and we followed the equivillant of a cow path through 12” snow, in the cold, dark night.

21:30 Arrived at Lido
Lido came highly recommended by locals for having cheap Latvian food. As it turned out it was a franchised Latvian restaurant, but still fun to see as it was huge and packed. Also a clue to the state of Latvian commerce, were 75% of economy is service driven.

23:00 Returned by bus to Center.
I would have walked, but since the bus was there…

24:00 Found fun local bar to regroup for the homestretch.

2:00 Entered club, Roxy.
Roxy was an interesting experience. Upon entering we were passed by the bouncer who was ejecting a patron and also using the opportunity to beat the guy up. No problems, we headed for the coat check.
The drink of choice for the evening was strait vodka, I dislike vodka, but when in Rome on a budget.

The dance mix constituted of the same music you can hear in every dance club the world round, top 40, but still a good time was to be had while dancing. One of my highlights for the evening was being completely blown off by “sparkly bosoms” after much dancing. Although the fact that I don’t speak Latvian or Russian, and she didn’t speak English or German might have had something to do with it.

Other points to note:
Alex was detained in the bathroom by the huge bouncer, who stole $20 from him. After hearing the story I took Alex to the bar and purchased him another vodka to drown his sorrows.

Jeremy made friends with a local who thought it was funny to continually pat him on the back. This was funny.

I did strike up one successful conversation with a girl, real confidence builder, only to be knocked back down when she told me I could go home with her for $150. I politely declined, but only after asking if she would give discounted rate to such a good looking guy.

6:30 Made it out of Roxy with our lives and with out any STDs

6:35 Alex got sick in the park
Me punching him in the stomach probably didn’t help.

6:37 Alex recovered

7:00 Caught cab
I was determined to find the bus at this time despite having no idea were to catch it. Alex insisted on the cab, and paid. I later agreed that another hour in the cold, plus possibly missing our flight was not worth $10 saved.

10:00 Said good by to Latvia as plane took of for Berlin



GPoD: Warum ist Lettland nicht arm? – Why is Latvia not broke?



*As it turns out Latvia's transitional economy recovered from the 1998 Russian crisis, largely due to the previous government's budget stringency and a gradual reorientation of exports toward EU countries, lessening Latvia's trade dependency on Russia. The majority of companies, banks, and real estate have been privatised. GDP per capita is $10,000(ppp) with a sustained growth rate of around 7% for the last four years! The high current account deficit remains a major concern. (CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia)