02 - A-RIGGGGGAAAAA!!!!!
For my Easter break, I went to Riga and ate nose.
MMMmmm... yep...
Also appearing here blood sausage and various other random meats.
Nose is one of those must have things in a lifetime experience (oh, I can hear your stomach churning).
Whats it like?... I nose what its like (ha pun!).
Anyway, im not telling you what its like. I have decided stubbornly that one shouldn't be told what eating a nose is like.
Ok, so this was supposed to be the first pic of this post. but meyh.
This is the freedom monument or “monument of freedom” according to the Latvians, or whatever.
Anyway, a British tourist got put in jail for 5 days for using it as a urinal a couple of months ago.
In truth there were some worries about this trip.
Bloody Luis (in the first pic) kept going on about this movie Hostel and how we will probably get killed by some crazy russins. It now occurs to me not that you only get 5 days jail for pissing on the most pride orientated thing in the city. It cant be that dangerous.
Here we have a real Latvian / Prussian (ok so we cant tell) restaurant!.
The old lady waitress was a little over friendly here... the type that sneaks up on you and talks all breathy so that you get shock and wind up breathing in said breathy... I felt a little molested after that. But the soup was good!
In the photo is all the gang. On the left is a work make of mine, a real Aussie Russian. He came here to meet his long relatives. Somehow (mostly involving vodka)... well... he needs to make another trip.
Also, on right. a real Russian Russian! we picked up her and her brother in the “business center” (please use Russian accent) which is a cupboard in the hotel that has a computer in it.
They were so cool. They were with us most of the way. But this is when we said goodbye at the train station
The photo doesn't do it justice. This was totally straight out of a soviet cold war film with the big diesel engines and the snow coming out of the darkness. My TXT message alert was recorded here to say “hello Mr Cox” in Russian James Bond girl style.
On transport, once again we see my most favorite off all the: OMG WTF Trolley-buss!... ahhh the zaniness.
actually I had this great conversation with Nathaly (a friend I made in Riga, not shown on buss) who was trying to explain to me that the latvian name for them was “trollee buuss” and that there was no English translation so she always told foreigners that they where trams... the city also has trams. OH I saw a snow plough tram!. no photos : (
Anyway, I was like “um...”. This took a lot of explanation with waving arms to explain what a trolly was and why this was actually English there was really no Latvian name for it.
Moving right along...this is Nat.
The sun came out just for this walk on the waterfront.
Girls in the Baltic regions generally look like this. All of them.
I did some extensive research in my time there, actually.
My four day study concluded that I will defiantly be going back. I will probably go to Estiona first I have some friends there too (refer other posts). I digress.
RESEARCH! ... In Sweden, the girls tend to grow old very gracefully. NOT HERE.
Here there seems to be some strange phenomenon that when some women here get to some age in the 40s there is this sound that goes “FOOMP” and you get...INSTANT BABUSHKA!
Seriously. You have no idea. There is no other possible logic for this. There is no evidence of where the Babushka ladies come from. (Actually wikipedia really helps with this one).
Speaking of architecture. Riga is famous for it.
Heres a few snapshots
They call riga “Paris of the North”. An ultra quick history lesson is that the city itself was mostly preserved during all the occupations and the “it doesn't exist anymore” periods of history.
But its now becoming a quite popular destination.
Old riga, where this was taken is a total tourist trap. (Another reason to go back and see other areas).
There are some really cool places there tho. A lot of bars and coffee shops. And then 28 star bucks ripoff shops called “double coffee”... the coffee theres actually pretty alright.
To make this confusing, this is not that coffee.
This is some vile weird coffee with like a think alcoholic like resin in it. Its like the Latvian version of jagermeister crossed with the Australian version of a rusted sheet of iron. And it wasn't cheap. But its a great pick me up. A must try, at least.
Oh and here is like the Easter Sunday festival where we got the nose. There was singing and being merry and traditional good food and trinket markets.
Riga is also famous for the enormous produce market. Its Babushka central and its all about fats and oils and cheeses and fur coats and canned fish and all things that are eaten by people who are very good at telling you how it is.
“tongue? giant heart? anyone?...” ... “no thanks I prefer nose”
The market is crazy large and is spread out so that some areas are really busy, while others a really quiet.
Did I mention its freezing?
I still find it a little odd that life goes on when it snows.
In Australia. Snow means “freak out, its the Apocalypse”. On one afternoon here it snowed like 4 inches. This photo was taken in the same area a few hours after some of the other ones.
I somehow lost my photo titles “piles of LATS” which is the currency in Latvia. If you are expecting the Euro-trip to eastern Europe where the exchange rate turns you into a king, go back to Thailand. In Latvian, LAT may as well stand for “percentage of Latvian Annual Taxable income”. The exchange rate is like 2.5. It wasn't long before I realized that the reason I had piles of lats was because the atm gave me all 5 and 20 lat notes. Because 20 lats is like $60. Whoops. Im told its all way cheap out in the burbs (or whatever is out there). But, I spent an obscene amount on this trip.
Why? it was so freaking awesome. We went to all the best places and went nuts.
This is club Essential. The place to go in Riga... according to several sources. The DJ was awesome. The scene was better than Sweden... by Double.
At some crazy hour, before sunrise we were stupid enough to leave this wonder place to try and find some more experiences of the night. We wound up in a place that was all Russian.
Example:
This is not my drink. This belonged to some Russian girl. 100mls
Its not easy to get pictures of people in clubs.
In this second club we were too afraid to go onto the dance floor. There were no guys dancing, only girls. The guys all had tables with all their drinks and bottles and smoking cigars.
We were scared shitless, It was feaken awesome. The aftermath still went something like this:
This really was the greatest weekend ever. I was laughing from the moment the plane took off, until I crashed back in Stockholm 4 days later.
Needless to say there are a lot of gaps in this reaccount. But there are some things you will have to just live for yourself.
Next trip? Who knows. Probably Prague or Tallin.
I leave you with this. Three Aussies, a Russian, Czech beer, a cuban bar in Latvia.
This photo was taken by a Bolivian from French-Canada.
Still running,
Dave
MMMmmm... yep...
Also appearing here blood sausage and various other random meats.
Nose is one of those must have things in a lifetime experience (oh, I can hear your stomach churning).
Whats it like?... I nose what its like (ha pun!).
Anyway, im not telling you what its like. I have decided stubbornly that one shouldn't be told what eating a nose is like.
Ok, so this was supposed to be the first pic of this post. but meyh.
This is the freedom monument or “monument of freedom” according to the Latvians, or whatever.
Anyway, a British tourist got put in jail for 5 days for using it as a urinal a couple of months ago.
In truth there were some worries about this trip.
Bloody Luis (in the first pic) kept going on about this movie Hostel and how we will probably get killed by some crazy russins. It now occurs to me not that you only get 5 days jail for pissing on the most pride orientated thing in the city. It cant be that dangerous.
Here we have a real Latvian / Prussian (ok so we cant tell) restaurant!.
The old lady waitress was a little over friendly here... the type that sneaks up on you and talks all breathy so that you get shock and wind up breathing in said breathy... I felt a little molested after that. But the soup was good!
In the photo is all the gang. On the left is a work make of mine, a real Aussie Russian. He came here to meet his long relatives. Somehow (mostly involving vodka)... well... he needs to make another trip.
Also, on right. a real Russian Russian! we picked up her and her brother in the “business center” (please use Russian accent) which is a cupboard in the hotel that has a computer in it.
They were so cool. They were with us most of the way. But this is when we said goodbye at the train station
The photo doesn't do it justice. This was totally straight out of a soviet cold war film with the big diesel engines and the snow coming out of the darkness. My TXT message alert was recorded here to say “hello Mr Cox” in Russian James Bond girl style.
On transport, once again we see my most favorite off all the: OMG WTF Trolley-buss!... ahhh the zaniness.
actually I had this great conversation with Nathaly (a friend I made in Riga, not shown on buss) who was trying to explain to me that the latvian name for them was “trollee buuss” and that there was no English translation so she always told foreigners that they where trams... the city also has trams. OH I saw a snow plough tram!. no photos : (
Anyway, I was like “um...”. This took a lot of explanation with waving arms to explain what a trolly was and why this was actually English there was really no Latvian name for it.
Moving right along...this is Nat.
The sun came out just for this walk on the waterfront.
Girls in the Baltic regions generally look like this. All of them.
I did some extensive research in my time there, actually.
My four day study concluded that I will defiantly be going back. I will probably go to Estiona first I have some friends there too (refer other posts). I digress.
RESEARCH! ... In Sweden, the girls tend to grow old very gracefully. NOT HERE.
Here there seems to be some strange phenomenon that when some women here get to some age in the 40s there is this sound that goes “FOOMP” and you get...INSTANT BABUSHKA!
Seriously. You have no idea. There is no other possible logic for this. There is no evidence of where the Babushka ladies come from. (Actually wikipedia really helps with this one).
Speaking of architecture. Riga is famous for it.
Heres a few snapshots
They call riga “Paris of the North”. An ultra quick history lesson is that the city itself was mostly preserved during all the occupations and the “it doesn't exist anymore” periods of history.
But its now becoming a quite popular destination.
Old riga, where this was taken is a total tourist trap. (Another reason to go back and see other areas).
There are some really cool places there tho. A lot of bars and coffee shops. And then 28 star bucks ripoff shops called “double coffee”... the coffee theres actually pretty alright.
To make this confusing, this is not that coffee.
This is some vile weird coffee with like a think alcoholic like resin in it. Its like the Latvian version of jagermeister crossed with the Australian version of a rusted sheet of iron. And it wasn't cheap. But its a great pick me up. A must try, at least.
Oh and here is like the Easter Sunday festival where we got the nose. There was singing and being merry and traditional good food and trinket markets.
Riga is also famous for the enormous produce market. Its Babushka central and its all about fats and oils and cheeses and fur coats and canned fish and all things that are eaten by people who are very good at telling you how it is.
“tongue? giant heart? anyone?...” ... “no thanks I prefer nose”
The market is crazy large and is spread out so that some areas are really busy, while others a really quiet.
Did I mention its freezing?
I still find it a little odd that life goes on when it snows.
In Australia. Snow means “freak out, its the Apocalypse”. On one afternoon here it snowed like 4 inches. This photo was taken in the same area a few hours after some of the other ones.
I somehow lost my photo titles “piles of LATS” which is the currency in Latvia. If you are expecting the Euro-trip to eastern Europe where the exchange rate turns you into a king, go back to Thailand. In Latvian, LAT may as well stand for “percentage of Latvian Annual Taxable income”. The exchange rate is like 2.5. It wasn't long before I realized that the reason I had piles of lats was because the atm gave me all 5 and 20 lat notes. Because 20 lats is like $60. Whoops. Im told its all way cheap out in the burbs (or whatever is out there). But, I spent an obscene amount on this trip.
Why? it was so freaking awesome. We went to all the best places and went nuts.
This is club Essential. The place to go in Riga... according to several sources. The DJ was awesome. The scene was better than Sweden... by Double.
At some crazy hour, before sunrise we were stupid enough to leave this wonder place to try and find some more experiences of the night. We wound up in a place that was all Russian.
Example:
This is not my drink. This belonged to some Russian girl. 100mls
Its not easy to get pictures of people in clubs.
In this second club we were too afraid to go onto the dance floor. There were no guys dancing, only girls. The guys all had tables with all their drinks and bottles and smoking cigars.
We were scared shitless, It was feaken awesome. The aftermath still went something like this:
This really was the greatest weekend ever. I was laughing from the moment the plane took off, until I crashed back in Stockholm 4 days later.
Needless to say there are a lot of gaps in this reaccount. But there are some things you will have to just live for yourself.
Next trip? Who knows. Probably Prague or Tallin.
I leave you with this. Three Aussies, a Russian, Czech beer, a cuban bar in Latvia.
This photo was taken by a Bolivian from French-Canada.
Still running,
Dave