We checked into our hostel in Riga, which was run by some extremely laid-back (yet talkative) folk who never seemed to sleep. But they were nice, and let us use their personal laptop to try to look up some bus schedules. They also ran a small pub in the bottom of the hostel, which made trying to figure out the Polish bus system slightly more enjoyable.
The signs of former communism were much more apparent in Latvia than they had been in Estonia.
But Riga has a beautiful Old Town and a lot of things going on. It's known as the "Paris of the north" (not to be confused with Asheville, which is the "Paris of the south"). It has a really good food scene, and there was a yoga studio in the building across the street from our hostel. But even so, we did notice that the quality of the toilet paper decline from what was in Estonia, and we soon learned it would just get rougher and less white the further south/east we went. And it actually seemed to be a pretty reliable incicator of the economic situation/standard of living for each place we visited. It became one of the first things we'd comment on, "what's the quality of toilet paper in this town?"
My hat and scarf hanging jauntily while we eat breakfast.
Old Town
New Town
T.G.I. Friday's
Crossing the frozen Daugava River
But by far, the highlight of our time in Latvia happened during our last hours there. We learned from our trusty Lonely Planet Guide that on the outskirts of town, there is an old Soviet nuclear fallout shelter. And in this fallout shelter in Latvia, you can pay by the bullet to shoot AK-47 Kalashnikovs. And really, how often do you get a chance to do that?
This is all you could see of the underground fallout shelter from the outside. And the entrance to it was just a little shed in the parking lot of a gas station.
We had to go all the way down into it before we even found another person. It was pretty intimidating.
Me with the guy who ran the place
You know, just shooting an AK-47 in a Soviet fallout shelter. (I was a pretty good shot, btw)
So that there was pretty much Latvia.
Kesi shooting an AK47 in Latvia. Never saw that coming
ReplyDeleteKesi, I feel like the fact you are not wearing gloves in any of these pictures is strong evidence of your acclimation to cold. Way to be all super-northern!
ReplyDeleteI like the comments about the TP. By that standard, Uzbekistan might have the worst. It was sort of like crepe paper but the color of newspaper. Some people just used newspaper instead. The Philippines by contrast, tp is pretty good. No toilet seats, but good tp.
ReplyDelete