Post #27: Riga, Latvia
If you were taking some test and being asked which in a series of items didn’t belong, and the set of items were my destinations on this voyage, Latvia would be the clear answer. Other than the fact that my paternal grandfather (that I’d never met) lived there at some point in his life, I knew literally zero about Latvia, and it isn’t really known as a tourist destination. I really only went to meet my friend Oleh, a buddy that I hung out with a lot in the DR and had interesting conversations with at the pool. He’s a super genius, and I’m a big fan of his wife Oksana and their kids too. He is obsessed with the rioting in American cities, and he regularly warned me jokingly not to start any riots or looting in his country, and that their police wouldn’t stand for it.
While a member of the EU, I had very low expectations of Latvia, especially because it was a former territory of the USSR. I am happy to report that I was wrong, and it was actually a lively and modern city. My only problem is that their road were paved with stones as opposed to asphalt, so it was difficult to use the motorized scooters. Also, the local cuisine kinda sucked. Fortunately Oksana is a gourmet chef and was constantly preparing food like this:
I usually choose my own itinerary, but this trip was different and felt like Oleh and Oksana were my de-facto tour guides. Also, their kids were usually with us, so it may have been the most exposure that I’ve had to children since being fired as a CIT (counselor in training) when I was 13. Don’t worry, I was rehired shortly thereafter, and the kid that I had a dispute with turned out to have given me my biggest tip.
Historically I’ve actively avoided children, having never changed a diaper or babysat a child, but I found their kids to be quite pleasant in small doses. Oleh and Oksana seemed to think that my rapport with their children represented that I’m ready to have children of my own, but that’s too early to tell. While I like the concept of procreating and intend to do so at some point in the future, I’ve been exposed to so many poor examples of familial relationships, that I feel like the chances of failure are too high to consider, and I’m not willing to throw in the towel on my single life just yet. If 50% of marriages end in divorce and another 20%-30% are miserable, the chances of marriage enhancing my life seems remote. This feeling was only crystallized when I found out that my friend’s dad had just been released from prison after having murdered his wife more than a decade prior. Maybe when I’m 40.
Anyway, I rented a sweet apartment in the center of the old town, the primary downtown area of Latvia. The coolest feature of my apartment was the sauna in the bathroom and a jacuzzi, which I enjoyed a great deal.
Going into the trip, I had a list of suggestions from a client, some suggestions from my hosts and my natural travel inclinations. Obviously I’d need to sample the local market and find the best coffee prepared by a seriously tattooed barista. I crossed those off the list on the very first morning. The market was absolutely massive and I don’t think that I’d seen that much fruit and vegetables anywhere in my life. There were countless USSR-looking women with thick forearms hawking what appeared to be nearly identical fruits and vegetables. The prices were absurdly cheap, but most of them didn’t speak English and didn’t appear to be very customer service oriented. There was even one woman who was actively unpleasant to me and had a serious case of RBF (resting bitch face). I bought some cured meat from her that looked like pastrami, and attempted to pay by credit card, as I often do overseas. She gave me a dirty look, so I offered her a 10 euro bill, and I got an even uglier look as she clearly preferred a smaller denomination. I got a little annoyed, so I disrespectfully dumped the change that I had in my pocket on her counter and let her take what she wanted. I think that she may have wanted to punch me in the throat, but I wasn’t going to let this miserable person upset me. Ultimately I left the huge market with a nice haul for the apartment, and paid maybe a tenth of what they would charge at Whole Foods.
As I was walking back from the market, I passed by a heavily tattooed barista serving coffee at an outdoor table. Obviously I needed to test my theory about the relation between the level of tattoos and the quality of coffee, so I sat down. I ordered a cappuccino and a piece of apple cake, and like a bartender, he joined me for a bit and we chatted while I enjoyed his expertly prepared coffee with intricate ‘foamage’. His English was excellent, he was extremely friendly and he disagreed with my theory about tattoos and baristas. When I was about to leave, he agreed to pose for a photo for the blog. Apparently he even had some serious tattoos that were obscured by his shirt and he offered to take it off to demonstrate his level of tattoos, but I thought that a clothed picture would be sufficient. Just imagine that he had tons of hidden tattoos under his clothes.
While food was a major component of this trip, I also visited some cool spots. I really liked visiting Jumala Beach.
I also found an awesome hookah bar that makes excellent tea
Where I’m from, the Raddison is a relatively low-end hotel chain, but it seems like every hotel in Riga is a Raddison property, and the one that we went to was really cool. On my final night, Oleh took me to the SkyBar on the 26th floor of the Raddison, with sprawling views of the entire Riga. We even had a view of his apartment building outside of town, which was pretty cool. Being that it was my last night in town, I wanted to go out with a bang, so I ordered the Gold Digger, a complex cocktail with golden flakes. Wasn’t bad, but I still prefer an old fashioned from my neighbor in Queens better.
A funny interaction that I had was with someone that I met on Tinder, claiming to be a Chinese woman visiting family. She messaged me regularly, but refused to meet in person and rejected my offer to video chat with some bullshit excuses. On my last night I revealed to her that I didn’t think that she was who she claimed to be and that I found it more likely that she was an African man than an Asian woman. I ended it saying that if I’m incorrect, that I apologize, but if ‘she’ was a catfish as I’d suspected, I hoped that a car ran over a puddle and she would be drenched by the splash. Stupid, but amusing.
All in, Latvia exceeded my minimal expectations. It has a lively and developed downtown region, low taxes and several other things that I look for in places that I visit. That said, I couldn’t live there, and having visited there once is my life is probably sufficient. I’m sure that I can meet my Latvian friends in New York or somewhere in the Caribbean.
To end this post, see below for random pics that warrant inclusion, but not necessarily a write-up:
