Sveiki

Sveiki

Hello lettland or Latvia if you prefer. I took David on a tour of the embassy and then we were going to go to museums when we were walking down the street and I was like hey Dave you want to go to Latvia? And he was like yea why not? So we went back to my apt and look up the cost of going and I make a phone call and it only costs 420 kr. Which is like about $50 for the both of us! Round trip! Super cheap.

So we book our tickets and we go to the center of Stockholm to get some Lats so we can actually buy something in Latvia (like lunch) and the guy working at the exchange place didn’t believe I was who I said I was and wrote down all of my information. Also I should mention that we went to change money at like 3:00 and we were supposed to be at the port (on the otherside of the city) at 4:00. I knew it was going to be tight…
So we get the money and we get on the subway. Unfortunately we got on the wrong train and went to the wrong station… woops I don’t ride the metro very often! But Dave was very calm about it and wasn’t even mad. Strange right?
So we finally get to the ferry and check-in and await the long cruise there. It took about 17 hours to get there.
And I found that in my haste to pack I didn’t bring anything except an extra shirt. No contact solution or case… So that was a bit of a pain, but we found an optometrist in Riga and I got solution.
We arrived at about 11:00 local time and we went to a small grocery store and got some pastries. I got 2 apple filled buns that cost .25 lats which is like 50 cents… I like Latvia
Then we went to the sights and saw churches and old buildings. Riga was founded 800 years ago by Vikings. The city itself has architecture which I can only describe as European. There are town squares and the churches are the biggest and most impressive buildings.
We went to a market which is held in old Zepplin hangers. It was really cool. You could get pretty much whatever you want there. I was tempted to buy a Russian fur hat but couldn’t find one that I liked. Markets are interesting to see, at least to me, because there is a sense of wonder. You never know what you will find there.
We went to Hesburger for lunch or as David calls it Hezbolla. As in the terrorist group. It was here we heard sveiki (or at least the first time I heard it) It is a really cool word and means hello. But it sounds so great. I will say it a lot.
We continued our adventures and visited the freedom tower which was pretty impressive. We saw this very big bridge which must be important because it is on all the postcards.
We wondered around Riga until we needed to return to the ship. We returned to the ship at about 4:30 and prepared for our trip back.
Riga is a charming little city (700,000 people) that was nice when we went, but would be even better in the Summer. The people were friendly and spoke surprisingly good English.
If given the chance I will go back
The entire way there and back and during I kept saying to Dave. Hey Dave we are going/in/went to Latvia!
There are few people that I know that would just decide hey let’s go to Latvia today and actually go with me. I am glad we went and I know Dave is too.
Hmm, where will I go next?