RIGA
so hopefully everyone has been following the other blog as well, it saves me the trouble of trying to update this every single day. latvia has not yet collapsed, but due to the absurd exchange rate that has not been revised (the lat is pegged to the euro), latvia is substantially more expensive than estonia and lithuania. so we arrived by a small van on friday afternoon, and checked into what we thought was going to be a nice hotel. we had about 30 minutes of sun shine before it started raining on us again. (i have not taken one pair of shorts out of my bag since i got to europe, it has literally been raining and cold since i got to estonia a few weeks ago) anyway our hotel is very nice, except on the third floor, which is the hostel level (this place was probably built in the 40s and the third floor definately has not been renovated since then). we are on the 3rd floor. its a very dirty place, but they have a washing machine, so today i finally got to do some laundry. it has been a gross few days since i ran out of clean clothes (actually about a week ago when i ran out). anyway friday night we went around for a little while and ended up at an indian/irish restaurant/bar. we went exploring afterwards, and finally we ended up watching a movie with a ton of people in the hostel theater area. saturday we had a walking tour in the morning and we went to the museum of soviet occupation in the afternoon. i am eventually going to write a post of all the information i have gathered on the baltics during the occupation of each country. it is unbelievable how war torn these places have been, and the injustice that occurred to these people during the occupations.last night we had a lecture and tour at the university of latvia, where we did a scavenger hunt around the university with about 15 locals students and the members of their SGA. it was a very cool experience, and we had our welcome dinner with the students afterwards. i took the picture below from the top of the university tower during the scavenger hunt. we hung out with the students for a while and eventually we all went to a bar on the 26th floor of the nicest hotel in riga (appropriately named the skybar) and hung out for a while. we pretty much slept all day today. we got to watch the tennis match this afternoon with a few people in the hostel, and i made friends with a cool german guy who has been living in russia for the past few years. it has been an exhausting weekend for us, and then we just finished watching the braves game on the internet. riga is an absolutely amazing place, caught in the turmoil of trying to be a modern city in a developing country. the city has so much to offer culturally, and i am looking forward to spending the next week experiencing it.
i hope at some point it stops raining so i can take some more pictures, but so far we have not had good luck on that end. thats about all thats going on, its back to company visits and economic lectures in the morning, followed by another crazy night of british stag parties and obnoxious russians. what more could you ask for?
also i have now been in four different countries in one week, going from finland to estonia to lithuania to latvia. pretty damn cool if you ask me.
also here is the only frank zappa statue anywhere in the world (in Vilnius)http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2000/jan/29/lithuania
that is a link that will give you some idea of why there is a frank zappa statue there, but in reality there is no good reason. i will tell you a little about the KGB museum in Vilnius. it was actually called the museum of genocide, and was located in the old KGB building. absolutely the most intense museum i have ever been in and definately one of the most eye opening places in europe. there were tons of prison cells and torture rooms in the basement, along with listening rooms, surveillance offices, and interrogation areas in the upper areas of the building. it was haunting to walk through the execution chamber and mass grave areas there, and to read about the way the soviets treated their detainees. they had a water torture room that people would be in for days at a time. i really cant describe it very well with words, but it was an unbelievable place and an absolute must see in lithuania.
i am out of internet time, and the latvian keyboard is a even more awkward than the lithuanian, so i am out. good night and good luck. (that is the only phrase i have learned in latvian, but it would be impossible for me to guess how to type it)
posted by Graham Potter @ 3:30:00 PM
