Riga First Impressions and Old Town Adventure

After arriving in Riga, the first thing I noticed was the air. It smelled fresh and clean, with a slight ocean-like scent. The sky was clear and it was (thank god) about 15 degrees cooler than back home! I'm not particularly a huge fan of hot weather, and that was part of the reason that I picked a country further north in Europe to visit.

The second thing I noticed were the women. I immediately recognized that there were a lot of beautiful and sophisticated women around. I suppose that's true in any city, but it seemed more prevalent in Riga. Additionally, I didn't even detect a hint of the obesity that is so common back where I'm from in the United States. In fact, at the time of this writing (2nd day here) I have only noticed ONE obese person even though I've crossed paths with several thousand.

After the painless shuttle ride to my hotel, I checked in. Nothing out of the ordinary there. It was very much like checking into a hotel anywhere. I was given an electronic key, and the wifi password which was laughably simple and obvious. I guess they're not big on wireless security here. I did a good amount of research before picking my hotel, using expedia.com and traveladvisor.com. Here I searched through many reviews on the hotels and compared prices. As I talked about in my first post, the city is extremely affordable. In fact my trip here will cost less than many trips in the United States, even with the pricey airfare!

My room was very simplistic yet elegant. I really liked the efficient design, without any bells and whistles. It was also extremely clean. One interesting feature was the power to the room. It would only work when you put your electronic card into a special slot! Of course you need to take the card out to leave the room.. This is a brilliant way to conserve on energy for the hotel. Personally I would have left the AC on 24/7, so good for them. With the ridiculously good rate I got on the hotel, I imagine they don't have a huge profit margin. The bathroom was modern and everything I expected so no problems there. The power adapters were European style (UK I believe?) They have two round prongs and a lower "dummy" plastic prong. 220 volts. I brought along a power adapter so that I could plug in my iPad and iPhone charger.

I was excited and immediately wanted to go out and explore the city. I wandered around a few blocks in each direction just to feel out the area. It seemed pretty residential and quiet. I wanted to feel out the locals as well, to see how friendly or hostile they were. It was pretty typical of a city environment. People mostly avoided eye contact and minded their own business. I did get some strange looks from people, which I assume is due to me being a foreigner. After adventuring around the local area, I decided to walk to Old Town, to see what was going on.

Old Town is a popular touristy, architecturally impressive area of the city. The walk took longer than I expected, but there was a nice scenic bridge to cross. The river was beautiful and looked pretty clean. There was also a nice sunset going on (the very early stages). Currently in Riga it gets dark only at around 10pm. It gets light at somewhere around 4-5am. They have very long days being in the north! During my walk I noticed a few interesting things. When you want to cross a road, they sometimes have a special pedestrian traffic light. Common sense would suggest that when this light is green, you cross the road. In reality however, the green light only seems to suggest that it "might" be safer to cross the road than when it's red. I found this hilarious, because the pedestrians mostly obey the walking light, unlike people in the states, where they just cross when an opening is found. However, even after this pedestrial light turned green, I saw cars zooming through trying to play pinball with pedestrians. Well I'm just happy I learned by observation instead of personally experiencing this via a BMW grill in the face.

After crossing the nice bridge, I arrived in Old Town! All of a sudden I saw hundreds of people walking around an architecturally impressive area. This seemed to be where the party was at! It was around 7pm on Saturday night. I wandered around for a few hours to feel out the area. It seemed very cultural to me. Live entertainers setup shop and played instruments, or did dances in the streets, and one man even sung opera style. They were all very skilled in their arts. Restaurants, cafes, and bars littered the area. I noticed that a lot of restaurants served brick-oven style pizza with a variety of toppings. At the cafes, most people seemed to be drinking a light beer. There were many outdoor terraces with plenty of people enjoying the cool evening. The entire area of Old Town seems to have a cobblestone ground, which is very authentic looking. Not so friendly though towards the many women wearing sexy high heels. The only cars passing through Old Town are police and occasionally a taxi.

After a few hours of walking around, I determined that "Kaļķu iela" was the main road for pedestrians, extending from the Stone bridge, across Old Town, and almost reaching Freedom Monument. There are many smaller roads branching off, but at night it doesn't always look safe to walk down them (being a foreigner anyway), due to darknes and a lack of people. I chose a restaurant called Pizza Malibu on Kaļķu iela which served impressive looking brick-oven pizza. However, first I needed some Latvian money! Luckily their money system is pretty simple, and the coins/bills (called "Lats") are clearly marked. I already knew from my online research that the exchanges in Old Town are a ripoff (and there are a ton of them in the area). Instead, the best option seemed to be pulling their currency directly from an ATM. Finding an ATM in Old Town was difficult for me, so I asked a hostess at a restaurant. She was helpful and pointed me in the right direction, while also agreeing about the currency exchanges being a ripoff.

I do recommend finding an ATM that has a special locked room. You slide your card outside which unlocks the door, then walk in and it locks behind you. There are plenty of ATM scams out there, and some of them are pretty sophisticated and scary. Also, some banks will not support your foreign bank card. You might have to look around a bit. I pulled out 50 lats at the ATM (equivalent to about $90). I checked my online bank status today and saw that I got the exact exchange rate, with only an 89 cent fee! Not bad at all. That's only about a 1% fee. I headed back to Pizza Malibu and ordered my first Latvian beer, Tērvetes. It's a lighter beer, and I was impressed even though I am not particularly a beer person. The price was around $5. The pizza I ordered was around $7 for the medium size. The waitress was very helpful and this was my first experience talking to a Latvian person. Her English was fair, but I had a lot of trouble communicating with her. In her defense, I talk very fast in English and need to slow down when talking to others who aren't fluent. I don't suppose Latvians are incredibly familiar with a Philadelphia accent either.

The pizza came, which had ham, olives, and some other vegetables. It was not bad, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed. It just seemed too plain to me. Of course I pretty much ordered the first pizza on the menu. The more interesting story was the company around me. Immediately after sitting down six younger women were seated next to me, and they had on some very interesting "dancing" costumes. They had been doing some kind of performance on the street, and were taking a break. I did not attempt to talk to them as I was still feeling out the environment. I admit I'm too shy for my own good, which is something I'll need to work on here in Riga. I saw them order some drinks including a "sex on the beach", which seems to be popular here at bars. Later they ordered a few pizzas. One thing I noticed is that people stay around far longer than their American counterparts, in regards to cafes and restaurants. I expected this, and Europeans seem to be more into the culture, while Americans just want to eat and leave. A lot of people smoke as well, although Riga has a no smoking policy at most restaurants (I guess they are required to have "smoking areas" at least).

After getting a second beer I realized I was a LOT more intoxicated than I expected. Not only was the beer fairly strong, but I hadn't eaten anything substantial in almost two days. This combination led to an interesting experience. After paying for my meal, I was even having trouble walking straight. So there I was, my first day in a faraway country, smashed and walking around Old Town by myself at 10pm. I decided I needed some caffeine to interact with the alcohol, so I looked around for a cafe. Interestingly, they have a McDonalds here, although it is named "McCafe". Right.. Anyway McDonalds had $2 cappuccinos, so I ordered one of those. It comes with a few sugar packets and was pretty much what I expected. Not bad but nothing spectacular either. McDonalds had a "walk through" which I found humorous, since cars aren't generally allowed in the area.

After my cappuccino, I decided that it was time to wrap the night up. However, upon leaving Old City I saw so many folks walking around that I felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hang around and do some people watching! Unfortunately this led to my first negative experience in Riga, and certainly not my last. See my next blog post to read about the rest of the night!