Riga Old City on Saturday

Drinking a cheap variety of vodka can cause quite a hangover if you're not careful, so let's just say I wasn't very careful last night. After my first week in Riga I wasn't in such a great mood and I decided to drink myself into a stupor before going to sleep. This isn't typical behavior for me, but I also wanted to try the local varieties of vodka. Of course since I still haven't met any locals who are willing to talk to me for more than 5 seconds, who knows if the variety of vodka I selected was popular. It was cheap I can tell you that much! In any case, I felt terrible upon waking up today, and decided to sit around eating chips and drinking water for a few hours. Housekeeping came-a-knocking since I had forgotten to put the privacy sign up. Amazingly the lady from housekeeping was actually polite and nice when I answered half asleep. Wow, I wonder what country she is from? Could she be Latvian or Russian? Is it possible?

After a few hours of watching Olympic reruns on TV, I finally decided to head out to Riga Old City to see what was going on during this fine Saturday afternoon. To my surprise it was even colder out today! Below 60f, and even with my jacket on I was cold. It was cloudy and looked a little like rain. I'm not at all complaining, since back home it's probably 100f. It's still humid here at 80% though, which I'm not a big fan of. Well you can't have everything..

I decided that today I was going to just have a huge meal, and not think about anything else. I wasn't in the mood to try to strike up a conversation with the bitter and icy locals. So I headed to Pizza Malibu, where I ordered a large pizza which comes with a free .5 liter Coke. The waitress didn't speak very good english this time, and she kept jumping ahead of me in the conversation, which was really annoying. I couldn't finish a sentence without her trying to "guess" what I was saying, and it was never close to what I was trying to say. Finally I got my order in and she brought out a .25 liter Coke. Hmmmm, what was this about? I asked why I had not gotten a .5 liter Coke, and she told me they did not have any left. I felt a little ripped off, but her english was so poor I eventually gave up trying to work something out.

The pizza was decent but nothing spectacular, as it had been on previous visits. I was really thirsty but didn't want to get ripped off ordering small .25 liter Cokes or the even more expensive bottled water! I have found that the best way to get a large drink at a decent price is to order tea. They usually make a good amount in a pot, for multiple servings. The price is about the same as a Coke so you get a lot more to drink. The tea is also decent here, especially if you can get a herbal tea. My check came to 9.5 lats with the huge pizza and extra tea, so I left 10 lats. At about $18, this isn't a steal, but it's not a terrible price for a city either.

Riga Old Town is certainly a tourist trap, and the prices are higher than you would expect for a country like Latvia. You can get incredibly cheap airfare and hotel stays, but when it comes to restaurants it seems like you're paying the same amount or more than you would back home! However there are exceptions, such as some of the bistros around Riga Old City. By now I should really know better than to go to the obvious tourist trap restaurants. Sometimes though, you just want what's familiar and I've been to Pizza Malibu several times already.

With the weather being about as chilly as the Latvian people themselves, Old Town was less busy than last Saturday. The basketball event was finally going on, so the area around Freedom Monument was active with a basketball tournament, DJ, and a loud announcer doing play-by-play for all of it. I personally found the event annoying. Old Town has a certain quiet charm, and the event ruined the atmosphere. Opera Singing Man intelligently picked out a location on the other side of Old Town, near the holocaust museum. As usual I gave him my donation for the day.

Since I'd arrived so late in Riga Old Town today, I decided to stay later into the evening, until almost the last tram traveled back to my hotel. While walking up and down the busiest walking street, I saw a tourist who had been tricked into taking one of the annoying "taxi carts". Although this is a legit business, the rates are very high and many unsuspecting tourists are tricked into paying high amounts as they are carted around Old Town. This tourist was speaking fluent english without a foreign accent, so I assumed he was American. He had an eccentric look going on, with a large white safari hat and a diamond earring. Later on I saw him walking by the Double Coffee by St. Peter's Church, where I was enjoying a cappuccino. I asked if he had been ripped off by the taxi cart service. He smiled and sheepishly told me that they'd charged him 6 lats. Yep not exactly a small price for being carted around for 2 minutes.

I will refer to my new friend as "Whitehat", since I cannot recall his name. I  learned that Whitehat was Cantonese, and from Hong Kong! Amazingly he spoke perfect english with an accent that seemed American to me. He was traveling around Europe a bit, and was previously adventuring in Sweden and Finland. Whitehat didn't seem particularly impressed with any of these countries, and agreed with me about the locals being cold and distant. We talked about the various negative experiences we both had with Latvians and Russians. I was starting to feel much better, having met somebody else who felt the same way I did! Whitehat told me that Sweden and Finland were similar, and that the locals there were polite but generally not interesting to talk to. I wasn't happy to hear that, since I had previously heard that Sweden was a great place to talk to people.

Whitehat decided to order a hot chocolate, but in Latvia this is a far different drink! I don't even know if you can call it a drink. They essentially bring you melted chocolate, as if they put a chocolate bar into a microwave! It was hilarious to me watching whitehat attempt to drink his hot chocolate. He needed a spoon to eat it instead. While whitehat and I sat together, multiple beggars approached us. Unlike most beggars, they were very persistent. One man was apparently deaf and gave us a card asking for money. Following my new rules of Riga, I ignored both beggars until they finally went away. The deaf man was very unhappy and cursed at us as he walked away. Beggars are just a reality in Riga, but they become annoying very quickly if you stick around the city. I now choose to donate my money to the street performers instead. There were some very interesting girls today who were swinging around ropes of fire. It looked dangerous!

After our good conversation at the cafe, Whitehat decided to head back to his hotel. He was interested in the nightclubs, but I warned him about all the scams here. I was having a decent evening and didn't want to ruin it by getting scammed for $200 at a nightclub. I would still like to meet a local before attempting to visit any clubs in Riga. Head into the wrong club here, and you'll be mugged by bouncers for hundreds of dollars! They will even force you to take money out of an ATM! The police don't care or pay attention, since the scams are run by the local mafia. In other words, if you get scammed here you're screwed!

Before the night was over, I walked around Old Town for a while and did some people watching. One interesting thing you notice is the bachelor party groups, or stag parties. You will see a bunch of rowdy and drunk men with matching t-shirts looking for trouble. I'm sure the local are not amused by it, but Riga has become a popular destination for such groups. Late at night in general you will notice some shady characters around. Who knows what they're up to, or what scam they might be involved in? With all the tourists around it's just expected I guess. Personally, I feel safer leaving Old Town before it gets too late at night.