Walking, Dining, and Drinking in Riga Old Town

I woke up on my first morning in Riga. Well OK, it was actually 4pm. Oops.. Luckily there's enough to do at night in the city. This however, was Sunday night and I guessed the big party in Old Town would thin out earlier than Saturday. The weather was hotter than I expected, and I was sweating during the 1.5 mile walk to Old Town. I was still too shy and lazy to attempt taking public transportation.

I had a copy of "Riga: In Your Pocket", which was free at the airport. I looked at their restaurant recommendations, and chose a pizza place (funny right? After I already had pizza..) The place was called Pizza Lulū and they served New York style pizza. It was very good, especially the sauce which I found very unique compared to pizza back home.

After having pizza, I then ventured around Old Town looking for nothing in particular. There were TONS of tourists with cameras speaking many different languages. In particular I noticed large groups of Asian tourists. It was a very pleasant and calm atmosphere in Old Town during the day. With the sun out it was quite hot, but in the shade of clouds or a cafe umbrella it was really nice with a light breeze from time to time.

I decided to head for a cafe to try out the coffee! I chose Golden Coffee next to St. Peter's church. First I wandered into the church, where it seemed to cost 5 lats to tour the place. I wasn't particularly feeling religious, so I headed back to Golden Coffee instead. Here I ordered an iced coffee from a Russian waitress who was polite and helpful. I also ordered a filled crepe with blueberries, strawberries, and cream. It was delicious! The iced coffee wasn't bad, but I had a feeling that it wasn't the proper drink to order at this particular cafe. Most of the other patrons seemed to be drinking hot beverages. One interesting thing I learned was how you pay in Latvia. Instead of giving the money directly to the server, you place it into a small tray or bowl. They then take the bowl and return with your change inside the same bowl. It's considered improper to hand money directly to the server. I have made this mistake many times since my arrival, but most servers don't seem to mind or are used to tourists like myself.

Speaking of money, I'm happy to say that so far I haven't run into a situation where I was given the wrong change, or no change at all. I noticed this in Bucharest, Romania and worried that it might happen here. In Bucharest many of the servers would just "keep the change" instead of giving it back to you. It really annoyed me in Romania and I continuously had to insist on getting my change back.

From what I've seen, the service is very professional here when it comes to restaurants and cafes. However there are differences. Back in the United States a server typically "checks up" on you several times after you receive your meal. They ask if your food is OK, and ask if you would like refills on drinks. In Riga, you are only approached initially and they like to take your drink and meal order at the same time. After your drink and meal arrives, you're basically on your own. You will need to flag down the server to get a refill or desert, or even the check. Otherwise you will just end up sitting there all day. Before I realized this I sat at a pizza place waiting for the bill for 30 minutes! Finally a helpful hostess gave me some assistance. I just assumed the restaurant was busy.

After the relaxing cafe experience, I resumed my mindless walk around Old Town. I found a very interesting authentic medieval restaurant! It was in a dark underground lair, lit only by candlelight! Apparently it's extremely expensive and only for splurging, but serves authentic medieval food, whatever the hell that means. Something out of Game of Thrones I suppose? In any case, it was getting later into the evening and the tourists were starting to thin out. The locals and nightventurers showed up to replace them.

Unfortunately, I let me curiosity get the best of me as I did with the beggar the other night. While walking up and down the main walking street, I heard an older lady say "hello" as I walked by her table at an outdoor cafe. One lesson I really should have learned by that point was that people only say hello when they want something, and they're basically saying, "I know you're a foreigner" since they are speaking English instead of Latvian or Russian. Instead of ignoring her I turned around and greeted her. She was with a beautiful younger lady of about 20. I immediately knew they were both bad news, but I was just too curious to see what kind of scam they were running, so I agreed when they invited me to sit down with them. A nearby table of women stared at me intently as I entertained these two scammers. I'm sure they thought I was going to get suckered into something with the look they had on their faces.

After sitting down I first noticed that the beautiful younger woman had absolutely no interest in my presence (she was looking off into the distance as if she had better things to do). The older lady started asking me questions about what I was looking for, what I was doing in Latvia, where I was staying, etc. I just made up fake answers and tried to ask my own questions (which the older woman avoided). She wanted to know if I wanted a "massage". I'm not sure exactly what that means in Latvia, but I can think of several possibilities. Suddenly a waiter came out of nowhere and wanted to take our order. I immediately knew what this meant, and didn't intend on paying for all sort of expensive drinks and food that these two ladies were likely to order now that I was sitting there. I told the waiter that I wasn't with the ladies, and he walked away with haste, looking angry. It was interesting to me that he didn't kick them out for not buying anything. At this point I excused myself and left the table. Several hours later the two were STILL sitting there. I wonder what their scam was exactly?

The whole experience made me feel very uncomfortable, and I didn't like the idea that scammers were actively searching for foreigners to screw over. However, I'm not a complete idiot and I read about various scams being run. That's just how it is in eastern Europe and I'll have to adjust. I decided not to entertain any more scammers, and to just ignore any future "greetings" which were obviously malicious in nature.

I decided to exchange $80 USD for lats, since I had no use for dollars in Riga. I figured why carry around money that I couldn't use here? It's just a risk. I headed past Freedom Monument to a currency exchange which had a better rate than those inside Old Town. On the way I saw a very young girl who was begging and carried a sign looking for help. I headed into the currency exchange and had a less than pleasant experience. The lady working there looked like a sphinx. Her facial expression didn't change the entire time. It went from nasty to nasty. I attempted to exchange the $80 and she returned $40 still in USD. I asked her why and she pointed out extremely small imperfections in the bills. I almost laughed it was so ridiculous. However silly, apparently they are extremely strict at currency exchanges and will only accept bills in nearly perfect condition. It's like trying to put money into a vending machine! The lady gave me a little over 22 lats for the $40 she accepted. I asked if she spoke English and she just blew me off.

Since my remaining $40 USD was apparently not good enough for Riga, I gave $20 of it to the young beggar girl. She didn't speak much English, but I tried to tell her that the currency exchange wouldn't accept it. I'm sure she found a way though. You know young people... I considered that my charitable donation of the day. Around this time I decided that in the future I was only going to donate money to those actually doing something for it (such as the street performers). Giving money to straight up beggars is a bad precedent and I should really know better.

The night was almost over, but first I decided to grab a refreshing beer. I headed towards Riga Cathedral, which I believe is the giant building being repaired. It currently has scaffolding all over it. There are a few very nice summer terraces there. I stopped at a smaller bar next to the popular "No Problem" bar. After attempting to communicate with the bartender for 5 minutes straight, I ordered some kind of unfiltered and un-pastaurized beer that she recommended. Apparently that's all the rage in Riga right now. I thought that it had a weird aftertaste, but drinking it very fast minimized the issue. There was a live band playing and they were very good, doing covers of American blues music. I decided to talk to the bartender about public transportation. She was extremely nice and seemed interested in the conversation, but was not fluent in English. She called for backup, and another bartender came over. I talked to him about trams and buses for a few minutes. I was confused about what exactly a "tram" is in Latvia. Well apparently the trams are on tracks, and the trolleybusses are on wheels.

After the live band was finished, the bar decided to close up shop. They turned the lights off and it was around 2am. I headed back to my hotel and called it a night!