Friday, August 10, 2012

Riga Walking Tour and More Icy Locals

Today's fun began with the "Riga Free Tour" which explores areas of the city outside of Old Town. This excellent tour is free, and today the tour guide was Eņģelis (pronounced like Los "Angelos"). Eņģelis did an excellent job, despite having an extremely large group of 30+ people. He said that the tour is intended to be more intimate, and that they usually have multiple tour guides for such a large group. The tour began at 12pm in front of St. Peter's Church. These tours take place everyday and you can find them by looking for a yellow suitcase.

I was excited about the tour because until that point I had mostly stayed within the confines of Riga Old Town, and I wanted to do some more exploring. We were taken to sites such as the central market, train station, and a large city park. Eņģelis poked fun at the more typical and boring Old Town tours. There were people from many different countries attending the tour, including Germany, Ireland, China, Japan, Australia, United States, and even Latvia! The tour lasted about 2 hours, after which point I decided to head to LIDO for lunch. I went to the larger LIDO outside of Old Town, near the park where the tour ended.

This larger LIDO had far more choices than the smaller one I had visited inside of Old Town. However it was extremely crowded, hectic, and finding a seat was a serious challenge. Strangers were sitting with each other at the tables, and usually asked for permission first. In the buffet line I poured myself a beer, which ended up being some kind of strange tasting apple juice. Apparently a girl working at LIDO had the job of pouring drinks, and she was not at all happy with my actions of pouring myself a drink. She started ranting at me in Russian or Latvian, and when I said "english" she just looked angry and walked away. Another fun experience with a local..

I sat down at a table by myself and soon a middle aged lady joined me. I attempted to ask her what the strange drink I inadvertently poured myself was, but she just gave me a half-smile and looked away. I'm pretty sure she knew english, so I assumed I was being blown off. Situation normal.. As for the meal itself, I had some kind of chicken filet and a long sausage with hot tomato sauce. The chicken filet was pretty good, but I wasn't a huge fan of the sausage. I also had some kind of salad with cucumbers and mayo.. At least I thought it was mayo until I tasted it. The dressing ended up being more like some kind of yogurt. As for the strange apple juice drink, well I bought a Coke instead. During the earlier tour, Eņģelis pointed out that he didn't believe LIDO served "authentic Latvian food". He called LIDO more of a modern day fad.

After lunch I headed back to Old Town, which took me about an hour to find since I have a terrible sense of direction. Although the day was very cloudy, it never did rain. Therefore it was a cool 60f and I was happy with that! The parks were serene and peaceful, and aside from noticing the ridiculously beautiful women walking around, I didn't have a thought on my mind. The parks near Freedom Monument are really nice for people watching, but relaxing as well. I watched a little boy and his mom giving food to various ducks swimming around near the river.

Today was Friday, so they were setting up a bunch of basketball courts in Old Town, near Freedom Monument. One of them even looked like it was for a dunking contest. There were more police than usual around, and I saw some kind of bust go down in the park. There was a lot of yelling and what looked like plain clothes police started dragging a man and woman towards the street. It almost looked like a setup but I'm not sure what the crime was..

I decided I wasn't going to stay out late-night in Old Town. Instead, I went to "Golden Coffee" for some refreshments before heading back to my hotel. I ordered a fruit crepe with creme which was very good. Also an Americano which I found to be just OK. I haven't been particularly impressed with the coffee at Golden Coffee, compared to other places. After the coffee I decided to try the tea. I ordered a vanilla and lemongrass based tea. It was excellent, and came in a large teapot for multiple servings. While sitting in the terrace, I witnessed a just-married couple coming through in a limo. They had pictures taken in front of St. Peter's Church for a very long time.

I headed back to the hotel, where the dinner buffet was extremely busy as usual. My favorite hyper-focused Russian waitress was working, and I wondered how many days a week she worked? I have seen her at the restaurant every night since arriving (except perhaps Sunday when I did not walk by).

My trip has now reached about a week, and I'm starting to feel a little bored and restless. I'm particularly disappointed in how difficult it has been trying to meet any locals here. Most people are cold and uninterested in conversation. It seems to be a closed society, and you get a sense that tourists are not particularly liked here. Since I'm from the states and haven't extensively traveled in Europe, I don't have much to compare this trip to.