Adiml 23.7.12 in Riga, the capital of Latvia.
Hi! Again it is Nina Margaretha, 23, from Finland. But in this entry I am in Riga, Latvia! (Where I went after the very fancy Positivus festival which I featured in my last entry.) My holiday was memorable and nice throughout my whole trip and I picked up a lot of Latvian! On this day I explored some suburbs, went to a museum, walked around, hung out with my friends, and spotted sudden and random details.
70 pics total.
The first time I had sleep in 3 days. Finally. (And yes, I use all random clothing for nightwear on my trips.)
If I was Swedish I would say FETT NAJS!
I go and check out how my darlings (shoes) are doing on the balcony.
I was dumb and took some of my nicest shoes to the festival, where it, of course, had to get muddy.
My Estonian friend on the festival told me: "It's Positivus, and to Positivus you must take the worst shoes you own!"
Too late, I had not thought of it before :/ I washed these here in the hotel, and left them to dry on the balcony. With pretty ok results at least for the blue/white ones by Pastry.
Got prett...ier. I use a lot of time to do my make up though as I am a so-called "precision make-upper", so I am sure it's late by now. But who cares, I have a messed up rhythm when travelling. Shall we add some perfume? Jesh!
After some time mixing and matching, I am happy with this abbinamento. (Match?) And ready to go and see what there is outside!
When arriving to Riga, I met some fellow celiac Finns when waiting for the reception of the hostel to open. They told me that this supermarket is celiac friendly. (I am hunting for breakfast. I want it immediately and as this supermarket is very near, I don't even bother going to any cafe right now - and in cafes I probably could eat nothing here anyway. Thank the pink elephant I live in Finland.)
Never seen cookies in this kind of presentation. Like, lösgodis! I don't know in English.
The obsession with this fruit in ex-Soviet areas never ceazes to amaze me. Or I can't be 100% sure if I am right, but I see these huge piles of watermelons only in these places. Same goes for some other fruits not so common in my home country. Not that I have anything against it!
I found a quiet spot to have breakfast in. Pretty random.
There were gluten free products but I didn't buy them this time.
I take advantage of strawberries costing a whole lot less than at home.
The chips have the ingredients list in Latvian, Russian, English and... Azerbaidjani. I find that pretty surprising for a Latvian company.
I went back to the shopping centre afterwards to buy a tram ticket. For one whole day. I have the gut feeling that I am going to use the tram a lot today!
The same Finns I met yesterday who hinted me about that supermarket, also told me that the number 7 and 9 trams go to Russian-majority suburbs. I like going to suburbs. I hope on one to DOLE.
I have been to Riga before when I was a little teen, in 2005, and remember this place. These zeppelin halls are used as a huge marketplace. I was inside them back then, but I didn't like it - not my kind of place. Now I am not here with my parents and can decide myself, what to do (AWESOMENE! I love travelling alone :)
Now we've arrived to the last stop already. I get off.
I am multilingual and sometimes translate, and on the road I see quite some signs that intrigue my linguistic side. Such as "Datoru remonts". "Dator" is computer in Swedish, that is a loan word in Latvian. "Remonts" is a latvianised version of the Russian "remont", which means fixing, reparation. Btw, the same word is used in Finnish and Estonian.
I walk around. (But I also get lost and sometimes feel like losing hope on how to get back to civilisation where you see more things than just drunk and threatening Russian guys.) I see quite some cats.
And I see a Lada and many decayed wooden buildings. I think there are more Ladas in my home town though (now I don't mean Turku.)
I am not sure what this babushka is picking. But soon after she mumbled something about my clothing. Hahha.
After asking for help from passers-by regarding how to go towards the centre, I take a trolleybus and get off around this building (a so-called "tooth of Stalin" which used to be a science adacemy).
If my Latvian comprehension is on any level, this ministry deals with traffic.
I see a decayed sign in a window saying something like "bezglutena sojas produkti", and of course I need to check that out. I first thought that meant "warm gluten free products" because "sooja" is warm in Estonian, but I think it means "soy" after all.
I buy some cookies. It was a PRETTY old style shop. You could not touch any of the products yourself.
I walk back to the centre (via a tunnel at the train+bus station).
Latvia might be more famous for its girls, but to me it's also the boys that I respect here. As pictured.
Finnish invasion. That is a Finnish luxury warehouse.
I reach the hostel! I need to go to the loo and fetch my map.
I brush my teeth, finally.
I feel like switching clothing. Maybe because my dress was so short I felt like I was showing everything, even if that wasn't necessarily true. :D And well I have a lot of clothing with me, why not use everything?
I figure out that I do need to get lunch eventually also. I go to 'Pelmeni', a pelmen place. That is Russian/Eastern European simple food. But as I can't eat pelmeni (= a sort of dumplings), I eat solyanka and mayo-based salads with cucumber. It was yum!
I go to Randoms, a record + other stuff store.
I immediately see a CD of this Ukrainian guy? lady? who I am a huge fan of. Go Verochka!
Then I see the Latvian musics section. Latvian rap is AWESOME!! I might get it only to a part but then Google translator comes to help. And well the language sounds just incredible. I can't find sme of Gacho's songs online and so I buy this CD. Gacho often gets more electronic/rave than rap thought but that's just part of the sound.
And here comes my fave line from Gacho: "Drēbes uzrunā mani un es viņas saprotu".
= Clothing talks to me and I understand them.
Now that's hilarious. "Songs fron our youth - We wish you luck! - 200 hits from the Soviet Union." I get the gut feeling that Tõnis Mägi is probably included, but he is not.
Anyway, you can not imagine what kind of life Tõnis Mägi nowadays leads. He's an Estonian who used to be a big superstar touring whole USSR and now he lives in a cottage in countryside near Tartu. Haha. This came to my mind because I watched a documentary of him a few days ago.
I check out the only comic magazine in Latvia. It's pretty interesting. The contents very in each release. here are bot Latvian and foreignn, translated comics. I love a lot of thr styles of drawing.
I used to draw comics when younger, and I want to pick it up again. But right now I am more focused on languages and clothing. But even now I sometimes brush up my drawing style, try to find the style I really like.
Then I pop into a design store that's right next to the record store.
Mishka.
I love their interior. Oh my!
I see some clothing by local designers. Then I even see Positivus festival merchandise! I forgot to take a look at it at the festival itself, so I am happy it's still on sale here in Riga in this one shop! These here are Positivus scarves. (I end up getting a dress, but only one day later.)
More walking.
Square.
I ask one random French girl to take a photo of me.
This monument says on top of it: "Riga - the city of the decorated Christmas tree", or something like that. That must mean that they take pride in a well-decorated Christmas tree, I guess.
I go on a bridge that unites the two halves of the city. I want to walk to the other side.
That makes me smile!
A roof where it's written: "YOU'RE NOT ALONE"!
A self-timer shot :D Behind there's the construction of the new national library.
I see a guy who has many fancy mascots/decorations attached to his rucksack (better seen from the back). Fascinating.
But then I took the tram back to the side of the river where I was before. I go to the museum of occupations. (That means 1st Soviet occupation, Nazi occupation and 2nd Soviet occupation.) Yes there is tragic history here.
I go inside a Soviet prison, constructed based on what survived Latvians have told. I read some horrible descriptions there about the practices there. Makes you feel f... bad and disgusted.
Deportation schemes. As you surely know, a huge amount of Baltic people were deported to Siberia and died there. People from other parts of the Soviet Union were brought to replace them. This way the gradual killing of Baltic cultures was put into practice.
I see some "voting tickets". In practice, this is from the "elections" (irony) where there was however a fixed result forced already beforehand. (Took place when Latvia was occupied.) Instead of a name of any "candidate", Latvians have written into the tickets things like: "Comedy." or "May Latvia always be free!"
I stay for the night in the same hotel building as where this listening machine is from.
People used to be listened in their hotel rooms.
It gets 18 o'clock and the museum gets closed. I had some interestng chats with a guide there about the linguistic situation and about the worry for the Latvian language. It was very interesting. They fear the same thing could happen to their language as in Ukraine, and what has happened in Belarus.
Just outside, I watch these women perform Latvian folk songs. They are great singers! I like it a lot.
Back to where I was before. I look for a café. I feel like having coffee, maybe because I am tired.
I am however too greedy to walk around as much as possible in the little time I stay here, and so I take the coffee with me and walk :D
There are lots of places in the city to buy flowers, and men bring bouquets of flowers to their women. <3
Beautiful.
Cow.
I am already in a completely different corner of this big city.
...where most building are super decorative.
But then I have no idea anymore where I am, and don't know which way to go to get back to the hostel. I see a bus going to "Brivibas Bulvaris", =Freedom Boulevard. At least I know where that is. I take it.
I drop by at a kiosk. I read some of the Baltic Times. There was also one article on another page regarding the euro and Latvia (which Latvia is not part of, at least not right now), with comments from one Finnish minister that make me sigh. I don't get the "euro at all costs!" thinking.
There you can see the Freedom Monument, and more near the Laima clock tower. Laima is a (delicious) chocolate maker in Latvia.
Finally at the hotel!
It is pretty hunting looking inside.
I desire to take a nap.
Being Aspergers and hence having the most annoyingly acute hearing sense on the planet, allowing me to hear all my neighbours' marriage crises disputes at home, I never sleep without something in my ears. (Unless at my parents' in the countryside.)
But somehow, I dont get sleep too well. Don't know why.
I take a 2nd shower of the day afterwards.
Turns out I must have a very good relationship with nature as it made my period come only now and not on the festival. How lucky!
Switch clothing, as I want to go have dinner outside and see how's the nightlife.
My cool bi-colour dress by the Swedish brand Eivy.
I stepped out of my hotel room, and who do I find? THE SAME ITALIAN GUYS WHO I MET AND TALKED WITH YESTERDAY ON A SQUARE. What the...! I didn't know they live here! (One of them is in Erasmus, and the others vising him.) No wonder that I heard Italian even when I was inside my hotel room. I even thought they were verbally fighting haha. They have just had dinner and regretted that I had not come earlier!
They offer me Russian vodka + Scweppes, and pour a big share of the vodka in it because "she's Finnish". Awesome :D
And here's their Norwegian friend who also lives in this hotel and teaches Norwegian at the unversity. He even has his dad living in Finland!
I sometimes speak Swedish with him, Italian with the other guys, but often just English because everyone needs to understand! But not all the Italians speak English so well and Italian is the only way to make them understand. But I don't want to marginalise anyone.
We go out to see what kind of night life there is now even though it's a Monday and hence a pretty dead night with only tourists. Some enthusiam-filled photographing follows.
Us :D
This random Roman guy (who I think is somewhat older than us) heard Italian being spoken and approached us. We had quite some chats. A recurring theme when I meet Italian guys is "Italian girls' versus Northern European girls' mindsets" and this time is no exception. Well we talk about other things too.
In the backgound, you can see that one or two of the guys got to make contact with some Russian girls. But that ended after some time becayse these girls had been insisting them to go to one certain nightclub, refusing to go anywhere else, and that had been very exoensive to enter, too. So my friends came back saying "maybe they would have liked to buy our organs! We couldn't trust much!"
Inside a club, my friends getting drinks. I am still affected by the vodka from before so none for me. I also make a trip to the hotel at one point to fetch my earplugs with one of my friends who is a med student and understands that what sensory overload means, he's so considerate!
Too touristic inside, but what can I do, the weekend I spent at the festival, and that was worth it.
For some weird reason, this pattern flying on the walls is exactly like the Lega sign for me. Fuck it.
Now it's 4 o'clock in the morning and I still haven't aten dinner because in the evening, I was going to go for dinner outside, but then stayed with my new friends instead when I spotted them in the hostel. Hence, now I am dead hungry. My friend accompanies to the only place that is open, McDo. That is indeed the only timing when I would consider going to that place on a travel - when nothing else is open! Wen waiting, he tries to show the places he has lived in on the map and we talk about different districts.
Done with my take away food - the morning sun shines! Such a morning person I am.
I hope you enjoyed it! Thank you for making it to the end!
70 pics total.
The first time I had sleep in 3 days. Finally. (And yes, I use all random clothing for nightwear on my trips.)
If I was Swedish I would say FETT NAJS!
I go and check out how my darlings (shoes) are doing on the balcony.
I was dumb and took some of my nicest shoes to the festival, where it, of course, had to get muddy.
My Estonian friend on the festival told me: "It's Positivus, and to Positivus you must take the worst shoes you own!"
Too late, I had not thought of it before :/ I washed these here in the hotel, and left them to dry on the balcony. With pretty ok results at least for the blue/white ones by Pastry.
Got prett...ier. I use a lot of time to do my make up though as I am a so-called "precision make-upper", so I am sure it's late by now. But who cares, I have a messed up rhythm when travelling. Shall we add some perfume? Jesh!
After some time mixing and matching, I am happy with this abbinamento. (Match?) And ready to go and see what there is outside!
When arriving to Riga, I met some fellow celiac Finns when waiting for the reception of the hostel to open. They told me that this supermarket is celiac friendly. (I am hunting for breakfast. I want it immediately and as this supermarket is very near, I don't even bother going to any cafe right now - and in cafes I probably could eat nothing here anyway. Thank the pink elephant I live in Finland.)
Never seen cookies in this kind of presentation. Like, lösgodis! I don't know in English.
The obsession with this fruit in ex-Soviet areas never ceazes to amaze me. Or I can't be 100% sure if I am right, but I see these huge piles of watermelons only in these places. Same goes for some other fruits not so common in my home country. Not that I have anything against it!
I found a quiet spot to have breakfast in. Pretty random.
There were gluten free products but I didn't buy them this time.
I take advantage of strawberries costing a whole lot less than at home.
The chips have the ingredients list in Latvian, Russian, English and... Azerbaidjani. I find that pretty surprising for a Latvian company.
I went back to the shopping centre afterwards to buy a tram ticket. For one whole day. I have the gut feeling that I am going to use the tram a lot today!
The same Finns I met yesterday who hinted me about that supermarket, also told me that the number 7 and 9 trams go to Russian-majority suburbs. I like going to suburbs. I hope on one to DOLE.
I have been to Riga before when I was a little teen, in 2005, and remember this place. These zeppelin halls are used as a huge marketplace. I was inside them back then, but I didn't like it - not my kind of place. Now I am not here with my parents and can decide myself, what to do (AWESOMENE! I love travelling alone :)
Now we've arrived to the last stop already. I get off.
I am multilingual and sometimes translate, and on the road I see quite some signs that intrigue my linguistic side. Such as "Datoru remonts". "Dator" is computer in Swedish, that is a loan word in Latvian. "Remonts" is a latvianised version of the Russian "remont", which means fixing, reparation. Btw, the same word is used in Finnish and Estonian.
I walk around. (But I also get lost and sometimes feel like losing hope on how to get back to civilisation where you see more things than just drunk and threatening Russian guys.) I see quite some cats.
And I see a Lada and many decayed wooden buildings. I think there are more Ladas in my home town though (now I don't mean Turku.)
I am not sure what this babushka is picking. But soon after she mumbled something about my clothing. Hahha.
After asking for help from passers-by regarding how to go towards the centre, I take a trolleybus and get off around this building (a so-called "tooth of Stalin" which used to be a science adacemy).
If my Latvian comprehension is on any level, this ministry deals with traffic.
I see a decayed sign in a window saying something like "bezglutena sojas produkti", and of course I need to check that out. I first thought that meant "warm gluten free products" because "sooja" is warm in Estonian, but I think it means "soy" after all.
I buy some cookies. It was a PRETTY old style shop. You could not touch any of the products yourself.
I walk back to the centre (via a tunnel at the train+bus station).
Latvia might be more famous for its girls, but to me it's also the boys that I respect here. As pictured.
Finnish invasion. That is a Finnish luxury warehouse.
I reach the hostel! I need to go to the loo and fetch my map.
I brush my teeth, finally.
I feel like switching clothing. Maybe because my dress was so short I felt like I was showing everything, even if that wasn't necessarily true. :D And well I have a lot of clothing with me, why not use everything?
I figure out that I do need to get lunch eventually also. I go to 'Pelmeni', a pelmen place. That is Russian/Eastern European simple food. But as I can't eat pelmeni (= a sort of dumplings), I eat solyanka and mayo-based salads with cucumber. It was yum!
I go to Randoms, a record + other stuff store.
I immediately see a CD of this Ukrainian guy? lady? who I am a huge fan of. Go Verochka!
Then I see the Latvian musics section. Latvian rap is AWESOME!! I might get it only to a part but then Google translator comes to help. And well the language sounds just incredible. I can't find sme of Gacho's songs online and so I buy this CD. Gacho often gets more electronic/rave than rap thought but that's just part of the sound.
And here comes my fave line from Gacho: "Drēbes uzrunā mani un es viņas saprotu".
= Clothing talks to me and I understand them.
Now that's hilarious. "Songs fron our youth - We wish you luck! - 200 hits from the Soviet Union." I get the gut feeling that Tõnis Mägi is probably included, but he is not.
Anyway, you can not imagine what kind of life Tõnis Mägi nowadays leads. He's an Estonian who used to be a big superstar touring whole USSR and now he lives in a cottage in countryside near Tartu. Haha. This came to my mind because I watched a documentary of him a few days ago.
I check out the only comic magazine in Latvia. It's pretty interesting. The contents very in each release. here are bot Latvian and foreignn, translated comics. I love a lot of thr styles of drawing.
I used to draw comics when younger, and I want to pick it up again. But right now I am more focused on languages and clothing. But even now I sometimes brush up my drawing style, try to find the style I really like.
Then I pop into a design store that's right next to the record store.
Mishka.
I love their interior. Oh my!
I see some clothing by local designers. Then I even see Positivus festival merchandise! I forgot to take a look at it at the festival itself, so I am happy it's still on sale here in Riga in this one shop! These here are Positivus scarves. (I end up getting a dress, but only one day later.)
More walking.
Square.
I ask one random French girl to take a photo of me.
This monument says on top of it: "Riga - the city of the decorated Christmas tree", or something like that. That must mean that they take pride in a well-decorated Christmas tree, I guess.
I go on a bridge that unites the two halves of the city. I want to walk to the other side.
That makes me smile!
A roof where it's written: "YOU'RE NOT ALONE"!
A self-timer shot :D Behind there's the construction of the new national library.
I see a guy who has many fancy mascots/decorations attached to his rucksack (better seen from the back). Fascinating.
But then I took the tram back to the side of the river where I was before. I go to the museum of occupations. (That means 1st Soviet occupation, Nazi occupation and 2nd Soviet occupation.) Yes there is tragic history here.
I go inside a Soviet prison, constructed based on what survived Latvians have told. I read some horrible descriptions there about the practices there. Makes you feel f... bad and disgusted.
Deportation schemes. As you surely know, a huge amount of Baltic people were deported to Siberia and died there. People from other parts of the Soviet Union were brought to replace them. This way the gradual killing of Baltic cultures was put into practice.
I see some "voting tickets". In practice, this is from the "elections" (irony) where there was however a fixed result forced already beforehand. (Took place when Latvia was occupied.) Instead of a name of any "candidate", Latvians have written into the tickets things like: "Comedy." or "May Latvia always be free!"
I stay for the night in the same hotel building as where this listening machine is from.
People used to be listened in their hotel rooms.
It gets 18 o'clock and the museum gets closed. I had some interestng chats with a guide there about the linguistic situation and about the worry for the Latvian language. It was very interesting. They fear the same thing could happen to their language as in Ukraine, and what has happened in Belarus.
Just outside, I watch these women perform Latvian folk songs. They are great singers! I like it a lot.
Back to where I was before. I look for a café. I feel like having coffee, maybe because I am tired.
I am however too greedy to walk around as much as possible in the little time I stay here, and so I take the coffee with me and walk :D
There are lots of places in the city to buy flowers, and men bring bouquets of flowers to their women. <3
Beautiful.
Cow.
I am already in a completely different corner of this big city.
...where most building are super decorative.
But then I have no idea anymore where I am, and don't know which way to go to get back to the hostel. I see a bus going to "Brivibas Bulvaris", =Freedom Boulevard. At least I know where that is. I take it.
I drop by at a kiosk. I read some of the Baltic Times. There was also one article on another page regarding the euro and Latvia (which Latvia is not part of, at least not right now), with comments from one Finnish minister that make me sigh. I don't get the "euro at all costs!" thinking.
There you can see the Freedom Monument, and more near the Laima clock tower. Laima is a (delicious) chocolate maker in Latvia.
Finally at the hotel!
It is pretty hunting looking inside.
I desire to take a nap.
Being Aspergers and hence having the most annoyingly acute hearing sense on the planet, allowing me to hear all my neighbours' marriage crises disputes at home, I never sleep without something in my ears. (Unless at my parents' in the countryside.)
But somehow, I dont get sleep too well. Don't know why.
I take a 2nd shower of the day afterwards.
Turns out I must have a very good relationship with nature as it made my period come only now and not on the festival. How lucky!
Switch clothing, as I want to go have dinner outside and see how's the nightlife.
My cool bi-colour dress by the Swedish brand Eivy.
I stepped out of my hotel room, and who do I find? THE SAME ITALIAN GUYS WHO I MET AND TALKED WITH YESTERDAY ON A SQUARE. What the...! I didn't know they live here! (One of them is in Erasmus, and the others vising him.) No wonder that I heard Italian even when I was inside my hotel room. I even thought they were verbally fighting haha. They have just had dinner and regretted that I had not come earlier!
They offer me Russian vodka + Scweppes, and pour a big share of the vodka in it because "she's Finnish". Awesome :D
And here's their Norwegian friend who also lives in this hotel and teaches Norwegian at the unversity. He even has his dad living in Finland!
I sometimes speak Swedish with him, Italian with the other guys, but often just English because everyone needs to understand! But not all the Italians speak English so well and Italian is the only way to make them understand. But I don't want to marginalise anyone.
We go out to see what kind of night life there is now even though it's a Monday and hence a pretty dead night with only tourists. Some enthusiam-filled photographing follows.
Us :D
This random Roman guy (who I think is somewhat older than us) heard Italian being spoken and approached us. We had quite some chats. A recurring theme when I meet Italian guys is "Italian girls' versus Northern European girls' mindsets" and this time is no exception. Well we talk about other things too.
In the backgound, you can see that one or two of the guys got to make contact with some Russian girls. But that ended after some time becayse these girls had been insisting them to go to one certain nightclub, refusing to go anywhere else, and that had been very exoensive to enter, too. So my friends came back saying "maybe they would have liked to buy our organs! We couldn't trust much!"
Inside a club, my friends getting drinks. I am still affected by the vodka from before so none for me. I also make a trip to the hotel at one point to fetch my earplugs with one of my friends who is a med student and understands that what sensory overload means, he's so considerate!
Too touristic inside, but what can I do, the weekend I spent at the festival, and that was worth it.
For some weird reason, this pattern flying on the walls is exactly like the Lega sign for me. Fuck it.
Now it's 4 o'clock in the morning and I still haven't aten dinner because in the evening, I was going to go for dinner outside, but then stayed with my new friends instead when I spotted them in the hostel. Hence, now I am dead hungry. My friend accompanies to the only place that is open, McDo. That is indeed the only timing when I would consider going to that place on a travel - when nothing else is open! Wen waiting, he tries to show the places he has lived in on the map and we talk about different districts.
Done with my take away food - the morning sun shines! Such a morning person I am.
I hope you enjoyed it! Thank you for making it to the end!