Riga (Latvia)
11 AUG - 14 AUG
Busting out of Tallinn at midday on the 11th I headed south on a 4hr journey into Latvia and onto it's capital Riga. Strangely, after being 'on tour' for some six weeks now, I was getting a little tired of hitting new places and convincing myself that I had to see the 'highlights'. This time all I wanted to do was get to a place and just let it wash over me, and if I didn't catch the 'most important' sights , then so be it, I wasn't going to let it become a major issue.
Clocking into Riga
Cheers and beers in Riga
I'd been advised prior to making it into Riga that the Old Town was similar to Tallinn in construct in that fact that it was bar, after cafe, after bar, and for that there was just no stopping the influence that it may have on you. Walking around the old town on arrival I started to get a sense of what they were saying, it was Wednesday afternoon and this place was buzzing with people. Yes, admittedly mostly tourists, and admittedly we were still in the midst of a European Summer, so perhaps it shouldn't have been as surprising as it first appeared but I couldn't help but think that a Sydney Summer felt very, very different to this. I somehow feel that Sydney and it's residents don't make the most of their opportunities during the Summer months. There's no vibe, no buzz, just an acceptance that aesthetically we're a damn good looking city and that should be satisfaction enough - slightly pretentious of us, no!?
Riga - Latvia
Daugava river - Riga - Latvia
Walking down around the north end of town I dropped into Shot Bar in search of an Happy Hour margarita only to be advised by the girl at the bar that 'kick-off' was still another 20 mins away. 'No problems lady, I'll be back', and with a kind of half smile and a little raise of the eyes she shot me back a look that smacked of sarcasm as she coupled it with a spoken response, 'I'm sure you will'. This ofcourse stopped me in my tracks. Well, just for that little display of attitude young miss I will be back and I'll 'happy hour myself until kingdom come!'. So once the bell struck 4pm I strolled back in to prove my word was as strong as oak, and yeah, maybe to check out the little bird that caught my attention with her dose of sarcasm and cutsie looks.
Freedom monument
Freedom monument - Riga - Latvia
Two margaritas to the good and an interesting conversation in tow I found Inga to be just my style of girl. Cool to speak to, a great laugh, more then well versed in English and with a cheeky/flirtatious grin, she threw out the challenge to make it back to the bar for the 1am-2am happy hour. A challenge hey, since when do I back down on any of those? 'Oh yeah, you are ON sista!'.
So, what about Riga hey? What does it hold for the wandering spirit?
Very much in the same vein as Tallinn, the old town of Riga has an old 18th century style of charm. Cobblestone streets, stone buildings, hidden alleys and open squares, this place is a hive of activity during the Summer months. I had heard stories of tourists trying to make their way down from Tallinn via Riga into Lithuania only to see their minds and wallets succumb to the charm and atmosphere of city whose cafe and bar culture are what can be considered to be a legal form of entrapment. Something that I was to find out for myself in the early hours of the next day. Betweeen now and then however I did my usual 'walk until you drop' routine, meaning that every corner or any achievable place thatcan be made on foot within my designated hours of walking comfort are scouted out and absorbed from a typical 'outsiders' perspective.
Rounding out midnight and ending up back at the Shot Bar just before 1am I took up residence in a darkened corner of this packed dive and waited for the witching hour. As I sat quietly and pondered my last few weeks of movement I traded smiles with Inga on a few occasions as she worked the bar and the outside terrace. Sitting there for 10 or so mins she dropped by to my table with a couple of shots in tow, a more than welcome freebie and more than welcome addition of company to the Latvian real estate that I'd rented for the time being. We chatted for a while before the buzz of the bar drew her back into the fold. Not sure what it was but I just found her to be really engaging and yeah, particularly cute.
Once the evil of a 1am-2am happy hour was off and running I siddled up against the bar and went for broke. This my friends was an unravelling of the 'reality fabric' that usually accompanies most of my night moves. From this point out I entered into a type of surreal vortex of manufactured thoughts and sounds. From having additional shots at the bar with Inga and organising to catch up with her the next day at the bar she part owns, to the random Italian guys that for some reason were dosing me up on pyrotechnical B-52's, to the barmen that laughed in a type of sinister but sympathetic manner each time I tried to light the bar on fire with my 'disco inferno straws' discarded from the B-52's, the early hours of this Latvian dawn were sowing the seeds of what would become my epic journey home.
Start of my 'Latvian nightmoves' - the 4hr journey home - why I took this shot, I have no idea but this was the beginning of the end!
Somewhere between 3am & 4am I bid farewell to the Shot Bar and promised Inga that I'd catch her that afternoon, 'I'll see you then Henry'...hey, how the hell did she know my name? Forgetting ofcourse that I'd written it down and perhaps told her 10 times within the last hour. This moment was the trigger for my bungy jump into the abyss as for the next 3hrs I do not have the faintest idea of where I went or what I did. In a sober world the walk back to the hostel would have been a comfortable 10 mins but in a post apocalyptic Latvian dream such as this, it took me 4hrs. Some of the vaguest fragments that come to mind was some Japanese guy telling me that I couldn't sit on the curb as the Rigan dream police would be sure to pick me up. Then there was the three circles that I ran or rather stumbled in a desolate carpark where my final resting spot was amidst gravel, dirty and the early morning beams of an Eastern European sunrise. There were calls by randoms who for some reason had noticed me, 'Hey, isn't that the Australian guy from the bar?', and then there were the kind requests of assistance, 'Hey, do you need some help?', to which my now tried and true response was 'No mate, I'm all good!'. You've got to ask yourself, in what scenario does a person with torn jeans, a shirt soaked in dirt and the inability to stand on his two feet ever NOT need assistance? Still, I must have been convincing enough as these good Samaritans decided to leave me to my own devices.
As the new light of day became the clearness of a new morning I remember thinking that it was virtually going to take a miracle, in the state that I was in, to find the place that I was staying. Stumbling onto another new street in the dawn of this new day I stopped, looked up and sighted the Belgian Beer Cafe! Home to many a successful evening back in my hometown, this I now recognised as a beacon of potential success as it was one of the landmarks that I'd pinned to my subconscience as a logistical signpost to my digs...and so it was, that sometime after 7am, some 4hrs after leaving the Shot Bar, that I managed to find my bed and crash out for most of the day.
Stirring to semi-consciousness sometime around 3pm I had a run of horror thoughts that entered my head within a 30 min period that I was unable to shake and for which the necessary accounting could only take place once I visited my belongings. Thoughts such as 'Where is my passport?', 'Where is my camera?', 'Why the hell is my left knee throbbing', 'Why am I mentally strruggling to spell my name?', all compounded to present a motsa ball of confusion and anxiety. Struggling through my belongings with that aweful anxious ferver I drew blanks against the wallet, camera and even passport. All that was coming to mind was me hitting the deck a few hours earlier and that accompanying sickening feeling that I'd either left these critical items behind or that somehow I'd been fleeced by some opportunist. Searching my mind for some last ditch probability that I had actually been sensible in my drunken stupor and left all these items in a logical place, I located the keys of my locker, turned open the door and found the space to bare - 'Oh f***!!!!'.....'OH F***!!!!!', where the hell do I go from here!? Trying to calm myself down the best I could, I unzipped a most unlikely pocket in my main luggage only to find all said items safely intact! 'Dude, you had just well and truly played yourself'. So, ofcourse, what is the next move that a man makes once he's dodged sizeable bullet? He heads for his back pocket, right? ...and why pray tell? Because that my friends is where I would locate the address details for Inga's bar and where I'd be heading to in the next few minutes once I picked up my basket of wits off the floor.
Thankfully her bar was located 5 mins walk from where I was staying. The map that I'd been given was thankfully accurate, although I couldn't quite figure out why I'd been provided with a 4pm arrival time as the bar didn't even look open. Walking in however I saw that Inga was just getting the place together for that evening and that it would be a few hours yet before the place opened, sweet. So we chatted for ages, listened to some of her favourite bands (Tool, Dream Theater,etc), had a drink or two, and that was unfortunately that. Even though I asked her out for lunch the next day, quite tactfully I thought, on several occassions, I was successfully dodged with some airy non-commitment. So Inga, as I know you'll read this, you OWE me lunch and a tour of the town the next time I make it back to your neighbourhood !
