Riga is the capital of Latvia, one of the three Baltic countries (the others being Estonia and Lithuania). It's located on the Baltic Sea, just across from Sweden. In case you were wondering (for example, if you're a nerd), it's part of the EU, but not yet on the Euro.
It officially became a country after WWI after declaring independence from Russia. Like many in the area, it has become independent a couple times after being under German occupation during WWII and then under the Soviets up until 1991. Because it is so close to Russia and has been occupied by Russia for so long, about half of the city is Russian, and most everyone speaks Russian and Latvian interchangably. Alena is Russian and she could talk to anyone there...I was impressed that pretty much every young-ish person in Riga can speak Russian, Latvian, and English pretty fluently. I can barely speak English fluently! At one point a waitress spoke to Irina in Latvian, then took Alena's order in Russian, then mine in English. One right after the other. It's no big deal to them, but impressive to me. We Americans are so lame when it comes to languages.
We spent a lot of time walking around the Old Town, exploring the streets, blanketed in white, lined by snow drifts, and scattered with black ice...here are some shots of the area. The buildings look so old and fake, but I've been told they are in fact real.
As is a custom in many places in the region, upon getting married, couples like to attach a padlock with their names engraved onto bridges, symbolizing their commitment. Apparently they get cut off after just a little while because the bridges get so packed with them. Hopefully that part doesn't symbolize anything.
We found the PwC office (Alena works with me in the Warsaw PwC office), complete with the new branding. We aren't supposed to say "PricewaterhouseCoopers" anymore. It's just PwC. Now when I say "PwC", people ask "what does that stand for?" and I say "PricewaterhouseCoopers" and they say "oh yea, why didn't you just say that in the first place?". Argh.
Of course, we spent a LOT of time eating. The food there is slightly different from food in Poland, but the basic ideas are the same: meats, potatoes, cabbage, and more meat. Not as many sausages though, which can be a good thing, depending on your perspective.
This is a donut-like pastry filled with some really juicy meat inside. I don't know how to describe it other than like xiao long bao inside a pastry instead of a dumpling (with a little less juice). I could have eaten a million of them! Irina keeps reminding me what they are called, but I keep forgetting. Maybe Latvian xiao long bao?
This was also very tasty...grilled pork chop...you know the kind where you can actually taste the BBQ grill flavor in it....so good. Oh I love BBQ!!
We went to a cafeteria-style restaurant called Lido that served all kinds of meats like this. It was seriously heaven. Like a Vegas buffet with 1,000 different meats staring you in the face (or like zoo, when you think about it). I walked around for 20 minutes trying to decide what to get because they were all so tempting. Lido also has a recreation area outside, and live music and bar inside. They even had Tom and Jerry on TV, which is definitely a sign of a classy joint. I stopped to watch for a while. An older lady also grabbed me to dance with her, but I was too busy with T & J, and my food. Plus she kinda scared me. When I say "older" she was probably like 38, which I guess isn't that much older...dangit.
Lots happening here: crepe, salads, pork kebab, grey peas, cabbage, potatoes.
I forgot to mention what we had for Christmas eve dinner. Irina's parents were nice enough to have us over. It's interesting that in the region it seems that Christmas eve is more of a holiday thas Christmas day. Here's some of the food her mom made us:
On the left it is a beet and herring salad (not something you see every day in the US). It tasted better than I expected, but the herring was a little too fishy for me (I kept thinking of going salmon fishing with grandma and how we used herring for bait, and it just reeked of the ocean). On the right was the best smoked chicken I ever had. I almost got full off of it, and it was only an appetizer.
This is basically thick bacon (which I think is raw, but I try not to think about it) on bread. In order to eat it, everyone needed a shot of vodka. Makes sense, right? After trying all these things, I definitely wasn't saying no to vodka.
I don't know if it was because it was Christmas eve, but even after the bacon thing, Irina's dad made me take a bunch more vodka shots with him during dinner. Every 10 minutes or so, he'd pour a shot for him, look at me, grin and say something in Russian that everyone would laugh at, then pour one for me (and only me)...sometimes Irina's Grandma would interrupt "where's mine!?" in not-English because she wanted some too. One time he only poured me a half a shot, because apparently he didn't know if I could handle it. How nice of him.
After the shots, the parents thought it would be a good idea to get me to drink this "special" drink. It is cabbage juice and is supposed to work wonders for a hangover. I plugged my nose (necessarily) and gulped it down. It tasted like the juices from a bowl of sauerkraut. And guess what? It IS the juices from a bowl of sauerkraut. But I didn't get a hangover all weekend, so it must have worked.
The next day we went to the resort town of Jurmala. It's located on the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic Sea. Behind me, you can see the sea actually freezing. It is very odd to see the sea, along with snow and ice, rather than sand. Nearby, kids made snow castles and went boogey boarding. Actually, that's a lie.
A lot of people here have memories of being pulled around on a little sled, like this kid, when they were young. I want to be pulled on a sled please!
I also went horse riding with my friend Liga, whom I know from PwC (aka PricewaterhouseCoopers). She lives in Riga and goes horse riding a couple times a week and told me that riding in the forest during the Winter is like being in a movie or a fairy tale (you know, the way only a girl would describe it). It really was very peaceful and beautiful out there...especially when we went through the undisturbed powder.
It may look like I am about to be tossed off into the forest, but surprisingly I didn't do too bad. Not great, but successful because a) I didn't fall off or get left behind, b) I didn't cry when we started trotting, c) I could walk afterwards, and d) I'm pretty sure I can still have babies.
Earlier, when I said we went to some bars, what I meant was that my average bedtime was about 5am. There were a lot of fun places, and fun people that we met. While waiting outside of a bar deciding what to do, we noticed the bar was showing Ice Age on the TV (what can I say, I love cartoons!). We were watching it through the window when a girl came out who was sitting at the table under the TV. She noticed us looking towards her so she came out to have a cigarette and talk to us. Her name was Maija (she is Latvian) and her boyfriend Sebastien was visiting her from Paris. They had a big table for just the two of them so she invited us to sit with them. I'm pretty sure they thought we were staring at them from outside, when in fact we were just watching Ice Age!
Anyway, after what started out as just a casual conversation about what we were doing in Riga, where we were from, etc, we ended up hanging out with them the rest of that night, then meeting them for dinner the next night and going to some more bars with them. We even went to a walk-up window at McDonalds together. They were a lot of fun and we all hope they will visit Warsaw someday.
In fact everyone that we met there seemed to be really friendly, fluent in English, and interested in talking to us. I don't know if it was because it was the holidays, by chance, or if it was because that's just how everyone is. I really enjoyed my time in a place I might not have normally visited, and enjoying doing and eating things that I normally wouldn't have. I guess it's just another example of how my experience here is helping me open my mind to trying new things...
Happy Holidays everyone and see you in 2011!
Tristan
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