A trip to Riga with my work

We've been to Riga in Lettland on a conference with work. I have never traveled much, mostly cause I get motion sickness and is more of a home girl, but I do like being places, and this trip was well worth the nausea and boredom of busses, airports and flights.

We left Linköping by buss on friday morning, heading for Skavsta airport, that's just outside of Nyköping (despite the fact they call it Stockholm Skavsta). Since all airports are more or less alike I wont write much about that. We got on the plane which was half an hour late due to late arrival, and took off for Riga. We landed 10 minutes late and got onto another buss after passport control and waiting for luggage. Marvelously everyones bags arrived to the same airport.

The buss from the airport in Riga to Hotel Riga (where we were staying) took a roundabout with a guide talking about Lettland and Riga. I felt she spoke from her heart and the bitterness that lay there shone through when she spoke about the russians who still live in Lettland, the horrid inflation of prices (food was twice as costly as last year but incomes the same) and the corruption of healthcare, politicians and bureaucracy. We went part a lot for pretty houses, all crammed up next to the shabbies shady wrecks you might imagine.

After arrival to the hotel everyone ran out to the nearest shop, Rimi, to get the essentials, which in most cases turned out to be chips/crisps and alcohol. We had dinner planned for 19 friday evening and only two hours of Own time before that. The girls (all four of us against 30-something guys) had a private preparty where we gossiped, primped and had some wine and cheese. Myself I only had iced tea, cause of a dreadfull headache and feeling ill that the travelling gave me (hence my not being found of travel). We made a quick appearence at the preparty of the guys (in the bosses room, cause he shared a suite). After that we all went off to dinner.

It rained outside and was really windy, so the party for the group with the map hurried off very quickly, leaving the rest of us behind. We went about the Old Town in Riga for a while, mostly wildly lost in the rain and wind, until we found the right restaurant, Restaurant Put Vejin. We were seated 4 and 4, I had Johan, Magnus and the new guy Magnus at the table and tried being funny by saying that Johan should change his name to make it easy on me. Noone laughted that I noticed. Darn.

We ate a sallad, fish with mashed potatoe and meaningless sauce and for desert a brown cake with some kind of dairy product and berries. The cake wasn't sweet, which was a bit weird at first, but it was still nice. We had plenty white wine to drink and everyone was in a great mood. In the middle of dinner a group of folksy singers/dancers came to entertain us. Halfway through they chose some random people to join in the silly dancing, and of course all four girls had to join. It was great fun though, cause I love cheesy folksy stuff. After dancing everyone was warm and had a lot more wine to drink, merryment insued.

After dinner we left the restaurant and drifted around Riga by night. People were diveded between pubing and dancing. Some drifted around the Old town for hours and some went back to hotel to sleep, I assume. Some where up so late they missed breakfast which was served 7-11. Posssibly the lame exuse of "I forgot to set my clock forward one hour to Lettland time" was the truth though, only the gotlänning knows the truth.

I slept poorly, had a hard time coming to rest with all the impressions plus the bed was hard, the room was very cold and drafty and there was plenty noise of wind and cars from outside. The only reason I believe I slept is all is that I woke up three times during the night. In the morning I woke before the cell phone alarm, cause I'd forgotten to set the cell phone clock forward one hour. I woke two minutes before it would have started and lay there wondering why it never did, as usual. Somehow I know what time it is even when I'm sleeping. It doesn't work unless I commit by actually setting the alarm though, weird.

Well, I spent the morning and noon walking around Riga with some guys from work. We had strict instructions to never walk alone, but who'd want to do that when can have friends along? We visited the market, four big halls with stands selling mostly food. The first one we entered was the meat hall. Entering was like walking into a wall, of smell. No stench, it was more subtle than that, but very very intense and special. My eyes almost watered and my head spun a bit. Very weird feeling. Meat everywhere, in dishes, hanging on hooks, people butchering right and left. Lots of people shopping, most of whom looked tired and a bit worn, not that different from swedes. There were a lot more facial hair though, great moustaches, weird side burns and beards. Every time we came across another specimen Johan pointed it out. He seemed in awe, perhaps some kind of beard envy, seeing as how his own growth was on the thin side.

After the meat there was bread, greens and last fish. The hall with greens smelled heavenly, a crisp sense of fall and summer mingled, with a sweet overtone and a rich earthy bottom. The bread hall had a dusty feeling and the fish hall smelled homely of sea and fish. A lot of the fish was stilll alive and either wriggled and flapped in trays or swam around in tanks. People seemed happier among the fish than among the meat.

Outside the halls there were lots of stands with stuff, like hats, mittens, CDs (Samantha Fox and DrAlban!), cassettes (wow, what an 80ies feeling) and some more produce. I shopped a pair of knitted socks, a green hat and some pastries (that turned out to be less sweet than expected, perhaps they have a shortage of sugar?).

After the marked we rambled around the old Town looking for a place to lunch. The gotlänning joined us after missing breakfast and we found a german inspired place that was really good. It had all the signes of a tourist trap, but who cares when the food is nice, the place cool and not too expensive.

In the afternoon we had a conference meeting and a motivational speaker, some kind of hockey guy that the hockey nerds recognised. He was good though, despite the lack of fame he had in my world. After the meeting (4 hours out of the whole weekend) we had another preparty. It's a very swedish thing, mostly I think due to the high cost of drinking out in sweden as compared to drinking at home. The girls had decided on a dress code, black skirt and top, and met to primp at first. I had ordered something "sliskigt" to drink and gotten two weird ciders, Cherry and Sweet Kiwi. The former tasted strongly of artifical cherry taste taste and the latter a lot of yeast. However, I drank both and had a great time. We got lost a lot on the way to dinner that night too, but it didn't rain so everyone was in a better mood. Finally we arrived at Restaurang Rozengrals which was a very cool medevil (or how do you spell it?) cellar. We had a very nice mushroom soup for starter, a whole fish each with stewed "korn" with raisins and walnuts for main dish and for desert a dry and not very sweet lemony cake. I only ate the soup and the fish. Those were the best. To this we had "free beer" which I didn't like very much.

After dinner we went around Rigas Old town for hours, trying to find a karaoke bar or a pub, or anything. We failed rather miserably, one place was dead empty, one was filled with kidz, one didn't like foreigners and when we finally found Kuba that we'd been looking for it was so full only two of us got in. The place looked really nice though, with a thick atmosphere. Finally me, Johan and Ulrika gave up and went to McDonalds where we had chicken wings and McLavash. McD was cheap in Riga. Then we returned to the hotel and slept. I figured out a way to wrap the bed cover into a coocon around the madrass and slept a lot better.

However I woke up early and at the breakfast I found Dan and Mattias. We went on a 2 hours walk around the Jugend blocks of newer Riga and took plenty photograps of wonderfull facades. I'll have me many merry moments watching those architectural porn photos. Aaaarrrhhhh, I just love surfaces! I'll update this post with some photos once I've had a chance to sift through them.

And then we all got on the buss and went home. It was a great trip and now it's monday!