Having a Blast in the Baltics
Sometimes you look around you and wonder, "How did I end up in this situation?" Surrounded by 12 Brits with wigs, fake moustaches, and pink shirts singing songs from The Sound of Music, I found myself thinking that exact thing.
In this case, what I did to find myself in that situation was get on a train from Moscow to Riga (the capital of Latvia) and go to the Skyline Bar, overlooking the city from Riga from the top of Hotel Latvia. I went to Riga two times last year and had a great time, so when we found out it was too much trouble to get a visa to our dream destination of Belarus, I wasn't against going back to the Baltics States. We (Sara, Eric, Nicole, and I) arrived in Riga on Thursday and, after dropping off our stuff at Friendly Fun Frank's Backpacker's Hostel (voted number one hostel on hostelworld.com for good reason) we hiked around the city. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day. In the evening we headed to the Skyline Bar because of the beautiful view overlooking the city. There we met a happy-go-lucky group of middle-aged guys from Nottingham on holiday. Sara was the first to go up to them and ask them about their costumes. We never quite figured out who they were though; someone said The Jackson Five, one of them was possibly James Brown, but I think overall they just wanted to wear goofy wigs. They started talking to an Austrian woman sitting near them and apparently asked her about The Sound of Music. The poor woman hadn't heard of it, but the Brits didn't believe it and thought that if they just kept singing songs from the movie she would recognize something. That never happened, but since Sara and I are in love with that movie, we were glad to join in.
The next morning we hit the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (not a favorite of Russians, who are considered the occupiers) and then caught a bus to Vilnius. We arrived in the evening, found our cozy hostel, and went out to eat some traditional Lithuanian food. This was a good choice. We had various delicious combinations of meat, potatoes, and sauce, and I had soup with country sausage and quail eggs that was very good. The only mistake was the pig's feet, which we got two orders of since it's the house specialty.
On the whole, though, the food was cheap and delicious. We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the city, exploring the winding cobblestone streets. Even though we didn't go to bed until after 2, we made the best decision of the trip getting up at 6 to watch the sunset. Despite our sleepiness, we hurried over to a place called Three Crosses Hill and hiked up with not a little huffing and puffing. We made it to the top as the sun was beginning to peek over the trees and shine over the city.
We spent our last couple hours walking around the city breathing the peaceful morning air and eating freshly-baked pastries.
Eric and I caught a bus back to Riga at 10 (because of train schedules and class schedules we had to come back a whole day earlier than Sara and Nicole) and had time to buy a chess set before catching the train back to Moscow. Our wagon on the train was filled with a bobsled and skeleton team--pretty hardcore--from Krasnoyarsk who had been training in Riga for the past month. It was fun to talk to them. We got back to Moscow and immediately caught a bus back to Vladimir. Despite spending more time on busses and trains on the trip than actually hanging out in the cities, it was an amazing trip. Life is good in the Baltic States.
Sometimes you look around you and wonder, "How did I end up in this situation?" Surrounded by 12 Brits with wigs, fake moustaches, and pink shirts singing songs from The Sound of Music, I found myself thinking that exact thing.In this case, what I did to find myself in that situation was get on a train from Moscow to Riga (the capital of Latvia) and go to the Skyline Bar, overlooking the city from Riga from the top of Hotel Latvia. I went to Riga two times last year and had a great time, so when we found out it was too much trouble to get a visa to our dream destination of Belarus, I wasn't against going back to the Baltics States. We (Sara, Eric, Nicole, and I) arrived in Riga on Thursday and, after dropping off our stuff at Friendly Fun Frank's Backpacker's Hostel (voted number one hostel on hostelworld.com for good reason) we hiked around the city. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day. In the evening we headed to the Skyline Bar because of the beautiful view overlooking the city. There we met a happy-go-lucky group of middle-aged guys from Nottingham on holiday. Sara was the first to go up to them and ask them about their costumes. We never quite figured out who they were though; someone said The Jackson Five, one of them was possibly James Brown, but I think overall they just wanted to wear goofy wigs. They started talking to an Austrian woman sitting near them and apparently asked her about The Sound of Music. The poor woman hadn't heard of it, but the Brits didn't believe it and thought that if they just kept singing songs from the movie she would recognize something. That never happened, but since Sara and I are in love with that movie, we were glad to join in.
The next morning we hit the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (not a favorite of Russians, who are considered the occupiers) and then caught a bus to Vilnius. We arrived in the evening, found our cozy hostel, and went out to eat some traditional Lithuanian food. This was a good choice. We had various delicious combinations of meat, potatoes, and sauce, and I had soup with country sausage and quail eggs that was very good. The only mistake was the pig's feet, which we got two orders of since it's the house specialty.
On the whole, though, the food was cheap and delicious. We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the city, exploring the winding cobblestone streets. Even though we didn't go to bed until after 2, we made the best decision of the trip getting up at 6 to watch the sunset. Despite our sleepiness, we hurried over to a place called Three Crosses Hill and hiked up with not a little huffing and puffing. We made it to the top as the sun was beginning to peek over the trees and shine over the city.
We spent our last couple hours walking around the city breathing the peaceful morning air and eating freshly-baked pastries.
Eric and I caught a bus back to Riga at 10 (because of train schedules and class schedules we had to come back a whole day earlier than Sara and Nicole) and had time to buy a chess set before catching the train back to Moscow. Our wagon on the train was filled with a bobsled and skeleton team--pretty hardcore--from Krasnoyarsk who had been training in Riga for the past month. It was fun to talk to them. We got back to Moscow and immediately caught a bus back to Vladimir. Despite spending more time on busses and trains on the trip than actually hanging out in the cities, it was an amazing trip. Life is good in the Baltic States.
posted by Joanna at 8:44 PM
8 comments
