22.02.2006 
-14 °C
Riga, Latvia...
Early February in London. A chilly 7 degrees, if you´re lucky. Miserable, grey, bleak, dark... I´d thought it would be nice to have a few days somewhere sunny. Malta, perhaps, or maybe Cyprus. - somewhere I hadn´t yet been. But alas, flights were just too flipping expensive; like me, every sun-starved Pommie had had the same idea. So I started focusing on anywhere else in Europe I hadn´t been.
Finland? The aurora borealis...Lapland....Santa Claus...tobogganing... £400 just for flights? No way!
Liechtenstein? It´s another country...famous for producing false teeth....ummm maybe not
Estonia? Tallinn´s meant to be gorgeous...
Latvia? It´s cheap there....meant to delightful...and...
I can go bob-sledding there!?!?
So I went to Riga...where it was a mild -10 upon my arrival late at night.....so much for the warm sunny place dea!!
A quick taxi ride into town left me at Fun Friendly Frank's Backpackers.....I usually have a policy of avoiding places with such wanky names (e.g. “Top Banana” in Phnom Penh was a complete dive), but it had gotten such amazing reviews on hostelworld.com, that I decided I must stay there. Being absolutely shattered from a hectic half-term in the schools, I promptly hit the sack - this particular sack being a rather comfortable bunk bed in a mixed dorm room. After 2-3 hours sleep, I awoke to the cacophonic stumbling of an inebriated Irishman, who was intent on finding his nail-clippers (as all inebriated folk must do)! After a few minutes of fumbling through his bags, he hit the floor with a thud.
And began to snore....like a camel with indigestion might. All attempts I made to rouse him (holding his nose, throwing pillows, chucking water in his face, banging the door against him etc) failed, and so I blearily wandered down to reception, and asked to change rooms...
At four in the morning? No problem! (Lesson number one: Nothing will waken an ossified snorer!)
After a couple more hours sleep, I rugged up to brave the fresh -12 Rigan air, and wandered out in search of coffee. I got distracted though, by the sight of the frozen solid Daugava River! For an Australian, who still thinks +11 is ridiculously cold this had quite some novelty! I stared in amazement at this 800m wide river, and in horror at the crazy people who were walking across it
CRAZY...
So I found that coffee, and then, as perusual, went in search of the highest tower in town, the bell tower of St Peter´s church, and took the lift (they´re very modern in Riga! No bollocking woebegone steps like in Italy) to the top for the astonishing view over the whitescape of Riga.
Did I mention it was -12 when I stepped out? Ok, so at the top of St Peter´s bell tower, it was about -30 with the jolly wind! Back inside for me (more coffee).....to visit the ornate House of the Black Heads (the patron saint of the guild was Maurice, an African warrior), a 14th century guild house, and the Museum of Occupation, which details the German and Soviet Occupations of Latvia during much of the 20th century. Ironically, the square outside the Museum of Occupation is home to a massive statue of the Latvian Riflemen, who were central in helping bring in the Soviet era.
Over the next 2 days: I explored the Heritage-Listed Old town (Everything is listed these days, except perhaps for Brisbane, which just simply isn´t worthy!) with its beautiful art nouveau architecture (assymetric shapes, decorative arches, faces, vines/flowers etc.); wandered through the lovely white parklands filled with children bum-sliding down icy footpaths, ducks snoozing in the (not very warm) sun and Rigans admiring the wintry landscape; visited the architecturally confused Dome Cathedral; window-shopped (mostly from the inside to escape the cold); and drank far too much coffee (As part of my health kick, I only have coffee when I´m “travelling” – this means I still drink coffee all the time! hehe).
So what about the bob-sledding? Well...as soon as I arrived, I asked when I could go. Tomorrow? Nope, we´re booked out. What about the next day? Yeah, possibly. If we have enough people......which thankfully, they did.
Shortly before I was due to head off bob-sledding, I sauntered down to the riverbank to do as the locals did - I figured, that if I were silly enough to jump into a bob-sled, I really should be silly enough to walk out onto a frozen river.
Of course, the ice was thick and strong, and well able to support my weight, as well as that of the 20 or so other foreigners who had decided to brave the ice at the same time as me.
And then...bob-sledding....ah yes. There are only about 10 places in the world where non-professionals can go bob-sledding for the hell of it, and Sigulda, about an hour on the train from downtown Riga, is one such place. So a large mob from the hostel and I boarded the train for our journey out there. In the middle of nowhere (or so it seemed), the train ground to a holt, and the 30 or so of us jumped off and wound our way up to the bob-sled track, stopping on the way, to amuse ourselves by taking pictures of the "Puke" shop - Puke is Latvian for "flower"...quite funny methinks....
I wasn´t the first to go...I think some of the Irish lads jumped in first. I spent the next hour or so befriending a mob of Pommies (whose tag rugby team I later joined). And eventually it was my turn. Jen (one of the Pommies) and I jumped in for the ride....
"So", I said to the driver, "Whadda we have to do?".
"Nothing", said he, "But make sure you don´t hit my helmet with yours"
"That´s it?", I said, uncertainly
"Yeah, it´s easy" he said.
Ok.....so off we went....the first 30 metres or so....kinda slowish, like going down a slippery slide at the local park.....and then we hit the first corner.....WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! And then it got faster and faster....and even faster. All the time I was focusing on not hitting the driver´s helmet with mine, as per his instructions.....and praying that we didn´t crash.....the whole thing was a bit of a blur. Crazy g-forces, sharp turns, shake, shake, shake, turn, whoosh, shake shake shake, turn whoosh etc....and then all of a sudden...
"BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!" screamed the driver as we approached the end of the track...but nobody did, so we just kept on going!
And when we finally stopped, we consequently incurred the wrath of the pissed-off driver
"Why you no brake?" he shouted at Jen.
"Why you no say to!" I retorted.
Who cares if we braked or not - we clocked the fastest time!! WOOHOO! Must have been that not-braking business of ours! (Lesson number 2: not braking makes you go faster than anyone else!)
After the bob-sledding, everyone was in a bit of a silly mood, and after nearly missing our train back into town (bloody lads at the supermarket held us up!), grabbed some ridiculously cheap pizza and headed out with Fun and Friendly Frank to check out a Latvian discotheque....It was bloody awful with its melange of techno-disco pop, scantily-clad women, thoroughly-turpsed-sunglass-wearing-downright-awful terpsichoreans and flashing multicoloured lights - but quite amusing nonetheless...
The next day was...a tad quiet after the adventures of the night before. Whilst most of the Pommie mob slept, Masum (one of the Poms) and I headed out in search of the ethnographic music (can´t be all pizza, bob-sledding and discotheques now can it?). We boarded, what we hoped was the correct bus. But of course, it wasn´t, and we found ourself at the "end of the line" in the middle of suburban Riga (i.e. the middle of nowhere").
Hmmmm what to do....
"Do you speak English?" I sheepishly asked a random young person at the bus stop.
"No".
"Hi, do you speak English? I asked another person.
"No English". Of course not!!
So we resorted to just sayig "Brivdabas muzej" (Ethnographic museum) to anyone who would listen, and eventually were pointed towards it (maybe).
So we started walking, (perhaps not) towards the museum, but stopped when we came upon some men sitting on jerry cans on a frozen lake.... fishing!
What the? We ambled over towards them, and sure enough, they were fishing...through holes they had burnt in the ice with oversized cigarette lighters....
Of course, I wanted to have a go....and asked one of the old fellas....but no....it seems only men are allowed to ice fish in Latvia. So whilst Masum had a go, I sat and watched.....grrrr...
After some running about on the frozen lake, and making angels in the snow (where you lie on your back in the snow and move your arms up and down across the snow – try it, it´s fun!), we headed back to town, to bum-slide the frozen footpaths (Lesson three, bum-sliding down footpaths is fun but gets you lots of bruises)...
(Lesson Four - Riga rocks!)
B
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