Journey to the (North) East… Of Europe (V)

u know what, the wait for the st petersberg entry is rather futile. let's just move on. :)

Days 8-9: Riga, Latvijas Republika (Latvia)

7-8 May 2008

Couch-surfing and a truly Latvian Experience

by carol

So after spending some 16 hours on the bus all the way from St. Petersberg - and being held up 3 hours at the Russian border in the dead of the night and one poor random guy being interrogated on behalf of the rest of us who were sound asleep on the bus - we pulled into a bus bay near the Riga market. Boy, were we glad to get off that bus. These overnight buses are no joke man....

Since we were relatively unprepared for most of the trip as it was organised for us, we had no idea what Latvia was about, except that it was a baltic state. Yocksong the STB man did all the research and even got us our place to stay through couch-surfing (what is that? read more to find out!), so we planned to follow him cosely.

After exchanging our remaining Russian Ruble for the Latvian Lat (not a very creative name, but it was a surprisingly strong currency - even stronger than the pound at that time), and refusing to deposit our big backpacks in the lockers at the market, we set off - on foot.

The sun was still rather low in the sky as we headed south into the historical old city. We had about 2-3 hours to kill before it was time to meet our Latvian hosts for lunch. The old city was very pretty, with many narrow alleys and cobbled streets - and extremely peaceful, with the exception of the ocassional tour group. But what I remember most about that morning was trudging around the place with that huge backpack. David and I took turns, but it got heavier as time passed. I dunno how those people on the amazing race do it!

There are 2 prominent meeting points in Riga (oh it's a very small city by the way. you can literally walk around in a day) - the Freedom Monument and the Laima Clock nearby. A little about Latvia: it has a very troubled past, being ruled and occupied by many nations. It declared independence in 1918, after being part of the Russian Empire for some 200 years. The Germans and then Soviet Army later occupied it again, and oppressing the people greatly and depleting the population of Latvians. Independence was finally declared again in 1991. Today, only 60% of the population are Latvian. The older Latvians still speak Russian, as much as they hate them. Anyway, we met our host, Agnesse and her husband/boyfriend at the Freedom Monument, and they brought us to the University of Latvia (one of 2 unis in the country) cafeteria for lunch. It was supposed to be cheaper to eat in the cafeteria but it was still quite expensive to us... :( It was traditional Latvian food but didn't make much of an impression of me, but i remember there was a huge variety of salad and jelly for dessert. We chatted a bit to our hosts and found them to be extremely nice people who spoke rather good english. They gave us directions to their place, and then we parted as they had to go back to work.

Yocksong wanted us to walk to their place, claiming it wasn't very far; but we protested vehemently, and so we ended up taking the tram a few stops down the main road. We proceeded to look for their apartment and it was a nightmare of a search. The address led us to a very very rundown block of flats, off the main-road, and all the way to the last block. The stairway was very dark and musty and really really scary. Still, we braced ourselves and ventured to knock on the door, hoping that Agnesse's brother would open the door. Alas, no one answered, leaving us to wonder if we had gotten the right place at all. As we milled around the dodgey place, thinking and praying hard, we saw some people go in and out of the apartments, some giving us weird looks but no one really offering any help. We tried to stop one or two to ask if they knew 'where Agnesse lives', but of course, why should they know? After a long while, we got quite desperate, so yocksong ventured into one of the shops along the road and tried to borrow a phone to call Agnesse at work. Thank God he managed to get through to her and she said she would get hold of her brother. So we had to wait again. Some time later, a young chap walked by and we asked him again, if he knew where Agnesse lives, and this time, a positive reply! :)

Gratefully, we followed him back up that dodgey flight of stairs (think of singapore in the 60s or something) and into their apartment. It was rather basic, but sufficiently homely. Oh i forgot to mention the weather. For some strange reason, while it was super hot up north in Russia, it was freezing when we got to Riga. It was inexplicable - it was May and the flowers were blooming, but temperatures just dipped, so we were tired, cold and miserable. That was when the next bomb was dropped on us. Agnesse's brother told us that the hot water supply in the house was spoilt, and they haven't been showering at home because it was too cold. However, the last time we took a shower was probably 2 days ago in St Petersberg (since the hostel there was terrible too) we didn't have much of a choice, so we decided to quickly shower while we could, while it was still day. Obviously, i showered with minumum water, and at the end wondered if it was effective at all. Still, it felt good to at least have a roof over our head in a country I know nothing about, and no one.

This couch-surfing thing is very interesting though. It is really based on trust. You meet a complete stranger, let him into your house and then expect him to be a good person. Soon after Agnesse's brother showed us in, he left us all alone in the house. Agnesse wasn't going to be back till late that night, and she had invited us to join her at a party at some warehouse. We were so tired, and not interested in the party, but yocksong obliged on our behalf. So off we trooped again, on foot this time (it's a lot easier to walk without the bags), to complete our tour of the city (we spent a lot of time at the free Latvian Museum of Occupation, which was very educational and fascinating). Dinner was a simple affair and we had Georgian food, which is generally somehow very popular in the former Soviet bloc. Yocksong went off to meet Agnesse; David and I wandered around the place somemore, thinking we could see Riga by night.... But we didn't get very far - only to the train station, where there was a 'shopping mall'. Reminded me a lot of bukit panjang plaza before it was renovated (i.e. pathetic). Still, we amused ourselves in the supermarket before we decided to head back because we were so tired by then. We spent the rest of the time chatting with Agnesse's brother.

It was a wednesday (definitely weekday) night, but Agnesse was volunteering at this party thing, and her boyfriend picked them up about midnight. When they got back, they still had energy to talk to us (david and I were leaving the next morning anyway) about their lives and what they do. I guess they characterised Latvians for us - very resilient, determined, passionate, zesty and full of life. They were building up their country almost from scratch after all the years of opression. Yet, they do barely form the majority in their own country. Their parents speak russian but this generation does not hold that much contempt for the Russians - they would rather move ahead, and watch their country win the next ice-hockey world championships (yes, with a population of slightly over 2million, and coming out from war after war, they have produced a sporting team of world standard. how about singapore?). it was very very good talking to them, but we had to give in to our tiredness too soon.

It was time to couch-surf. literally. Agnesse had also informed us during lunch that their inflatable matress was spoilt... and all that was left was the couch that could have its back flattened out to form a bed. 3 of us slept on the couch that night. Because we slept vertically instead of horizontally, there was lots of space between us. I think i had a swimming float for a pillow. But i also think we all slept so soundly that we didn't move at all.

The next morning, david and I had to leave early for the airport. Yocksong was staying for another day. We had kinda finished the whole city the day before and there wasnt really much to see, but Agnesse had taken the day off to bring YS around (how fortunate!). From the pictures, it looked like they had a lot of fun! But David and I were really happy to be going home to copenhagen. This trip had been one of the longest we've been on, and it's only fun being a tourist for so long. Yet, the couch-surfing experience made it one of the most interesting experiences we've had throughout the exchange. It's a great way to get to know the locals and their culture, and get free accomodation! www.couchsurfing.com

The next morning, our hosts offered us breakfast. But we were too paiseh to take any, except for a hot tea. We felt quite bad for staying only 1 night and wanting to leave their country so soon without talking to them much. (it's not their fault, we just had enough of travelling for the moment!) Agnesse even gave me chocolates to bring along and then sent us off. We went around a bit more that morning, to try to finish spending all our Lats (we hardly spent anything in Latvia!) bought some souvenirs and some famous Laima chocolates and sweets at the airport and still had change out the remaining Lats into kroners/euros.

For once we were not running for our flight. And it was a nice feeling of familiarity and home to be back in Copenhagen. We had come round in a circle: Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Moscow, St Petersberg, Riga, Copenhagen. The countries we visited weren't backward or dirty, but those places just weren't home. Also, we had brought our Danish textbooks all around, but hardly touched them. Now we had to sit for our Danish exams the next day....