Sigulda and Turaidas

I asked N for travel recommendations in Latvia, since he did a year abroad there. He spent the first year back home moping for LV, and even went back there for Christmas month two years ago. But I'm here to write my story, not N's. Some parts of my story overlap with N's, but that tale is also a tale for another day, and not for here. The role N plays in this particular narrative is that he studied and lived there for a year, and fell in love with it just as surely as I did in my youth in England when we were all younger.

I wish I could just up and go off to LV and live there for a month, but I'm not that spontaneous, not just yet. Besides, what would I do there? I'd probably go off and travel my pants off because that's what I always do.

N said that I should visit Jurmala and Sigulda, both of them towns which were easily accessible and fairly close to Riga. I only had time for one of them, and ended up going with Sigulda, because castles.

My hostel was about 10 mins from Riga central train station, and I walked there with some of the guys from the hostel - there was this Japanese man who was very nice, although didn't speak much English. He said that he was 31, although he only looked to be in his late twenties. He asked me for a photo, which amused me as I was under the impression that people from my country aren't that exotic to him, because we're right next to them.

Speaking of Japanese guys in hostels, I remember 3 years ago when I went to Barcelona - it was the trip to begin all trips - and I walked into the hostel and this gorgeous, rumpled, sleepy-eyed boy with long wavy hair looked up from his bunk and said sleepily to me, 'Hola - ' and I decided right then and there that Barcelona was my kind of city. I later found out that Señor Hola was from Japan, although he had been travelling for so long that he didn't even look Asian anymore, much less Japanese. I actually thought he was a local boy at first. Anyway, Hola was 27, and for me three years ago, 27 seemed impossibly old. He'd quit his corporate job in Japan and gone world travelling. There were lots of these guys in Riga as well, all of them Japanese or Korean, having adieu-ed their jobs back home and upped to Europe. There are loads of them in Europe right now as I write this. Damn, I need to go back.

Ha.

There was also a Chinese guy, my age, who was nice but a bit too chatty.

I took the train to Sigulda, which cost 1.90 euros. The train was rickety and slightly dilapidated and reminded me of the trains in Romania, but for some reason provided WiFi, proving once more that looks can mislead. I was hit on by an admittedly hot Latvian guy my age, but didn't feel very chatty, so tried to get away from him. He followed me all through the train and I was only able to elude him when I'd gotten off at Sigulda, feeling extremely annoyed.

As far as I could tell there was not one but two castles in Sigulda.

Fragmentation - I still need to get away.

I had to catch a bus from Sigulda train station, up to the castles themselves, so that is what I did. The place was decidedly deserted. Lots of woods and it was nice and chilly and just the way I like it. I did loads of walking.

Walking, and castles, and shizzle and dizzle.

Sigulda train station

Riga

Sigulda, ostensibly so

Riga, part VI - Rīgas centrālā dzelzceļa stacija

Ramblings in Riga. That has quite a nice ring to it.

I walked around a lot, lost in my own thoughts, because that's what I do, a lot. Maybe it's work, but I've realized that I'm actually quite perfectly happy to live inside my mind for lengthy swathes of time, only coming out when it's necessary. The other day I actually went and took a test to see if I scored anywhere on the spectrum. Not per se, said the results, but veneering very close. Which is not a bad thing, methinks. It just means that I find peace with myself in a way that precious few others do, and that I don't need to depend on other people for my happiness.

I need to talk a little bit about the hostel, which was called Gogol Hostel I think. Something along those lines. It looked like a nice hostel on the outside - plus it was pretty cheap, 8 ish euros I think for a night, so perhaps I shouldn't whine too much, but for the love of all that is good, the room I was allocated smelt as if someone had died inside. It smelt all greasy. Imagine what your hair would smell like if you were trekking in the tropics and hadn't washed for a year, then multiply that by twenty. That was the way the room smelled - greasy, sickeningly greasy, oily, as if an army of hobos had decided to live there. Thank goodness I was only there for a night, or I would have thrown up., or moved hostels. Everyone had been recommending Backpacker Sally's to me, and boy oh boy did I regret not going. There was a slovenly, matted-hair guy in that room who told me that he was half Finnish, half Turkish, although he loo9ked more Turk to me, and kind of latched onto me, and I had to drop him loads of heavy hints before he would finally leave me alone. He had yellow teeth and smelt funny and I had an odd hunch that he was at least partially responsible for the dire smell in the room.

I - I really need to get back on the road again? It's been too long.

I am facilitating things. I always facilitate things. I subscribe wholly to Steve Jobs' famous words, "With passion, you can change the world." What I think people underestimate is just how large a helping of passion you need to change the world. It doesn't work in little doses, or even sprint-like work spurts. You have to immerse yourself in it. You have to BE the passion. Most of the people I've met, especially after I turned twenty, have remarked on how driven I am. That's always been one of my favourite compliments; I love it when people say and notice that about me.

More to come. Off to Sigulda.

View from the train as I rolled off to Sigulda, heigh ho

On the train.

Turgenev iela

The stew on the main dish tasted like poo. I kid you not. That was poo on a dish. I didn't touch it because it tasted so effing dire.

The train station