Phone photos of continental #5, part VII - Riga, Riga's food and Riga's drink

Daugava River

Riga.

Of course, always, Riga.

Pelmeni

The motorbike that belonged to a South Korean guy in his thirties. Mr SK used to work for Samsung, then quit his high flying career and hopped on his bike and biked all across Russia, the Baltics, and now Riga.

Rigan ice cream. The best.

Rigan goulash. Again, the best.

Eurolines, my best friend.

Riga, part VII - Dinner, last, then wrapup

I'll end the Riga part of my journey with an excerpt from my travel diary.

On the bus to Vilnius now after having spent two nights in Riga. I loved Riga - apart from the cheap restaurant that tasted, literally, like shit - and Riga will be a city I return to. I just know it. When I decide things they always happen - or, I follow through with them. I loved Riga the city, but the hostel I stayed in was awful. Smelliest room I've ever stayed in, and most of the people there were downright strange. Ouch at the Lithuanian highways, it is a bit hard to write here. Was accosted by a Latvian guy on the train yesterday who told me I was so beautiful. Thanks but no thanks, even though he was handsome. No one I met in this hostel that was particularly remarkable. Loads of Asians who were quite nice, but my brain is literally bleeding from having to speak all of that shitty English, having to fucking listen to all that awful English. Haven't met any inspiring people, then. So far Mika the bottle-blond Finn takes the cake, him and his shirts. So much for him, all lost to me now. Lethargic and less happy than I was on my trip from Tallinn to Riga. Breathing all that greasy air from the shitty hostel really made me sick.

Pelmeni

On the road, as always, as I like it

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