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puszysty at 09:33pm on 10/04/2006
puszysty at 09:33pm on 10/04/2006Thank the lord I have finished my seminar paper! It's a little shorter than it should be, but it's 12 freakin pages, who's really gonna care if it isn't 13? In 1.5 space, I feel like I've written a novel. I should have someone look it over and make sure my thesis is solid, and that I'm not confusing, have explained enough. It's due Thursday so I have the time for that. It's rather nerve-racking that this paper is worth 35% of my grade. Not cool. I hate how the classes here are structured, like that.
Anywho
Latvia!
Thursday: flight from Prague. Our plane is delayed, so we get in Riga a little later than expected. Whic is bad, because we have stuff planned for the afternoon. So when we get there, we quickly check in to the hotel and rush over to the Latvian Occupation Museum, where we get a tour. Pretty interesting- I especially liked seeing physical examples of how prisoners in Siberia lived, after having read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich last semester (for a class, but it is a novel). We had to hurry a bit through the museum though, since we were also scheduled for a city tour right afterwards. Riga obviously is not very big, so the tour didn't take us around a large area, but we saw most of the old town, which was built in the middle ages. There isn't much left from that time- mainly just a wall and a tower that the Swedes built.
Dinner that night at this place that resembled a student cafeteria, but was actually a restaurant. They served mainly just dumplings. Not bad. Not the best meal I had on the trip. But very cheap nonetheless.
Latvian currency is weird because 1 lat is more than a dollar, but yet things are actually cheaper there. So essentially, the exchange rate is rather deceiving.
Friday: Get up, walk over to the Stockholm School of Economics for a meeting. This building is in an area where everything is done in Art Nouveau style- including the school. Pretty ornate on the outside. A bit different than the Art Nouveau in Brussels though, which emphasized windows more than the building trim.
Meeting 2- this one was at the University of Latvia, where one of the professors gave a presentation. This professor also happens to be one of the top advisors to the Latvian president, which is pretty cool. That presentation was one of the more interesting as well.
Lunch- coffee house. Seafood sandwich. Been a while since I'd had seafood. I do have a funny story about lunch- the bathrooms in Latvia are labeled with triangles, one pointing up, one pointing down. I went to use that bathroom while waiting for my food, but had not a clue as to which bathroom was which. They happened to be one persons, so I just picked one and went it. Well, I get done, open the door, and there is a guy standing there waiting to use it. Oops. Picked the wrong symbol.
Somewhere around 1:30, 2-ish, I change quickly to comfortable clothes and head out to see the rest of Riga. I start at one of the churches that holds one of the largest organs in Europe. Naturally, I have to pay to get it, but it's like a buck so no big deal. I get in there and turns out, this darn organ is under rennovation and the whole thing is covered with wooden planks. Couldn't see a thing. What a waste of a buck.
Next stop is a museum in town that showcases a latvian house as it would look around 1600-1700. It was 3 stories tall, and pretty cool to walk through and see. Not a hands on museum, as all the room decorations were original, but better than a text only museum. The kind of thing I like.
After this, I head to the Russian market just south of old town. This has been around for decades. It was huge- much bigger than I expected. They had everything there- meat, produce, chocolates, clothing, shoes, music...everything. I could've been there for hours (except that it closed at 5, and by this point it was alomst 4). I was semi-looking for a pair of tennis shoes, since the ones I was wearing had developed a hole at some point while we were in Prague. Well, apparently in Latvia, they have a thing against tennis shoes. I could hardly find any. When I did- well, Latvians have small feet. I wear a 40 in European size, but I rarely found anything above a 36.
Oh and another thing I notice about Latvia- I have never heard more Ace of Base in such a short span of time. At least, since they were popular. Maybe it's because it's so close to Sweden....
anywho. I get some latvian chocolates while I'm there to send home, and what is called a (ok, 2- but for 5 cents you can't go wrong) 'donut' for myself. Granted 'donut' actually means fried dough. Like elephant ears. Delicious. They had them with raspberry filling too.
um....oh yes. I head down along river to get a better view of the riga castle, dip my fingers in the water just to see how cold the water really was, and to stop and see this statue thing that told the legend of how riga was formed. Apparently there was this giant who used to walk people across the river, and one day he carried a boy across. The boy kept getting heavier and heavier, and when the giant set him down on the other side, up sprang Riga. Strange, I know.
Who knows what time it was by then. Around 7 though, I went for dinner with a number of people to another buffet, pay by the pound, type place, only this one didn't feel so much like a cafeteria. And I thought the food was better. Killed a bit of time, people began to talk about going out and partying it up with all the group (which is like 30 people) for the last night. K, I'm not much one for going out til all hours of the morning, and a huge group of Americans out getting wasted in Europe? That's just asking for trouble there. Later that night, I was trying to just chill with someone who didn't plan on going out either, but some girls physically dragged him out. So much for that. No one dragged me anywhere, thank goodness. K, so back to a little earlier. I had really want to go ice skating since I'd heard there was a rink not far from our hotel. and 50 cents for an hour? Can't pass that up. So I went skating. Around 9-ish. Worst ice I've ever skated on- it was like skating on snow- but it was fun anyway.
Saturday: seminar day. I won't bore you with that. But afterwards, a couple of girls wanted me to teach them how to skate, so I went to the rink again. My ankles were killing me afterwards, especially having to use hockey skates twice, but once again, it was fun. I mean, how many times do you get to go ice skating in Latvia? (and i know it's been a while, but if you remember the Hungary post, I was in an outdoor pool a week prior to this.)
Still a few hours left until the final dinner, which IES was taking us out for. I had lats to blow. So I really wanted another one of those 'donut' things, and figured I'd use up a couple cents. I also found this puzzle book, that I had actually seen in Slovakia at a gas station, but not since. I was excited to see it again, since it looked cool, and got a couple. You are given a grid, and numbers above it, and you have to figure out which cells to shade in. Tougher than it sounds- I'm about halfway through one of the two books I got (which is about 7 of 15 puzzles).
There are a number of stands with older ladies selling amber jewelry in the old town. I got a necklace from one of them for 2 lats (lats to blow! I like it though- it's pretty). After decided that there was no way I'd get rid of all the lats I had, I stopped by an exchange place to get euro from my remaining lats.
K so final dinner- at some place that I'd thought was traditional Latvian originally, but I'm not so sure now. I really have no idea. It was good though. Definitely felt underdressed at the place. They had these chairs with flat backs that went all the way up past your head (unless you were really tall). Not the most comfortable.
After dinner we hurry out of there to get our luggage and load up the bus. This was April 1, so the trip leaders fooled us by telling everyone that they had found out that the weight limit for baggage was 12kg instead of 15. Everyone on the bus just went "WHAT?!" It was great. Waited in line forever to check in, and hurried through security to get to the terminal. Of course, the plane is delayed. An hour and half :p. We were on the red eye flight already, but now we didn't leave Latvia til about midnight. Got back to Freiburg via bus from the Frankfurt airport at 5 in the morning on Sunday.
and that was my trip. :) Pictures, later, as always.
Anywho
Latvia!
Thursday: flight from Prague. Our plane is delayed, so we get in Riga a little later than expected. Whic is bad, because we have stuff planned for the afternoon. So when we get there, we quickly check in to the hotel and rush over to the Latvian Occupation Museum, where we get a tour. Pretty interesting- I especially liked seeing physical examples of how prisoners in Siberia lived, after having read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich last semester (for a class, but it is a novel). We had to hurry a bit through the museum though, since we were also scheduled for a city tour right afterwards. Riga obviously is not very big, so the tour didn't take us around a large area, but we saw most of the old town, which was built in the middle ages. There isn't much left from that time- mainly just a wall and a tower that the Swedes built.
Dinner that night at this place that resembled a student cafeteria, but was actually a restaurant. They served mainly just dumplings. Not bad. Not the best meal I had on the trip. But very cheap nonetheless.
Latvian currency is weird because 1 lat is more than a dollar, but yet things are actually cheaper there. So essentially, the exchange rate is rather deceiving.
Friday: Get up, walk over to the Stockholm School of Economics for a meeting. This building is in an area where everything is done in Art Nouveau style- including the school. Pretty ornate on the outside. A bit different than the Art Nouveau in Brussels though, which emphasized windows more than the building trim.
Meeting 2- this one was at the University of Latvia, where one of the professors gave a presentation. This professor also happens to be one of the top advisors to the Latvian president, which is pretty cool. That presentation was one of the more interesting as well.
Lunch- coffee house. Seafood sandwich. Been a while since I'd had seafood. I do have a funny story about lunch- the bathrooms in Latvia are labeled with triangles, one pointing up, one pointing down. I went to use that bathroom while waiting for my food, but had not a clue as to which bathroom was which. They happened to be one persons, so I just picked one and went it. Well, I get done, open the door, and there is a guy standing there waiting to use it. Oops. Picked the wrong symbol.
Somewhere around 1:30, 2-ish, I change quickly to comfortable clothes and head out to see the rest of Riga. I start at one of the churches that holds one of the largest organs in Europe. Naturally, I have to pay to get it, but it's like a buck so no big deal. I get in there and turns out, this darn organ is under rennovation and the whole thing is covered with wooden planks. Couldn't see a thing. What a waste of a buck.
Next stop is a museum in town that showcases a latvian house as it would look around 1600-1700. It was 3 stories tall, and pretty cool to walk through and see. Not a hands on museum, as all the room decorations were original, but better than a text only museum. The kind of thing I like.
After this, I head to the Russian market just south of old town. This has been around for decades. It was huge- much bigger than I expected. They had everything there- meat, produce, chocolates, clothing, shoes, music...everything. I could've been there for hours (except that it closed at 5, and by this point it was alomst 4). I was semi-looking for a pair of tennis shoes, since the ones I was wearing had developed a hole at some point while we were in Prague. Well, apparently in Latvia, they have a thing against tennis shoes. I could hardly find any. When I did- well, Latvians have small feet. I wear a 40 in European size, but I rarely found anything above a 36.
Oh and another thing I notice about Latvia- I have never heard more Ace of Base in such a short span of time. At least, since they were popular. Maybe it's because it's so close to Sweden....
anywho. I get some latvian chocolates while I'm there to send home, and what is called a (ok, 2- but for 5 cents you can't go wrong) 'donut' for myself. Granted 'donut' actually means fried dough. Like elephant ears. Delicious. They had them with raspberry filling too.
um....oh yes. I head down along river to get a better view of the riga castle, dip my fingers in the water just to see how cold the water really was, and to stop and see this statue thing that told the legend of how riga was formed. Apparently there was this giant who used to walk people across the river, and one day he carried a boy across. The boy kept getting heavier and heavier, and when the giant set him down on the other side, up sprang Riga. Strange, I know.
Who knows what time it was by then. Around 7 though, I went for dinner with a number of people to another buffet, pay by the pound, type place, only this one didn't feel so much like a cafeteria. And I thought the food was better. Killed a bit of time, people began to talk about going out and partying it up with all the group (which is like 30 people) for the last night. K, I'm not much one for going out til all hours of the morning, and a huge group of Americans out getting wasted in Europe? That's just asking for trouble there. Later that night, I was trying to just chill with someone who didn't plan on going out either, but some girls physically dragged him out. So much for that. No one dragged me anywhere, thank goodness. K, so back to a little earlier. I had really want to go ice skating since I'd heard there was a rink not far from our hotel. and 50 cents for an hour? Can't pass that up. So I went skating. Around 9-ish. Worst ice I've ever skated on- it was like skating on snow- but it was fun anyway.
Saturday: seminar day. I won't bore you with that. But afterwards, a couple of girls wanted me to teach them how to skate, so I went to the rink again. My ankles were killing me afterwards, especially having to use hockey skates twice, but once again, it was fun. I mean, how many times do you get to go ice skating in Latvia? (and i know it's been a while, but if you remember the Hungary post, I was in an outdoor pool a week prior to this.)
Still a few hours left until the final dinner, which IES was taking us out for. I had lats to blow. So I really wanted another one of those 'donut' things, and figured I'd use up a couple cents. I also found this puzzle book, that I had actually seen in Slovakia at a gas station, but not since. I was excited to see it again, since it looked cool, and got a couple. You are given a grid, and numbers above it, and you have to figure out which cells to shade in. Tougher than it sounds- I'm about halfway through one of the two books I got (which is about 7 of 15 puzzles).
There are a number of stands with older ladies selling amber jewelry in the old town. I got a necklace from one of them for 2 lats (lats to blow! I like it though- it's pretty). After decided that there was no way I'd get rid of all the lats I had, I stopped by an exchange place to get euro from my remaining lats.
K so final dinner- at some place that I'd thought was traditional Latvian originally, but I'm not so sure now. I really have no idea. It was good though. Definitely felt underdressed at the place. They had these chairs with flat backs that went all the way up past your head (unless you were really tall). Not the most comfortable.
After dinner we hurry out of there to get our luggage and load up the bus. This was April 1, so the trip leaders fooled us by telling everyone that they had found out that the weight limit for baggage was 12kg instead of 15. Everyone on the bus just went "WHAT?!" It was great. Waited in line forever to check in, and hurried through security to get to the terminal. Of course, the plane is delayed. An hour and half :p. We were on the red eye flight already, but now we didn't leave Latvia til about midnight. Got back to Freiburg via bus from the Frankfurt airport at 5 in the morning on Sunday.
and that was my trip. :) Pictures, later, as always.
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