Latvia & Lithuania

This week was phenomenal, Let's just go in chronological order, shall we?

Thursday Night:

Our bus for Latvia left at 22:00 (almost every clock here uses military time). We had to show our passport before we boarded. We traveled with LuxExpress. And it was luxurious! Free hot chocolate, free water, super comfy seats, outlets for charging devices, and FREE WIFI. Though there was a slight hiccup in my seating arrangement. Some lady (Lady 1) sat in my seat, so I sat in some other lady's (Lady 2) seat. Neither really spoke English. Oh, and it was the second to last row. So the bus driver had to come all the way to the back to sort it out. Lady 1 refused to move seats, so I got Lady 2's seat and Lady 2 got Lady's 1 seat. The kicker? Lady 1's original seat was literally 1 row behind my assigned seat. So she only moved up one row by taking my seat instead of her own. (Hopefully that story made sense).

Our Bus

Lady 2 sat across the isle from me in Lady 1's seat

The person in the blue jacket is Lady 1 (in my seat)

Anyways! It was like a 16 hour bus ride. But at least I got to sleep through a lot of it. The strangest part was we drove all the way north to Estonia and entered the EU there. So I never actually got passport stamps from Latvia or Lithuania. Haha

Friday:
We arrived in Riga (the capital of Latvia) just before noon, which was wonderful because we were able to walk straight to our hostel (Cinnamon Sally's) and check in. 

Great first experience at a hostel!

Our hostel was on the third floor of a building near Old Town Riga. And the first floor? McDonald's. We took advantage of that while we could. Haha. After checking in, we decided to go explore the city! The group split pretty fast and I ended up exploring with Jenn and Elizabeth. 

The Canal

Old Town Riga 

The Blackheads (literally a medieval fraternity house)

The Three Brothers - Riga's oldest buildings

Baltic Tiki Head

Those are cat statues. They've become the symbol of Riga.

Freedom Monument (Latvian Statue of Liberty)

After some exploring we headed to a Mexican restaurant that was just a couple doors down from the Three Brothers. I was worried it would be small portions and not taste good. The portion was perfectly sized and positively delicious! Fajitas for the win!

From Right to Left: Elizabeth, Jennifer, and then me!

On the way back to our hostel for the night, we passed the coolest street performer. I NEVER give money to street performers. But I couldn't NOT give him money. I have never heard anything like this before. I was completely captivated. (Sorry the video is sideways)

Saturday:
I got up early the next morning to head over the Central Market to get breakfast. We got there at 7:15am only to discover most vendors don't arrive until 8:00am... nevertheless I found some AMAZING (AND I MEAN AMAZING) pastries and apples.

The market incorporated these old airplane hangers.
(aka pastries, dairy, etc)

But there were also stalls outside.
(aka apples, fruit, etc)

We then took yet another bus to Vilnius (the capital of Lithuania). Since it was just a day trip, we literally only had about 6 hours in the country. There was so much more that I wanted to see. But that just means I've got good reasons to come back, right? :)

Chicken, mozzarella cheese, and tomatoes on grilled homemade bread.
Oh, and their "secret sauce" was like a really yummy garlic mayonnaise

Bell tower

You're supposed spin around once on this square and make a wish.
Which I obviously did.

Gediminas Tower

Going inside the actual tower cost money. It was 7 Litas and I only had 4 Litas left... So I took this video from outside the tower.

Gediminas Tower was on a pretty tall hill. But then there's an even bigger hill called "Hill of Three Crosses" that overlooks Gediminas Tower. We hiked up there for the best view of Vilnius.

Three Crosses - hence, Hill of Three Crosses.

We got back to Latvia just before 10:00pm. I was exhausted so I went straight to bed. The hostel staff invited us to a concert but none of us had the energy for it. Haha

Sunday:
Pastries from the market, as well as crepes from this lovely little restaurant.

Well, they were more like pancakes. But not your every day type pancakes. They had regular pancakes, meat pancakes, banana pancakes, caramel pancakes, cheese pancakes, you name it! And the best part? Dirt cheap. We left there fat (distended stomachs) and happy. ;)

Our game plan for the day was Turaida Castle. Which required yet another bus ride. So we stalked up on snacks! I tried my first Lion Bar and my first Kinder candy.

They were both good, but I didn't think either one was spectacular. I'm more of a plain chocolate bar type of person. But they were yummy nevertheless.

Guyla's relative Catherine and her son George took us to go see the castle. They are both half Russian, half Latvian. Although they consider themselves to be Russian. They were both so kind and helpful. We took a bus from Riga to Sigulda, and then from Sigulda we walked to the castle. That walk ended up being 45 minutes or so. Haha. We took a bus back to Sigulda when we were done.

The largest cave in Latvia happened to be on the way!

I climbed that tower.

George was my exploring buddy.
We went into literally every single room in the castle that was open.

800 years old, say whaaat!

I LOVE CASTLES.

After we got back to Sigulda (via bus), we then took a train back to Riga. We said goodbye to our new friends and then headed back to the hostel to check out.

For dinner we got McDonald's AND Subway. Don't judge. We had not eaten for almost 8 hours. The Subway here played American music so we were dancing while waiting in line. :) Oh and you know the $5 footlong? Here it's 5€ footlong. Haha

Monday:
The bus ride back was long. I didn't get much sleep because I wanted to wait until we crossed the border back into Russia. That didn't happen until 2am...
We arrived back in Moscow at 1:30pm. My class starts at 2:30pm. So I went straight to the school! On 5 hours of sleep and no lunch, I taught until 6:30pm. When I got home (around 8:30pm), I ate a huge dinner, and then focused on this blog post. It's past midnight now, so I guess I'll unpack in the morning. :)

- Paul