Saturday 29th May 2010
Here I am waking up in Riga. A look out of the window shows a hive of activity
down below as market stall holders work to get ready for the crowds who will
turn up on a Saturday morning.
First before checking the market out, I went downstairs and out the door to turn
and go in the adjoining door. This was the Russian owned and Russian style (
well I assume this is what
Russian cafes look like) cafe and bar, where I was to get breakfast. I had a
card from the hostel with 'breakfast' written on it in Russian. So I showed it
to the slightly worried lady behind the counter. I mean to say that I looked
different from most of her customers I guess.
Once she had seen the card she smiled and said "eggs and bacon?" and I
agreed that would be a good idea. Then I had the choice of the number of half
slices of rye bread I wanted and ordered coffee. The end result was a half
decent cup of coffee and a very decent plate of fried eggs and thick smoked
bacon. Not bad actually. Not all that Russian either I suppose.
Then out to wander around the market. Row upon row of fruit and vegetables,
great areas of clothing and flowers. Inside the hangers were meat stalls which
occupied two hangers, fish in another. Now that was an interesting hanger to
visit. All the variations on salted, dried and smoked fish that you can imagine
along with fresh fish. Huge salmon, lots of fish row and caviar, Fish with heads
on, fish without, heads on their own, barrels of herrings, sardines and fish I
just didn't know. I did spy some labled 'fatty herrings' and they looked it.
One stall even had fresh fish swimming around in tanks. No shell fish though
nor crayfish.
There were grocery stalls in other hangers and in most around the edges and in
the corners were food stalls and coffee bars.
At one point I sent off texts saying that Otara and Nelson should eat their
hearts out. This was the mother of all markets. It was crowded but not
uncomfortably so. Everyone seemed to have a purpose and were out to get their
household goods. The vegetables all looked fresh. The meat stalls seemed to
concentrate on just one bread of meat. Mostly this was pork, great cuts of
great looking meat, and some was beef which was more expensive. There did seem
to be less chicken on sale than I had expected.
In the clothing area I managed to buy a replacement cap. I seem to have lost my
Russian cap from Vienna somewhere along the trip. Luckily I was able to locate
a pretty good substitute on one of the stalls and this one fits me better than
the lost one did. Cost 6 Lats which is about NZ$15.
I came back to the hostel room to do some blog typing before heading off again.
This is when trouble struck. I had Open Office Writer open and had just started
and saved a new file when the programme crashed and closed down. This does
happen from time to time, but not as often as MS Word did when I used that.
Usually I just reopen the programme, which is what I did today. But this time
the recovery instruction box caused the problem. Normally at the bottom of the
box is the choice to recover the file or cancel, but this time the box was to
big for my screen size and I could
not see the two buttons. I tried to move the box up the screen but that was not
enough to solve the problem. So I ended up spending quite a long time working
on this. Without actually clicking on one of the boxes the programme was
jammed. If I closed it down which I could only do by rebooting the computer,
the same problem occurred on reopening the programme. So I could not even
access existing but different files.
In the end I gave up and went out to wander around Riga. I was now after 1:30pm
and too much time had been wasted. I had even removed the programme and
downloaded a new copy, but it jut reverted to the same problem.
The rest of the day was made up of more wandering around the Old Town. I did
look at the supermarket close by and checked out the films running at the
adjoining cinemas.
The day was sunny and generally warm. When I got to the Dom Square I found a DJ
performing on a stage and lots of people milling around with some dancing. This
was PINK Day and lots of people were wearing pink Tee shirts. On the square was
a large open tent were a make up company was doing make up on anyone who wanted
it. Cosmetics that is, not stage make up. The staff all wore pink tee shirts
with "Go Blond" across the front. They all had blond hair (or wigs I
suppose) and seemed very hyped up. Lots of people were wandering around with
cameras and the make up girls were happily posing for anyone. ON a small stage
a couple of women were sitting in a bath drinking champagne. They had golden
tutus on, gold fairy wings and gold face paint – oh and gold sequins
everywhere. They seemed quite hyped up as well and were constantly posing for
everyone with a camera.
In addition people were going around with signs in various languages saying
'free hugs'. I got hugged by several happy huggers of both sexes.
Some were dancing. All the time various walking tourist groups would come along.
All in all it was a very happy crowd and it seemed that everyone was having a
great time. I think that I had got there after the main activities had
finished though.
I headed off down new roads and discovered a new, for me, church but actually a
very old one from the 13th century, several interesting old buildings including
three narrow multi-storied buildings from centuries back which are called The
Three Brothers.
I found the rebuilt section of the old town wall which ends in a half completed
archway. There was a gate, the Swedish Gate which was a small entrance through
the wall but on the inside had several attractive windows indicating that
people had or still do live above the gate. This was quite a pretty area with
some narrow alleyways and picturesque buildings. A bit further on was the old
Gunpowder Tower. I assume this had been rebuilt as well as it looked a bit too
tidy. It was also attached to a museum. As one group finished hearing about a
particular feature and moved on another would often move in to have their
descriptions.
I found a new grassed square with lots of dinning tables set out in the sun,
which looked appealing but as the shadows were mo0ving across the square the
temperature cooled. I ended up deciding to have a meal here but inside a
pleasant restaurant. Pork again, but also potato pancakes.
Back to the hostel, via a look at the peace or victory column and a call to the
very impressive supermarket/ Here I bought a bottle of German wine, grapes,
bananas, strawberries and bottle water as well as plastic plates and tumblers.
I set these up on a a bedside table as a welcome for Robyn when she arrived.
Then back to the computer problem. I transferred the installation files to an
external drive and tried to open up on that drive, but it didn't work. Finally
into the control settings again where I decided to alter the font sizes and
this did the job. I could now see the recover buttons and all was solved. Oh
boy, was I a happy chappy.
So I got on with the blog writing. Suddenly there was a knock on the room's
door. What a surprise to find Robyn standing there. For some reason I had got
times wrong in my head and didn't expect her for another hour or so. Nor had I
go a text which we had arranged for her to send from the airport. It seems she
had been sending texts from different stages of her journey but nothing had
arrive to me. However, the Air Baltic taxi got her to the hostel door after a
bit of searching in the dark. It was nice to she her and hear about her work in
the UK.
And she enjoyed the fresh fruit.
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