When we last left Kristy and Thom, they were in Tallinn Estonia, and had taken a cab from their hotel to the central Bus Station where they jumped on a bus to Riga Latvia on the next leg of the Stockholm to Helsinki Finland>Helsinki to Tallinn Estonia>Tallinn to Riga Latvia>Riga to Stockholm journey.
As mentioned above, we took a cab from our hotel to the central bus terminal. As we drove along, we were really glad we hadn't tried to walk to the bus terminal, as we had originally planned. It would have been a minimum of a 45 minute walk or more, and we would have missed our bus and dickhead bus driver. We got to the station, checked in, and went outside to find our bus. We waited patiently in line to hand our bags to the driver, who was loading them in the bus. While we waited, we got the chance to second hand smoke thanks to everyone around us. We waited patiently while people cut the line in front of us. We finally got to the front, and Kristy held out her ticket. The driver pushed it aside and made some gesture towards the bus as he spoke in a language we did not recognize. After giving him our bags, we climbed on the bus. At least our seats were right in the front, and not near the bathroom. We've heard horror stories. We left Tallinn on our way to Riga Latvia and Kristy's friend Sarma Pone from the US Women's National Bandy Team. Sarma has lived most of her life in the United States, but has dual citizenship in Latvia where she plays on the Latvian Women's National Hockey Team. Her family also owns an apartment in Riga, where they regularly visit. The bus trip from Tallinn to Riga was nothing too exciting, other than the passing techniques utilized in this area. Most of the way we were on a two lane highway, with shoulders on either side. When someone wants to pass, the person to be passed pulls over to the right hand shoulder, which doesn't quite give the passer enough room to pass, so they cross the center line in order to do that. People coming in the other direction are expected to move to their right as well, to give the passer enough room to pass. Well, when you have people trying to pass in both directions, this can be kind of tricky and nerve-racking, even when you're riding in a large passenger bus. Other than that, the view looked pretty much like the scenery you'd find in Minnesota or Wisconsin. Farm fields, pine trees, snowmobile/dirt bike trails along the side of the highway, etc. And if the view outside wasn't enough, you had the constant music videos playing on the monitors of the bus. It was kind of fun to see all of those videos I couldn't get enough of back in the 80's again. Besides fighting PETA over their name, the Pet Shop Boys are alive and well on the buses of Estonia. We got to the Estonian-Latvian border, and it was quite the fortified post, like something straight out of the movies. I fully expected to see tanks and soldiers on either side of the border, but surprisingly, we never even stopped. It was pretty much completely abandoned. Entering Latvia you gradually noticed a change in the landscape. It started to feel like you were driving along the North Shore in Minnesota. You caught glimpses of the Sea off to your right every once in a while, and even saw quite a few camping areas and resorts along the way. Even a long stretch of sandy beach at one point, and the occasional grouping of what I would guess would be high dollar second homes in gated communities. When I say gated communities, I mean opulent homes with high walls around them, security cameras, and gates. Then after four hours on the bus, we finally made the turn for Riga. As we started coming into the outskirts of town, we saw crumbling buildings, graffiti, and garbage everywhere. At one point we passed over a river where there were people ice fishing on the grey ice, with garbage strewn about. Even with all this, we reassured each other that the visit would be good. We wound through the streets of Riga until we finally arrived at the central Bus Station. And this time it WAS right next to the central Train Station. We got our bags and started following Sarma's directions. She had a game at the main arena, and we were going straight there to see the game and meet her. We were to jump on a tram near the bus station, and take that most of the way. As instructed, we went to the little kiosk next to the tram stop, and after patiently waiting while people cut the line in front of us, we got to the window. Kristy asked the woman in the kiosk for two tram tickets. The woman said something in Russian or Latvian, and pointed to the side of the kiosk, like there was a magic ticket machine there or something. There was nothing. Since the tram was getting ready to leave, we jumped on. Kristy went to the front of this outdated contraption, and asked the driver if we could buy tickets. The driver showed Kristy something that looked like a token, as she spoke in Latvian. Kristy had Latvian money out and everything, but we could not get a ticket apparently. We decided to take our chances and stay on the tram until we found another kiosk at one of the stops. We didn't want to get in trouble for not having a ticket for the tram, but we figured that if we were confronted, we could claim ignorance....or at least I could. We got off, and the guy at this kiosk was very nice. He sold us two tickets, and we jumped on the next tram. Right after we got on, a couple of transportation cops got on and started checking everyone for tickets. Phew! Glad we had tickets. So we're chugging along on this noisy, outdated tram, and I'm just hoping it stays on the tracks, as I happened to notice some pretty chewed up rails as we walked to the first tram stop, and wondered how safe these things were. They looked like they had been in continual use since the 1940's, and may have had their last safety inspection around the same time. So we're moving down the street, and come to stop at an intersection. All of a sudden, we see a young guy come flying around the corner of a building, coming towards the tram with a guy behind him in hot pursuit. Then we see what looked like a guy jumping off our train, and heading straight for the guy running in the direction of the train. He takes this young guy out, and he and the guy that was pursuing him struggle to get control of the young guy. The guy who was chasing got control of the kid, and roughed him up a little as he moved him towards a wall. Meanwhile, the guy who looked like he had jumped off of our train went running off in another direction. He eventually came back with another young guy, and they held the two there while talking on the phone. Pretty soon we heard sirens, and a paddy wagon showed up to snag the two "perps" (I watch too much COPS). From what we could figure, the two guys who corralled these young dudes were undercover cops, or something like that. Anyway, pretty exciting, but not something we necessarily wanted to see our first hour in Riga. Our visit was not off to a good start, but we still had high hopes. We went a couple more stops and got off as directed. We walked a few blocks, and eventually the hockey arena came into view. We walked around the entire arena, but couldn't find a way in. We eventually went into the Staff Entrance, and were let in by a couple of security guards, who frisked us and looked through our bags. Security was tight because the Latvian National Hockey Team was taking on Germany later that day. It was a nice arena, and apparently built specifically to host the World Championships of Hockey, which was what was going on when we visited. After the game, Sarma took us back to her apartment, which was nice. It was an older building, but they had done a very nice job of remodeling. Kristy and I even had our own room. After we dumped our stuff off, we started walking towards the Old Town section of Riga, which Sarma indicated rivaled the Old Town in Tallinn. Along the way we passed the Freedom Monument, which she indicated is constantly guarded by two soldiers, similar to how we guard the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington Cemetery in Washington D.C.
We went into Old Town, and it was pretty cool. Very much like Tallinn. We did the usual walking around taking pictures, and went to St. Peter's Cathedral, which had been destroyed once by fire and once during World War II, but rebuilt each time. It was now a tourist attraction where you could take the lift to the top of the steeple, where it gave you a great view of Riga. I even saw the SAS Radisson across the river, where I had spent two and a half hours or so back in 2007, when traveling with the U.S. Bandy Team. On that occasion, we were on our way from Moscow to Copenhagen, but got diverted to Riga at 2:00 in the morning because our pilots were past their time limit. We were bussed to this hotel in the middle of the night, where we checked into rooms for a couple of hours before we were herded back on the bus, and back to the airport. Since it was dark when we were there in 2007, I really had no idea where we were at the time, and had no clue that there was this huge city on the other side of the river with all of these historic buildings. After the Cathedral, we went for a traditional Latvian meal of "smashed pork chops", and some other stuff. I don't know what it was, but it was pretty good. We also had a Latvian beer, which was very good. After lunch, we went back to the apartment, and got the car. Sarma drove us out to where there was a zoo, some big old beautiful houses, and a forest preserve. The houses we saw were interesting. The area looked like it was at one time where the very wealthy in Riga may have had summer homes, but the city had grown and expanded out to where these homes were. Some of the houses looked as though they had been abandoned for many years, overgrown with weeds and shrubs, and in desperate need of repair. Others were well maintained and obviously lived in. We drove back to the apartment and hung out for a while. Then we walked down the street to a Bar/Restaurant called Stabuclos, or something like that. I made sure to make fun of the name, and ask if it was safe to go in. There we got some big ass beers in mugs the size of pitchers. Really good beer too. After that, we picked up a couple bottles of beer on the way home, and hung out at Sarma's apartment. Next morning, we were up and out the door, and headed to the giant indoor/outdoor marketplace. Before that though, we found a cafe where we had a traditional Latvian breakfast. The marketplace was huge. Pretty much anything you would ever want, including Meat, Fish, Vegetables, Fruit, Clothing, Shoes, and everything in between. We were not really in need of anything, including the nice cow tongue they had on display, or the fish so fresh that you could still see the poor little guys gasping for air. After the market, we jumped on the tram, but carefully, so as not to break it. We were headed to the other side of the river. There we saw Victory Park, which was built by the Soviets, and has huge statues and a monument. We also strolled through a cemetery that has apparently been abandoned. You could tell that there were a few people trying to keep the place up, but most of the headstones and monuments were crumbling, the fencing around some plots was decaying and bent, and the weeds and bushes were overgrown in most of it. We proceeded to walk around the surrounding neighborhood too, which was hard to see. So much decay, and so many abandoned buildings. Sarma explained to us that when the Soviets occupied Latvia, they threw up these large factories and apartment complexes to house the workers. They forced the Latvian people into these factories and apartment buildings. So if a family had lived their entire life farming, they were forced to abandon the farm, and work in the factory. Then when the Soviets left, they abandoned everything, and destroyed what they could on their way out. That left the country in quite a mess. They continue to try and rebuild, but with the recession, things only seem to be getting worse. It's sad to see, because it would probably be a very beautiful city if they were able to restore it. After our little walking tour, it was back on the tram and across the river to Sarma's apartment. Kristy and I got our stuff together, and Sarma dropped us off near Old Town before heading off for another hockey game. We walked through Old Town on our way to the boat terminal. We got on the boat and found our cabin. We had a good trip through Helsinki, Tallinn, and Riga, but we were glad to be going back to Stockholm. At the same time, we were a little bummed, because we knew our time in Stockholm was limited, as we were leaving for the U.S. in a week. Maybe even more tragic, on the boat I decided to say goodbye to one of the two pairs of jeans I had brought to Sweden with me. I had managed to get a lot of use out of these jeans in the past three months, wearing them about half the time we were here. It was hard to say goodbye, but i knew it was time to toss em. They were worn out, and had an ever growing hole in the crotch which probably could have probably been patched, but not really worth the effort. I definitely got my money's worth out of these jeans over the years, and especially here in Scandinavia. I figured that it would be one less thing to have to carry back to the states, so we did a burial at sea....meaning I tossed em in a garbage during our voyage across the Baltic. I didn't actually throw them in the sea. If I'd have thrown them in the sea, Green Peace might have sunk our ship in protest. Or maybe more of a concern to me was that some of our fellow passengers may have gone overboard in an attempt to retrieve the pants. I'm sure they must get tired of those Adidas sweatsuits.
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