Arrived after a good flight, came out of departures and looked for Atis, who was meeting me. Hmm... no Atis and I only have his Skype and email but no mobile. OK I'll wait for a bit no panic. 20 minutes later – no Atis. Later still and all the other passengers have now left the building – no Atis. OK what am I going to do. I'll wait another 30 minutes, then catch the bus to the city centre and try and try and find where I'm going to be staying. Success 15 minutes later Atis arrives. Latvia is now part of the Schengen agreement and Atis was waiting at the main terminal. Only visitors from 'dubious' countries get sent to the terminal I was at. As we drove the short drive to the city centre I had very similar feelings to those I had arriving in Warsaw for the first time 10 years ago. There are clearly many differences between Latvia and Poland, not least the language, but the Soviets certainly left a mark on the architecture.
The room is OK basic but OK and about a quarter of the price of the hotel over the road.
It's also very close to the Distance Education Study Centre and a large supermarket.
Got some strange looks as I zigzagged around the supermarket trying to work out what things were. I can't remember any of the Latvian I tried to learn. All that comes into my head is Polish and that's not much help in Riga. It might be more useful in Daugavpils, where there is a sizeable Polish speaking minority. A bit like Slough then :-)
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