Mahinda’s Little World

My horoscope for yesterday:

"Someone you first talk to for work reasons can become a life long friend. Your ruling planet, Neptune, is switched on by the moon and this gives you an air of mystery that will be a powerful love attractor. A talent for writing detective stories is well worth wroking on. Love texts at 6pm."

(from that quality newspaper, The Sun - I’m a Piscean, BTW) 

I don’t get to talk to many new people at work, so I’ll pass on that one. As for my air of mystery, well, I don’t think that worked at all. And the 6pm txt? Well, the closest I got was from Adrian at 5.30pm. Yes, Adrian.

I’d best get writing that whodunnit, I suppose…

So, last night. After a hard day at the office, I turned up at Helen C’s place just after 8pm, and we walked down to the cinema at Parrs Wood. It was a nice walk, all very sunshiney, past the trendy folk of Didsbury and the trendy folk sitting outside The Didsbury. Found out that Fletcher Moss Park’s tennis courts looked very good indeed - proper nets, four of them, on a red grit sort of surface. Much better than Fog Lane’s newly-installed metal nets.

Anyway, we went to see Thank You For Smoking, which was pretty good. Walked her home afterwards, and that was that. Realised I had very little food at home, so grabbed a pizza on the way. Pepperoni and mushroom, for what it’s worth. It was while waiting for it to cook that I checked out my horoscope.

Thank You For Smoking

A very good film, really. Light-hearted entertainment, rather than the morally goody-goody one sided diatribe that part of me feared. If you’re looking for Michael Sodding Moore, step away - this was done primarily for laughs, with a little bit of making-you-think on the side.

Collection of review snippets here.

The basic premise is that there’s this bloke called Nick Naylor, right, who’s a high-flying tobacco lobbyist…and that’s about it. He goes on talk shows, he spins and spins and spins, but he’s actually a nice guy rather than some kind of monster. Any more would spoil it.

Oh, and by the way, it was the Marlboro Man, in the smoking room, with a packet of 20 Benson’s.

Went to Andy McT’s birthday bash on Friday night. Was a little bizarre, really.

Andy lives with Catherine and Jill, both of whom I’ve dated in the past - Jill’s even made a brief appearance on these very pages, from here to here.

Neither "relationship" was very long, and both ended with me being unceremoniously dumped, not because of anything I’d done (apparently), but because of vague ex- issues. Which is a really rubbish way for things to end, IMHO.

I don’t see much of Catherine and Jill these days, really. While I get on really well with Catherine, things aren’t quite so natural with Jill. I don’t know why…they just aren’t. Maybe it’s because I never got to know her as well as I did Catherine - we’d been friends for ages before anything happened.

Anyway, the party. It was a "cowboys and cocktails" theme things at Revolution, in Deansgate Locks. Cue overly loud rubbish music and poncey drinks. I did have some cocktails, starting with a mojito which was, sadly, some way below the standards I’d gotten used to in Riga. I got there late (and decidedly un-dressed-up), to find lots of SMAOS types there. Unfortunately, they soon left, leaving me with lots of Andy, Jill and Catherine’s friends.

When introduced to some people, there was a definite air of "oh, so you’re Mahinda"…which was certainly disconcerting. It was all jolly enough, though.

Catherine left, followed a while later by Jill, leaving about half a dozen of us. The music and stuff was getting to me a little - I really couldn’t hear a thing, with my dodgy ears - and the plan seemed to be to move on to a particularly gay place. Andy’s gay, you see, and he fancied a bit of Cruise - in his words, "a couple of hundred gay men and three fag hags".

I left. To be honest, I wasn’t really in the mood.

It was a nice night for walking, so I decided to walk the four miles or so home.

As I got towards Rusholme, I got a txt back from Catherine, asking whether the party was still going strong - she’d actually gone to rescue a friend who’d left keys at her house. I called her, remembering that Jill and her friend were going to go for a curry. Catherine was famished, so we agreed to descend on the curry house. I called Jill - unfortunately, she and friend had wimped out and just got a taxi home instead.

Called Catherine again. We decided to see if Revolution Fallowfield was open until 2am (I thought it was), as she was in Didsbury and planning on getting a cab. I jumped into a bus to travel the mile or so down to Fallowfield…only to find that Revs closed at 1am. It was 12.55am by this point. I told Catherine the bad news, grabbed a dirty donner kebab (from Khayyam, which isn’t one I’d tried before…or will again, to be honest) and walked home.

Got home. Watched some cricket highlights - England getting an absolute kicking in the third ODI, courtesy of Mahela and his mighty bat. Went to bed.

I finally fixed my bike on Friday!

It had been out of action since last September, possibly even August. Basically, I’d treated it to a shiny new rear derailleur - the old one was thoroughly worn out, causing much gear-jumping and general badness. Now, halfway through the operation, I realised that I was running late for a date with Jill (that shows how long ago it was!)…so, I rushed things. And managed to click my shifter the wrong way, which drew loads of cable into itself and jammed thoroughly.

Since then, I tried the "filling the thing with lubricant and pulling hard" trick, but to no avail. Then the weather got bad, so I didn’t bother trying further, knowing that I’d probably have to devote a whole afternoon to fixing the damn thing. Plus, Stu’s old bike repair manual suggested that Shimano clicky shifters are quite definitely not user-serviceable.

A couple of Sunday afternoons ago, I found myself at a bit of a loose end, so tidied the garden a bit, before sitting down with my bike and toolkit. With fingers firmly crossed, I took the shifter apart, sorted the problem, straightened the cable, and even managed to get it all back together again!

On Friday, I had the time to give the whole drivetrain a good clean and lube, before sorting out the fine adjustment for the derailleur. I then packed a pannier with a selection of tools (allan key, screwdriver and pliers), topped up with beer, wine and A-to-Z, then headed to Solomon’s to meet up with Kate, Linden, etc. for a celebratory drink - Kate’s now a fully-qualified GP (or thereabouts)!

Kate, Linden, Raman, Rosy and Celia were there, with Rich, Jon D, Jon’s girlfriend (I can never remember her name…might be "Maz" but I’m not sure) and Adam turning up later.

I had to leave early, though, to head to Chorlton for Clare’s flatwarming party - hence the A-to-Z! Off I went, and found the place eventually, only to find that half the party left just after I got there!

Oh well, never mind. And I thought 10.30pm was a perfectly respectable time to turn up to a house party! ‘Twas all very pleasant, though - sat around chatting for a few hours, before I cycled home at something like 12.30am.

So, that was about 6 miles of cycling, for the first time in 10 months. And I was seriously saddlesore afterwards! Okay, so I really don’t have the most comfortable of saddles, but two 3-mile rides should be absolutely nothing.

Ho hum. I’ll be cycling lots for short journeys (into Manc or less, so under 4 miles a go) in the near future. I’m sure I’ll get back into it quickly enough.

It still hurts (a little) today, three days later, which is just rubbish.

I’m messing with my template again. This time, I’ve decided that the old one had become a mess, so I’m starting again using a new base.

There’ll probably be various changes over the next month or so…some good, some bad. Hopefully, the bad ones won’t last long!

Update

There! I think that’s pretty much sorted now. Until the next time I decide to mess with it, anyway

Down in Old London Town this weekend, I ended up being driven through our old neighbourhood - Kensal Green, Kensal Rise, Ladbroke Grove, etc. I’ve been through plenty of times recently, of course, and seen the place change over the years, but this time something struck me.

No, not a bullet. Or a half-brick. Which would, admittedly, be typical.

Trees, in fact.

In all my old stomping grounds, its trees that bring home exactly how long it’s been. In Kensal Green, I remember walking to school down avenues lined with trees that must have been about 3m tall. Probably fairly recently-planted, back then, in an effort to make the place look better. Kensal Green seems to be a slightly newer area, sandwiched in between two older areas, with College Road (on which we lived) and Harrow Road seem to be the boundaries - both older areas feature very large and very mature maples, with big old terraced houses rather than (slightly) newer semi’s. I can’t remember exactly what sort of maple, but they’re a particular species that shed their bark in flakes, so are therefore excellent at growing in polluted areas. As late Victorian London undoubtedly was, which is when they might have been planted. I don’t really know about these things, though.

Anyway, the tree-lined streets. My memories of them also feature plenty of dog excrement, which seems to be happily lacking (mostly) these days. Now, the trees are "proper" trees, as opposed to young growth, with proper lollipop shapes, several metres tall, with enough foliage to form a sphere of green that shimmers in the breeze.

I don’t know about you lot but, in my head at least, trees just don’t seem to grow - they stay the way they were, in an unchanging mental photograph. Possibly even sepia-toned!

I remember noticing this a couple of years back as well, when visiting a friend* who’d moved into a flat on Brondesbury Avenue, in Kilburn. Her flat was about 30 yards from a flat in which I’d lived, at the tender age of two - we’d moved out (to Kensal Green) in 1981. My earliest childhood memories are from that flat, and of that road in subsequent years - dad used to park the car on it when we went shopping on Kilburn HIgh Street. Or whatever it’s actually called.

* Little Jenny Rickerby, who’d lived in the room next door to me in Hulme Hall. Sadly, we’ve fallen out of touch in the last five years

I remember the trees on Brondesbury Ave being just a little bit taller than my dad. From a four-year-old’s perspective, that’s pretty damn tall! Now, over twenty years on, they’re proper trees.

The mature linden trees on my current road, Tenby Avenue, are slowly being replaced by ornamental cherries. Maybe one Spring day, many years from now, I’ll happen back in the area to discover a road full of swirling cherry blossom, from trees that have reached their full height once more?

Quick update on what I’ve been up to post-Riga:

• Tuesday
  Rest day, I think, and I really really needed it! I know I didn’t play squash…oh yeah, I went over to Pete and Rosy’s to watch 24, which Rosy had taped on Sunday evening.
• Wednesday
  Hockey in Platt Fields. Followed by King Cobra, as a goodbye to the studenty types - Sarah in particular. It was quite sad seeing her go - it seems like only yesterday, sometimes, that I met her and Tall (and maybe Leila was with them too) at the MUGSS Wine Evening of their Freshers’ Week, and now she’s graduating.
• Thursday
  MUGSS End-of-Year Party, at the Canal St. (or thereabouts) BaaBar. Nice enough, but by no means great. It was something of a goodbye party for Matt and Ashley, neither of whom I know very well. Or "at all" in Matt’s case, to be honest.
• Friday
  Headed over to Crewe to watch Emily in, "Cooking with Elvis" - it was very good, and highly amusing, and she totally upstaged her Tiffany’s-mum-off-Eastenders co-star
  It was Em’s first big job (or thereabouts) as a professional actress. She was playing a fat northern 14-year-old…and did very well indeed, considering that she’s not fat or northern, and certainly not 14!
• Saturday
  Hockey tournament in Wilmslow, on an absolutely baking hot day, then I watched England-Paraguay before heading to Cattac and Sarah’s housewarming barbecue. They’ve got a lovely house, out in the sticks of West Manc, complete with great garden and Tig, the cutest kitten EVER
• Sunday
  Stayed over at Cattac and Sarah’s, and my hayfever was REALLY playing up. Chilled out in the garden with them all for a while, before heading home, clearing up our yard a bit (with the aid of a spade borrowed from the nice lady at no.9), and managed to almost fix my bike, which has been out of action for something like 10 months - I had to take a shifter apart, which is why it was A Big Job. Just the fine adjustment to go, now.
• Monday
  Shooting. Rubbish. Damn hayfever
  On the bright side, Wee Dave furnished me with Nic’s email addy - she’s a friend of Kate, Dave’s girlfriend, whom I’d met at the Stockport Beer Fest - and we agreed to meet up for a drink after shooting. I met her at her place, and we took in a couple of pubs before calling it a night. A very pleasant evening, really. Popped into Tesco on the way home for some shopping.
• Tuesday
  Hockey tournament at Belle Vue. I had two a mediocre game, two good games (one very good), and then a bit of a shocker - came on as a sub, and my first touch gave the ball to an attacker on the edge of the D. My second touch was to tackle him…and concede a penalty in the process - okay, it was a bit of a hack, but I DID take the ball. Our opposition asked me what the penalty was for as I walked disconsolately past them, which pretty much sums it up.
  After hockey, I went over to Helen C’s place for a cuppa and a chat. Ended up having to rescue her flatmate’s cat from Outside…and have a small scratch to prove it!
• Wednesday
  Platt Fields hockey, followed by the last Manchester Ceilidh of the season. Fun. Knackering, though. Said my goodbyes to Zen, who I probably won’t see for a year and a half now.
• Thursday
  Yesterday. What did I do?! Oh yes - went to see Hot Mikado at the Alty Garrick, featuring Justin as Koko. Was very good - definitely a fun show to watch as well as to do. I’d not seen the "hot" version before. Squeezed in some Belgian beer in the early evening sunshine with Rick and Katy beforehand, which was nice.

And that’s about it. Off to the folks’ place tonight, and on to London tomorrow, for Lizzie and Karen’s birthdays.

Fifth day, fifth (and final!) part.

Once I’ve finished typing it all up, I’m going to go back and spruce the posts up with some pictures, courtesy of Wayne and (hopefully) Pete. It’s going to be pretty definitive!

The Leeds and York boys left while I was pretty much asleep (or semi-asleep) on Monday morning, to catch their flights home (Andi and Wayne were going back to Manc, with the plan being to cab it to Pete’s, recover Wayne’s car, then mosey on home to Leeds).

That left Martin, Theo, Pete and me to enjoy our last day in Riga. Yes, dear readers, I might blog about other stuff soon!

Lazy Monday

We awoke to find that, for once, Andi’s shoes had not been placed back in the room this time…this was probably because he was wearing them while flying back to Blighty.

Our flight was the late one, leaving Riga at something like 10pm…the day was set up nicely for relaxing. We checked out, and decided that DeLacey’s was the place to break our fast.

The sun was absolutely streaming down, and we had rather fine lunches (I had some very tasty pork with potato pancakes), washed down with coffee and juice. No beer just yet - in my case, I would be driving later so had to avoid the temptation.

Theo and I went out in search of Latvia football shirts, etc., leaving Pete and Martin chilling out in DeLacey’s, watching the cricket highlights. Naturally, I found them highly unpleasant, hence my desire to get the hell out of there

The pair of us had a pleasant stomp round the place, and Theo finally got his shirt in a sports shop within the train station complex. I tried on a hockey shirt or two, before deciding that the baggy style really wasn’t me.

Went back, met the others, and we moseyed over to the small restaurant/café in which we’d had brunch on Saturday. The sun was high, and absolutely roasting - easily the best weather of the trip*. Sitting in the sunshine with coffee, then some cold lagers, and life was good.

* Contrary to the dire pre-trip forecast, we’d had very little rain and mostly temperate conditions. Woo!

We chatted briefly with the two Aussie (?) girls on the next table, who were on the same flight as us, but not before the little nut girl made her final appearance. She was walking along the street with a friend, and I caught her eye. I grinned, raised an eyebrow and gave her a slight nod - she smiled and giggled to her mate. She went past, and obviously the temptation was just far too much for such a complete extrovert - while behind me, she waved (I think) happily at Theo and Pete then, after I’d turned round, struck a sort of "ta-da!" pose. We clapped. It was a lovely little touch towards the end of what had been a lovely weekend.

Evening drew on, and we were hungry, so decided to try the ZupZup! Lounge for some soup - hence the name! I had a perfectly palatable goulash, while Pete had soļanka, a local speciality that’s basically a tasty beef and veg soup. The pair of us also went for random local (non-alcoholic) beverages, which the lovely waitress couldn’t explain - his tasted of liquorice, while mine was basically Vimto.

It’s a pity we didn’t discover ZupZup! earlier, as it was a very funky place indeed - probably a top spot for a bit of chilling and/or dancing of an evening. The photo gallery on the website seems to confirm this

Next time!

Before I finish the write-up, it’s time for a couple of meanderings…

Hattrick

There was very little Hattrick discussion through the trip, which some might find surprising for what was, in essence, a Hattrick Boozer.

It came to a head when we realised that we’d all rushed back to Frank’s on Sunday evening to check our results. We didn’t even think about it.

It’s a pity, really - some of the major boozers, e.g. Pete, Wayne and Andi, are getting a bit bored of the game itself. I suppose that’s what happens after a while - your team reaches a certain (high) level and you just can’t be arsed to improve it further.

I’m some way short of that level, thankfully

Beer and Girls

Many (most?) of the little comments through this write-up have been about the prettiness of the Latvian girls, and the cost of beer.

Okay, so the Latvian girls were amazingly pretty…although something does seem to happen when they hit middle age…c.f. Spanish peasant women…but I really wasn’t obsessed with the price of beer. It’s just something I noted mentally.

I did manage to try as many beers as possible on the trip. The main two seem to be Aldaris and Cesu, with variants thereof - the dark beers were especially tasty. Why we don’t get dark lagers over here, I’ll always be unhappy about. They’re just so nice. Like lager but with more taste. Bocmanis was probably the best - a 7% beauty, almost black, that was pretty much a cold fizzy porter. Believe me, it’s better than it sounds. Aldaris Porteris was also very nice indeed - porter by name, cold fizzy porter by nature!

Other brands I remember are Lacplesis (but with more random accents on half the letters!) and Bauskas.

The honey beer, Medulus (I think), that Dr. Tim had recommended, was disappointing. Available in Alus Seta (aka Lido), it turned out to be a light golden lager with a hint of honey - nice enough, but a far cry from the hearty meady brew I was hoping for. Well, I should have expected that to be the case - Tim likes his lighter fruitier brews, while I like my ales dark and mucky .

Obviously, many English tourists (including the oft’ mentioned British tossers) don’t venture further than the pint (well, 500ml) of standard lager - when asking for the dark beer by name, barmen usually queried me, saying "that is dark beer" in an "are you sure you want this?" manner. Oh well.

Vana Tallinn

I’ve been raving about this stuff for years, ever since I first tasted it in Tallinn (Estonia), back in 2000. Quite simply, it’s my favourite drink ever.

Unfortunately, it just cannot be found in the UK for love nor money (except for one time when I found it in Valvona & Crolla, a rather fantastic deli in Edinburgh)…until now! These guys have started importing it, and it’s available from some North London off-licenses (and a gentlemen’s club…but I’m highly unlikely to encounter that outlet on my travels).

For now, though, I brought several bottles back from Riga, and there’s more to come when I visit Tallinn in August. They’ve now got a Vana Tallinn cream too - think Bailey’s but better. I first saw it in "I Love You", and bought a measure instantly - I loved it, and the others were impressed too. Mmmmm.

I also bought a small bottle of honey liqueur, "Medus Balzam" (medus meaning honey) - I wish I’d tasted it beforehand, as it’s absolutely lovely.

Riga Black Balsam

Unlike it’s Estonian cousin, this stuff is absolutely vile.

Don’t believe this page, which tells you that it’s great. Do believe me, though - it’s absolutely rank.

If you like Jagermeister, try it. Otherwise, just run away.

Older Women

Almost forgot about these!

Having returning to Frank’s late on Saturday night, I was in the computer room when two drunken women were led in by one of the stag do crowd. They were all very excitable, took a couple of photos, then left. Very bizarre.

Down in the bar, there they were again - the two of them, plus a third, had returned to the hostel with one of the groups of British tossers. They were obviously a cut above the stag do crowd - dressed a little classier, for a start!

Anyway, Wayne and I got chatting to one (I really cannot remember her name though). She was quite chatty, and not particularly impressed with the stag party, really. It turned out that they were three childhood friends from Bedford (I think), who were staying at one of the classier hotels for the weekend. Her son was 18 and about to go travelling - I’d never have thought she was that old, to be honest, and her two friends looked younger. Anyway, the woman was worried, as she’d never been in a hostel - she’d seen films like The Beach, featuring cockroach-infested hellholes, and was just a bit worried. She was very chuffed indeed to find Frank’s clean and hospitable.

Sunday was due to be their sightseeing day, and it was about 4am already. One of the girls was flirting outrageously with the stag crew.

I next saw the three of them in the airport - it turned out that two had returned to the hostel shortly after dawn, with the third returning, ahem, a bit later.

Anyway, back to the plot…

Home, Jeeves

After ZupZup!, it was pretty much time to head back to Frank’s, get our bags out of the saferoom (as unlocked by one of Frank’s gorgeous girls, who happened to be a former Miss Riga!), and catch a cab to the airport.

It was all fairly uneventful - Pete and I got front-row seats in the plane, which was an experience. Plenty of legroom, for a start.

Oh, top tip - in Riga airport, the first two duty-free shops you come to don’t stock any recognisable brands of cigarettes. Instead, it’s the one about 3 minutes’ walk further, just before the departure gates, that’s the one to use. Unfortunately, I didn’t know this at the time. Still, 4.20Ls for 200 cheap-and-nasty fags can’t be all that bad!

Duty-"free" is definitely more expensive than regular shop prices - my Vana Tallinn was 5.50Ls rather than 4.50Ls, and 200 Marlboro weighed in at 9Ls rather than about 7.50Ls. Details, details.

Got back to Stansted just shy of 11pm, collected bags, and picked up the bus back to the Bishop’s Stortford FC car park. Drove the 200 miles home very carefully, deposited Pete back at his place, FINALLY got home, and slept for what felt like the first time in years.

What a trip!

Sunday morning. Possibly afternoon.

We awoke to find that, once again, Andi’s shoes had been placed back in the room.

The others all headed to Salt ‘n’ Pepper for their breakfast buffet - potato, sausage, egg, cereal, pastries, etc. They then had a wander around the place.

I stayed asleep - I’d had an awful night’s sleep, with random stomach pains and general headache caused by the British tossers singing badly until about 10am. Got up a bit later, then Tim and I ended up having a wander of our own - the plan was for us to breakfast on the bread and honey that I’d bought from the market, but we needed to find some butter.

Pedaloes, Old Town and Occupation

Unfortunately, the local convenience store just wasn’t that convenient, so we bought sandwiches and went to join the others, who by this point had commandeered some pedaloes.

Much fun was had - Theo, Nayth and me lost out in a race against Wayne, Pete and Andi. I can but point at our massive (literally) weight disadvantage. Either way, we owed the other crew some beer.

We then wandered around Old Town a bit, taking in some more of the sights, e.g. the Powder Tower and some old cannon. We stopped off at the wonderfully named "I Love You" for a drink. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t a gay bar at all, but a rather trendy little boozer - think Fuel in Withington, but better. They even had a framed photo of the road, in Edinburgh, between Bobby’s Bar and Greyfriar’s Kirk House - a theatre at which I’d worked during the Fringe Festival once, with many many fond memories.

We took in the chilled music (Sigur Ros, apparently) for a while, and I had some Vana Tallinn Cream - like Bailey’s, but better. More about Vana Tallinn later, no doubt.

At about 4pm, we headed back, via a few more sights, to the Museum of the Occupation - we’d walked past this building many many times, being that it’s (literally) around the corner from Frank’s.

The museum’s dour Communist-era exterior (apparently it’s copper, which was once gleaming salmon-pink but is now, of course, black) was completely at odds with the House of Blackheads next door, which is a recreation of a building built in 1344…and then destroyed in 1941, with the Soviets later pulling down anything that was left.

Anyway, the Museum of the Occupation. A very serious look at Latvia and Riga’s oppressed past, chiefly WWII onwards, with the Germans and Russians cast as pretty definitive bad guys. Lots of interesting artifacts, etc. all in a suitably sombre atmosphere.

We all spent a good hour in there before heading out and back to the hostel. There was quite a large police presence as we left the musuem and it later transpired that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was visiting Riga that weekend - which also explained why the Russian Orthodox Cathedral had been cordoned off the night before.

Back to Frank’s, complete with cricket update. Sri Lankan wickets were, once again, falling like it was going out of fashion. Not happy.

Olympic Casino

Wayne, Andi, Martin and Pete headed off to the poker tournament at the Radisson, across the river. Andi had been told about this by one of the croupiers at the last casino, remember.

I’ll leave it to Pete to describe:

Upon arrival we quickly wasted our free chip vouchers on some sort of rubbish card game and then wayne accidently lost 5Ls in one go on video poker - he pressed the “Bet Max” button by accident!

We all signed up and had a few beers.

The card game started. I made my second schoolboy error of the day forgetting to call raise, and thus had my A-K broken by A-2 after an ace and a 2 hit the flop. Fortunately it was Martin who’d taken advantage and he now sat out the rest of the rebuy section after an earlier double up left him sweetly placed.

Andi and I both struggled to get into the game cardwise, though there was plenty of banter between Andi and the (drunken) Latvian fella next to him - who was playing pretty loosely. The free drinks were pretty impressive, as we could, quite literally, order whatever we wanted. Most surprising, free beer during the tournament is not usual over in England!

Going into the freezeout Wayne called it a night and went off in a taxi to find the others whilst those of us still in played on. I was moved to a table full of people who were rubbish but had somehow managed to get huge stacks (their rebuys must have been ALOT more active than on our tables!!!) and couldn’t get myself into a hand.

When I was finally forced to, I lost it and that was me out. Andi followed shortly after and we sat around the bar watching Martin as he went from the last two tables, to the last one table, and into the money.

An impressive performance from the lad made him over 100 Lats and a fourth place finished. Suitably chuffed, we called a cab and made our way into the centre of town to meet up with the others.

The Rest

In the meantime, Timm, Theo, Nayth and I headed to the intriguingly named "Čau, Rasma!" for some Latvian grub. A basement restaurant right at the edge of Old Town, it was all a bit different, with some very odd dish names.

Things like, "The mother cries, so does the daughter"…it’s a pity I can’t remember any of them. The bull’s testicles in particular got a highly evocative title.

It was very cheap, and the best meal I had all weekend.

Back to Frank’s afterwards to see Nayth off, as he had to take a Sunday flight home, and then there were three. Got a cricket update. England had needed a mere 78 runs for the win. Murali tried valiantly, but even he couldn’t prevent England winning fairly comfortably. Bugger.

We wandered around a bit and ended up in the Cuba Café. Lovely atmosphere, with decent cocktails - I had a margherita with mango purée, which was lovely. I’d have liked to have visited the place in the late evening, as that’s when things come alive in Riga, but it wasn’t to be.

We were joined there by Wayne, who’d been knocked out of the poker, and he updated us on Martin’s stunning progress.

The "other" Salt ‘n’ Pepper was next - we’d seen a second one on our travels, and it turned out to be a bit of a franchise. This one was in the back streets not far from the hostel, and more of the same really. Nice, though.

We ended up back at the touristy terrace bar in one of the squares for a fair old while, waiting for Pete, Wayne and Martin to join us. We just sat and drank for a fair while, watching the world go by, before heading back to Frank’s for a (relatively) early night. Of course, we ended up ambushed by lots of people bearing flyers, most of whom got a suitably drunken response from Wayne. "How do you sleep at night?!" was used, as were "We’re looking for a place with free drinks and pretty girls" and "You come to my club, we give you free drinks!"

We did actually get two girls to come along with us for part of the way by promising them free drinks at our place (rather than the other way round, which they were trying with us) - unfortunately, sometime during the general banter they decided that we definitely weren’t going to swallow their bait, and sloped off to accost some other tourists.

At some point during the evening, we ran into the little nut girl again, too. Probably earlier on, though.

Got back, and chilled out in the hostel for a while. The poker players hadn’t eaten, and it turned out that the pizza delivery place was closed. So I got my loaf out - cue the toasting of a large loaf of bread, served with margarine* and tasty honey. Sorted.

* From the hostel fridge…a bit evil, I know, but there were several tubs and I took a bit out of each one. I mean, how many backpackers actually manage to finish a whole tub of marge? I know I never did!

Bed around 4.30am.

Andi’s shoes were left outside the door once more.

Part III already, and I’ve not even got to Saturday!

So, Saturday morning. Wayne and Martin get up far too early and go for a wander - everyone ends up heading for "breakfast" at something like 3pm. I have no idea where, but it was all tasty enough.

Andi’s shoes had been put back inside the room, by the way.

Oh yeah. Actually, it was at this place with a vaguely nautical theme. Where Nayth managed to fall asleep in the toilet! The usual gorgeous waitresses were present, of course.

Market Hangars

Back to Frank’s, and all except Nayth headed to the old central market - five HUGE buildings, that were once WWI Zeppelin hangars, each of which had a different theme.

The fish one smelt really really bad. After that were the meaty one (complete with just about every imaginable part of the humble pig), the cheese and groceries one, and the veggie one. The fifth was more standard market-style clothes and stuff, with more similar stalls set up outside the hangars.

I bought something I’d never seen before - basically frankfurters, but as a string of beads rather than sausage shapes. Very snackable indeed. Unfortunately, they earnt the moniker "Mahinda’s anal beads". If you don’t know what those are, I’d recommend Google…but be careful!

I also picked up some excellent honey, after the stallholder insisted that I sample just about all her wares. There was also an alcoholic coffee shop and offie, from which Andi purchased some apple and rhubarb vodka. More about that later.

Poker and PuPu

Back to the hostel afterwards, and we had a little poker tournament. 5Ls in, with a rebuy. Unfortunately, I continued my run of going all in with a decent hand…and losing to what was (usually before the turn) a far worse hand. Grrrr!

Martin won (20Ls), followed by Pete (15Ls) and then Andi (5Ls). Out of the money were Theo, me and Wayne.

All in all, it was a pretty slow afternoon.

Several shots of the apple and rhubarb vodka later (extra measures for Nayth!), we headed over to PuPu Lounge once more around 7pm. It being early, the place was empty but for us and some very cute barmaids. As usual. The walls were covered with pictures of women, mostly topless…and Will Smith. Yes, Will Smith. For some reason, he’d just be there at random, every so often. Bizarre.

Believe it or not, it was a very classy joint.

The menu included a selection of cocktails, as well as this little list:

• Get one of the barmaids to dance for you - 200Ls
• Sack one of the staff - 5,000Ls
• Destroy the bar - 500,000Ls

We just had beer.

Saturday Night

After PuPu Lounge, we were famished, so headed to Salt ‘n’ Pepper for dinner. This place had been recommended by Eva, and we’d spotted it on the way back from the market.

It was a very chilled place indeed - in fact, the general vibe was very close to that of Solomon Grundy in Withington village. They even served "Cesu Old English Ale" in bottles - Cesu being one of the main brands of beer over there. This was basically a brown ale, which was fairly tasty.

The food was good, and large, but the service was just a tad slow. The place was notable for having a table in the corner that featured a handpump - apparently, you pay per hour and get to serve yourself beer. Happy days!

We then headed to one of the horrendously touristy joints, out on the main spine street through old town. Yes, it was touristy, but it was a nice place to have a cold beer and watch the world go by. As it happens, they had a selection of imported beers, including Leffe and Hoegaarden for less than 2Ls a half-litre!

It was approaching midnight, and Timm left us for Frank’s - the trip of the night was to La Rocca, the biggest nightclub in the Baltics. The rest of us didn’t really fancy it, after the Club Essential rubbishness. I was sorely tempted, as it was free and I’d not done the superclub thing…but I just couldn’t be bothered in the end.

Liga from Riga

Andi, Pete, etc. really fancied some poker by this point, so we went off in search of a casino. We had asked Frank already about which ones were likely to result in a good kneecapping, and one of the ones that’d come up as ’safe’ was the Olympic Voodoo Casino, in the basement of the Hotel Latvija.

So, back there we trekked (having earlier picked up our passports from Frank’s), and straight in we walked…to be greeted by a registration girl who was absolutely out of this world! It was all a bit of a jungle motif, with the female staff seemingly wearing different patterns according to status - the senior ones seemed to have black and cream stripes, while the juniors looked a bit like packets of Refreshers.

All were amazingly cute, of course.

The beer was reasonably cheap, and they even had a live band on, playing proper bluesy jazzy stuff.

We’d been given 5Ls (or were the 10Ls?) vouchers on registration, which had to be used on one bet, matched with cash. Unfortunately, there was no proper poker, so a few of us settled down at a black jack table. The table was really very relaxed - with us were:

A bloke from Manc (I think), who was betting big with well over 100Ls in front of him…he got grumpier and grumpier as he basically threw his money away.

A very sassy middle-aged lady from deep New York, with the twang to prove it, who was happily chatting to the croupiers in Russian. She was with a man who I reckoned was her father, and they were clearly not short of a bit of cash.

The New Yorker was obviously a bit of a pro, and gave us lots of tips as to certain rules, e.g. "insurance" when the dealer draws an Ace, and "surrendering" your hand to only lose half your chips. There was plenty of banter.

Now, for much of the time our croupier was a statuesque blonde called Liga, supervised (there seemed to be a lot of training going on) by a chap about our age called Igor. Liga-from-Riga proved to be very lucky indeed for Andi - he went on an UNBELIEVABLY superb run of saying things like "Come on, give me a six"…and then getting them.

Liga-from-Riga was lucky for me, too, as my stack hit about 30-40Ls (having used 10Ls plus my voucher).

Unfortunately, she was later replaced by Igor himself, with another chap supervising. And that’s where my luck ran out - I was limping along with a continual stream of 14s, 15s and 16s, while the dealer kept getting 20s and 21s. Grrr!

Our last croupier was Ekaterina (pronounced with a super-soft ‘e’, i.e. pretty much just "Katerina" - yes, I asked!), who had a lovely smile. Unfortunately, she proved to be the death knell for Andi and I, although Nayth finished significantly quids up - that boy must be half Irish, as he amassed his initial fortune by winning at the roulette table - 4/1 three times in a row!

The non-Igor male croupier and Andi had a good chat about poker, the upshot of which was that there was a tournament the next evening at the Radisson’s casino…more about that later, I guess.

My run of bad luck was so…well…bad, that I even managed to break a poster in the gent’s! As I was washing my hands, I noticed, in the mirror, that one of the A4 glass-fronted-notice-things was tilting off the wall to my left. I moved to stop it, but my drunken reactions resulted in me smashing it with the side of my fist. That could have been REALLY nasty. I went to the bar and tried to explain, taking one of the security blokes in to see. Not sure whether they believed me

Hot Kebap!

Anyway, home we headed, via a kebab shop - Hot Kebap! - where we stumbled upon a very odd sight. We entered the eatery’s brightly coloured plastic world (much like a kebab version of McDonald’s) to find a girl seemingly passed out on one of the bench seats. There was also a hairy man in what we thought was a kilt. It turned out that the girl was an employee having a nap (she looked very disgruntled indeed when the other employee shook her awake), while the bloke was dressed in full Britney Spears schoolgirl get-up, complete with pigtailed wig. Nice.

She did keep checking Andi out, though - she CLEARLY fancied a piece of him

Decent kebabs were had, and the three of us headed back to Frank’s…where there was absolutely no sign of the others, who’d been to Skyline for cocktails and then gone back before us.

It turned out that they were chilling out and playing coin football in the lounge room. I grabbed a beer and joined in, to be seriously thrashed by Wayne - I’d seemingly lost all my table football skills! While I held my own (fnirk!) towards the end, it was too late, and Wayne took my 2Ls entry stake.

Also in the lounge was one of the hostel girls, who was trying to get some respite from the British tossers singing loudly in the bar area. We (especially Nayth) chatted to her for a while.

I sloped off to bed at 5.30am, to much derision from Wayne, Pete and Martin. Needless to say, they stumbled into the room about ten minutes later, with the sun streaming through the gaps between the curtains.

Andi’s shoes were placed outside the door. Again.

Dutch Girl…Again

During one of our trips back to Frank’s that evening, I bumped into the Dutch girl in the bar area. I think her name was Anya, but I’m really not sure. Either way, I have her a cheeky nudge-and-a-wink and asked whether she’d had a good time the previous night.

She blushed

It seems that just about the entire hostel knew about her escapades, as it happens.

Friday morning. This was to be, IMHO, the definitive day of the weekend…

Most people awake to Andi’s phone alarm going off every five minutes, at silly o’clock. I don’t even hear it. We eventually stumble out of bed(s) around midday, to find that Andi’s shoes have been placed back inside the room.

Out we went, and found a sort of local eatery for "breakfast" - basically, there were loads of things behind a counter, which you pointed to. Between adding each dish, the plate was weighed, with everything priced by the 100g (or so)…yes, even the rice, mash, and so on. There were lots of meaty things, various sauces, etc. and we all had pretty filling meals for about a quid each (mine came up to 2Ls, including BIG bottle of Fanta). Not the tastiest we had over the weekend, but definitely the cheapest.

We then checked out Dickens, a British theme pub, to find that it was raining at Edgbaston. Yay! As there was no cricket, we congregated in the bar/café opposite for more Latvian beer, served by amazingly attractive waitresses wearing cute miniskirted uniforms. Lovely. I’m not entirely sure, but I think it was the poetically-named Spalvas pa Gaisu, or "Feathers in the Air". There were a few other places with fantastic names, such as Pulkvedim Neviens Neraksta, "Nobody Writes to the Colonel".

Pete drank very very slowly indeed. This was to become a feature of the day.

Once Pete finally finished his beer, we headed up the spire of St. Peter’s church - pretty high up, with a rickety Soviet-installed 1970s lift to take you up to the viewing level. From there, we got a fantastic view of the city, which was very handy for general orientation.

At this point, my knee was still hurting - not as bad as the previous evening, but bad enough.

Assault by Battery

Once down from the spire, we decided that more high-level stuff was required, so headed for the Hotel Latvija and its 26th floor Skyline bar. It was quite a trek - at least 28 (sh)Andi miles* - but we got there eventually, via the Russian Orthodox cathedral. I encouraged people to go in and have a look, as it would be quite unlike any churches they’d seen in Western Europe. And indeed it was - gilt/gold everywhere, complete with some neon lettering, hundreds of candles and generally lavish decorations. It was decreed "the church of bling" and we left, satisfied.

* Andi doesn’t do walking. 1 normal mile is equivalent to about 20 shAndi miles, and it’s a logarithmic scale!

Skyline did indeed have fantastic views, and the beer was much cheaper than we expected of a posh hotel bar - only 1.70Ls for my chosen brew, a 7% porter called Bocmanis. Well, it had a cheeky sea-dog on the label!

While Pete took (again!) about three hours to finish his drink, some of us headed on to the cocktails. Mojitos with whole handfuls of fresh mint, and berry-laden concoctions featured largely - I had a variation on the mojito, with sparkling wine instead of soda, and reckon that it’s the BEST cocktail I’ve ever had. Seriously. Worth the 4Ls, even.

At this point, Tim came back from the bar with a particularly poncey looking cocktail - it turned out to be the "Local Battery", combining Red Bull, Rigan Black Balzam (more about this later), peach liqueur and cream. NOT a good combination. It was congealing nicely, and we ended up paying 2Ls each for him to down it in one. Tim managed the "14Ls challenge" nicely, and - amazingly - didn’t throw up there and then!

We could see the rain rolling in by now, and discovered another feature of the place - next to the urinals in the gent’s was a full floor-to-ceiling window looking out on to the streets below. Seriously. You could urinate and look onto one of the city’s main thoroughfares at the same time. A bit disconcerting, really.

The rain let up a bit, and back we went.

On the way back, we stopped off at the worst bar/restaurant of the whole weekend - a bit poncey, with the beer costing a whopping 2.50Ls. I’m not surprised that it was almost empty all weekend (it was around the corner from the hostel, so we walked past it plenty of times), and it contained just us, a group of Asian Brummies (Indian, I think), and two fairly exhibitionist Latvian girls.

The Brummies were on a stag party, and were typically of the many drunken louts in the town. It turned out that they’d already fallen foul of the champagne scam, and had also been forced to pay a shedload for a cab ride when the driver pulled out a gun and shot it into the air. Eeek!

Anyway, back to Frank’s.

Watched some cricket. England were piling up the runs. I was considerably less than impressed.

Dodgy Knees

At some point during the afternoon, my left knee stopped hurting. It went from serious pain, to nothing at all. A miracle!

Something probably clicked into place or something. Either that, or it was the cocktails at Skyline!

Dodgy Directions

We asked one of Frank’s gorgeous girls (the lovely Eva, I believe) for restaurant recommendations…she suggested Rozengrals and Salt & Pepper, marking both on my map. So, out to Rozengrals we went.

Now, as someone who quite happily assumes the responsibility of map-reading, I also get all the blame when it goes wrong. And this time, it did go wrong. I’m still a bit bitter over the Geneva trip, two years ago, where I took everyone to the wrong side of lake Geneva - you’re only as good as the directions you get, and I was getting information from a drunken bloke telling me to look for a carousel.

Anyway, this time, there was no sign of the restaurant on the marked square. It was raining, and the map disintegrated.

We ended up finding an alternative eatery, and had a lovely meal, including caviar (not the proper sturgeon sort, mind) for Andi and hemp butter (or "with cannabis" as the waitress described it). I had an okay (but not outstanding) beef carpaccio, followed by a tasty bit of steak.

I only found out the next day that the pretty hostel girl had in fact marked my map in completely the wrong place. D’oh!

After dinner, it was back to the hostel, and on to PuPu Lounge, for which we’d picked up various recommendations. Now, "pupu" is Latvian slang for "breasts"…and it’s basically a theme bar with that (or possibly "those") as the theme. NOT a strip joint or anything similarly dodgy, mind.

Unfortunately, we found that they wanted 10Ls - TEN QUID! - for entry, so we backtracked quickly, finding a club just around the corner called Nautilus. Andi, Tim and I were up for it, but others weren’t so keen - we headed away to find another bar for a few more drinks first. Which we did - a very airy, very blue, very stylish and very empty place, opposite Feathers in the Air (where we’d been earlier).

I think it may have been called Velvets, but I’m not sure. Either way, it served reasonably-priced beer (1.50Ls) and played a somewhat…eclectic…range of music. Much Euro-dance, but also some indie stuff - even Menswear! It’s widely believed that it was one of the Shine compilations, possibly Shine 3.

Not to everyone’s taste, we all pretty much enjoyed it there…especially Nayth.

Nayth first tried to get a bunch of lasses to come and join us in our corner, unsucessfully, and then chatted up a member of the bar staff for some half an hour or so. We actually had to give him a key as we left, but he joined us outside shortly afterwards, and we headed back to Nautilus.

The Little Nut Girl

I think it was when we were leaving Nautilus earlier that we first encountered the little nut girl. Basically, she was a little girl, about 12 years old, selling chocolate covered peanuts. At midnight.

I think there was a bit of banter, and we kept seeing her around - the area around Frank’s must have been her patch!

Nautilus

So, Nautilus. We got there and found that it was 8Ls in. A bit more than we’d bargained for, but we were there so in we went.

Inside, it was pretty odd - themed around Captain Nemo’s submarine, it was a bit like a dance version of the Crystal Maze’s Industrial Zone. Beer wasn’t cheap, at 3Ls for a bottle of Heineken (or was it Carlsberg? Probably) in the downstairs bar, and a whopping 4Ls upstairs.

However, we were already drunk enough to dance the night away. It turned out that the best DJ in Lithuania had been flown in specially, and he played what must have been a five-hour set of (apparently) hard trance. It was good, albeit not what I usually go for, and we all partied away on the dancefloor.

Unlike most other places, it was just full of locals, and it was a generally good vibe.

Andi, Wayne, Martin and I left at something like 4am…and got about 40 yards before being accosted by John Lemon’s, a rather fantastic little late night café. Needless to say, in we went. Andi and Wayne got their beers and left within about two minutes, while Martin and I stayed, chatting to a random Latvian chap who was studying in London. It was he who told us about the Nautilus DJ’s credentials.

A top-notch end to the night.

Back to the hostel around 5am, and the others joined us about half an hour later.

Pete, Tim and Nayth (I have no idea what happened to Theo) stayed in Nautilus until about 5.30am - the god-like DJ was replaced at 5am by another decent tunemeister, but most of the crowd saw this as their cue to leave. That left the three of them and two crazy dancing lasses (one a stunning tall blonde, and the other a shorter brunette with a Union Jack motif T-shirt). When the girls quit, so did our lads, as the last people on the dancefloor. They stepped out into the bright sunshine and headed back to Frank’s.

One last beer at Frank’s, surrounded by the legion of pissed-up British tossers (who continued "singing" until about 9am), and bedtime it was.

Andi’s shoes were placed outside the door.

Dutch Girl

Before bed, however, I moseyed upstairs to the computer room, passing (thanks to a wrong turn) the kitchen, where there were a few people having toast and pizza. We got chatting - it was a dutch girl who I’d chatted to earlier in the computer room, plus a couple of English backpackers. Once it was clear that I wasn’t one of the "British tossers", they even donated me some toast

Anyway, it all got a bit hazy, but the Dutch girl ended up dragging some bloke (not one of the two who’d been in the kitchen) into the Ladies’ toilets…presumably for a shag. Nice.