Mahinda’s Little World

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.