Rīga

Last weekend, I went to Rīga, in Latvia. Despite having my passport, wallet, phone and camera stolen, and the city being covered with a manky brown sand (due to the icy and snowy weather), I enjoyed my trip there and found it to be a very interesting city. Here's why:

An Ace Thing about Rīga:
The place is run by old and middle-aged women. Every museum had them working in them. The bus conductors are middle-aged woman, wearing green cajoules with natty leather handbags for their change.

A Not Ace Thing about Rīga:
These women can be cranky wenches. And one of them was the very epitome of the suburban name Linda.

Ace Thing
All the trams are driven by what seem to be housewives. It is a funny sight. It's like they decided to go to the local Iceland and thought "I'll take the tram and pick up a few passengers on me way".

Not Ace Thing
Latvian people are very respectful while crossing the road. They wait for the green man to appear, even when there are no cars.

Ace Thing
Except for: A young woman, long legs, short skirt, white boots, puts one foot in front of the other, glances briskly and takes to crossing the road like she was a supermodel-better-than-you.

Not Ace Thing
Not only The Old Ladies, but all the faces in Latvia seemed very dour, very sad.

Ace Thing
Cheekbones.

Not Ace Thing
Awful hair: bad Russian blonde dye jobs.

Ace Thing
Cafés, restaurants and juice bars were all excellent. I particularly liked Sula Enerģija and Café Vanille. All the apple juice you could drink!

Not Ace Thing
The bars seemed to be very quiet and unatmospheric. Very few people talked to me whilst I was there, sitting alone. Any conversation I did have was on a very basic level (weather, country etc.) - not at all like in Poland.

Ace Thing
Vodka in the supermarket was cheap as chips.

Not Ace Thing
Vodka in the bars was comparitively expensive.

Ace Thing
Homewares shops selling all kinds of funky knick-knacks and house accessories were excellent. As was Jana Seta, a bookshop with ahuge relief globe on the wall.

Not Ace Thing
Clothes shops, by comparison, were not.

Ace Thing
In XXL, the best gay club in town, a sight to behold was a young twink, wearing a tight white vest, barely-there trackie bottoms and sheer pants taking to the dancefloor and to the pole-dancing podium with vigour.

Not Ace Thing
The (other gay) nightclub Purvs, whilst hilariously named, was utter rubbish by comparison. (It means 'swamp' in Latvian)

Ace Thing
In XXL, the best gay club in town, a man danced like Renars Kaupers, from (Eurovision 2000) band Brainstorm. It was fantastic to know that he is not the only Latvian to dance this way.


Not Ace Thing
You can really see that the most popular form of dancing is lap- or pole- with sex tourism and stag-nights the order of the night.

Ace Thing
The funniest sight of the weekend was an little old lady standing outside a church door wearing a big fur coat, fluorescent green woolly hat and big Jackie O sunglasses. Comical.