easter in latvia

Last Easter I was in Vietnam, which doesn't celebrate it, and so I had a bit of a short long weekend. This year however it's an entirely different proposition. Sweden celebrates Easter with eggs, bunnies and witches and the usual 4-day weekend. (This isn't quite as good as Norway which has a 5-day weekend, but never mind, four days is enough).

After chatting to a friend from work, Feodor, I was invited to go to Rīga, Latvia, with him and a few others. This is very Australian thing to do I think: hit Europe and waste no time in trying to see as much as possible.

A few minutes later I was on airBaltic's site I found what I was looking for: a 5kr flight direct to Rīga. Five krona is around $1, can't do much better than that! We stayed in the "Metropole" hotel, famous in Rīga for being the only hotel that stayed open through-out Soviet and Nazi occupations of Latvia. In fact these occupations of Latvia have not been as disastrous on the local infrastructure as has occurred elsewhere.

Rīga comprises of "Old Rīga" which is pre-1900's and "New Rīga" which is 1900's onwards. Old Rīga is world heritage listed as it has well preserved examples of buildings from the 12th to the 19th century.

After the advent of gun-powder, city walls went out of fashion. In Rīga they turned land freed up by this into a series of canals and parkland. So the old town is now surrounded by wide cobble stoned boulevards with trams rolling along them, parkland and canals. It really was a picturesque town.

Over the canal, and past the freedom monument, is New Rīga, which has it's own architectural delights. In the early 1900's there was an art moment called Art Nouveau, or really when you are talking about the German inspired version it's called Jugendstil. It incorporates lots of long flowing lines, flower-like designs, and in Rīga there are faces incorporated into the designs. An example of this architecture in Melbourne is the City Baths.

The weather went crazy over the weekend too, and put on a real show for us. It snowed like it was the middle of winter.

The snow only served to enhance the city's beauty further. Did it matter that I don't have any clothes suitable for snow? Not really - when the worst of the came we could always pop inside for a beer.

Being a Baltic state, Latvia has a reputation for cheap alcohol. Although it's far cheaper than Sweden (2 pots cost me $20 in Sweden last night!), it isn't any cheaper than Australia. One Latvian lats is equal to $2.5 - not very favourable for the Australian tourist. Not that it deterred us. Some good nights out were had :-)

wrapping up last year

Okay, only a little bit slack on the posts about Singapore... well maybe a little bit more than a little. I knew I was in trouble when I wrote "More on that soon" in the last post. Alarm bells went off in my head. Memories of "coming soon" websites with their little under-construction animated .gif came flooding forth. I forcefully ignored the warnings and wrote "More on that soon" anyway. Foolish!

Oh well. Now I have some time to write about Singapore. Why now? Well I've just arrived in Sweden! haha... I've got spare time on my hands. No tennis, no basketball, and thanks to Easter, no work either! :-)

So before I start writing about Sweden I'll wrap up last year, by putting a few words to paper (err... keyboard?) about my weekend in Singapore. Looking through the photos, I took some good ones (modest aren't I?), and I have some good memories of the place.

Singapore is a melting pot of races: Chinese, Indian, Arabic and Malay are the most prominent. Thank goodness for this too because after 3 weeks in Cambodia I can remember I was ready for a good curry! I spent most of the days visiting different cafés and restaurants in search of variety. On Friday night I had a cheap dumplings and noodles (and beer) at a hawker stall in the Malaysian red-light district. Saturday I went for a wander around town taking in sights like the incredible concert hall:

I had a western meal in town - cappuccinos etc. Singapore is known for its' shopping, and I could see why. I wasn't in the mood for shopping and just went to Borders for a couple of new books (I'd run out in Phnom Penh). Singapore has an awesome public transport system, and somewhat amusingly if you are less than 90cm tall, you can ride for free!

During World War 2, Singapore was invaded by the Japanese. I visited Changi prison which is where many Australian P.O.W.'s were held. It was great as it also included information about what it was like for the local Chinese and Malay population too. What interested me was that the Japanese spread propaganda that they would treat the Asian population well ("Asia is for Asians") - only to invade and treat them worse than the foreigners! Civilian deaths were quite high, and there is a memorial near the centre of town:

This simple and stark monument stands 70-metres tall. Other photos of it are in my Picasa album.

Saturday night I had some excellent Arabic kebabs, I liked them so much I went back the following lunch time for more. I had to visit Sim Lim on my last day in Singapore. It is a 6-story shopping centre with only computer stores in it! It's like a permanent swap-meet gone mad. It's also near Little India, so I could get a decent curry :-)

In no specific order because my memory has faded a bit, I also visited the Australian pub, the "Prince of Wales", to make sure it lives up to the reputation of the St. Kilda name-sake. It's not as large of course, but they do host quite a bit of live music. Singapore has a very sensible way of running its' zoo: at night. Most animals are nocturnal right? Right. So why not run the zoo at night? Very good idea. The night safari zoo was good thing to do, I'd recommend visiting it. Watch out for the "free" bus scam however: free on the way there, not so free on the way back. Finally I also visited the Swissôtel hotel in town:

It's big, very big. I had a meal up on the observation deck. Unfortunately Singapore's weather for the weekend had a pattern to it: sunny in the morning, tropical down pours in the afternoon; and so the view wasn't great. It didn't matter though, I could still survey the middle of town and see where I had been over the weekend. And it had been a good relaxing weekend at that. Now, I can say with certainty, there will be posts on Sweden very, very, soon.

the real meaning of easter

I couldn't miss out on the real meaning of Easter... chocolate... so I tracked down some Easter goodies!

(the bunny is almost all gone : )

easter short weekend

Easter short weekend?? Yup, I'm not travelling for fun, I'm travelling for serious business. Business that means I have to work on Sunday! And on top of that there are no Easter public holidays here (of course). So the usual 4-day weekend has been truncated to a slim 1-day experience. Have no fear though, I have made the most of it! (So far.)

Last night Mark and I went out drinking with some of the Ericsson local staff at "Relax Bar". Steins of Tiger beer were the order of the day, and the attentive bar staff ensured we never went thirsty. Relax Bar itself was pretty small, and despite some tropical styling, would not have looked out of place in Fitzroy. The locals bought some snacks to have with the beer, and these were quite interesting and tasty. One snack was a semi-dried pork product, not too different from ham, which was dipped in chilli sauce. It was a bit chewy, which was a little strange at first. The other snack was a cheese similar to cheddar, which was smoked and salted. It was served in shredded into long strands. Both went quite well with beer.

Later in the night we moved on to another Ericsson party, this time with the local project managers. This party was at a restaurant known as "Highway 4". According to The Lonely Planet Highway 4 should be in a part of Hanoi called the Old Quarter, however it was no where near that part of town. I'm not sure if this place was run by the same people, or if the restaurant had moved premises, or if it was a complete rip off of the name. It was a nice place in the Japanese style of low tables and no wearing shoes. We drank some local alcohols which the locals couldn't quite describe. They said it was rice spirit, but made from apples?! It was quite nice, with a kind of port taste - sweet, but not too sweet. I liked it enough to jot down the name: Sơn Tinh. I'll try and buy a bottle to take home.

It turns out the Hanoians also know how to distil vodka, as well as brew beer. Here's a blurry camera-phone shot of the said vodka:

Around 11 the party started wrapping up so we decided to check out a massive dance club down town called "New Century". Apparently it's the place to be in Hanoi. First impressions were a little odd - the bouncers were wearing what looked to be bullet-proof vests! Once inside however it was a normal club. The beer was a little pricey by Hanoi standards, but as Mark pointed out... no cover charge : )

Vietnamese seem to like cognac. Maybe it is the French influence? Inside the club, full of 20-somethings, there were a bunch of people advertising Hennessy. Quite strange in my opinion! I left early as the club didn't really cater for my taste in music (not that I expected it to), but Mark stayed there a bit longer. He said later in the night a fight broke out and there were glasses being thrown across the dance floor. He got out of there pretty quickly, and I guess that's why the bouncers wear armour!

Today I thought we would be working in the afternoon, so I got up early to do some touristy things. I had been wanting to visit the Temple of Literature and when I got the SMS that we wouldn't be working today I was also able to visit the Museum of Fine Arts and the Army Museum.

Getting a taxi driver to take me to the Temple of Literature was a funny example of language barriers. The driver did not know the word "literature". He got me to write it down, but that didn't help either. So I asked if he knew the restaurant KOTO which is behind the temple. This drew another blank. The temple used to be an old university (founded 1070AD), so I suggested "old university", this appeared to translate. He started driving... but then he stopped about 100 metres down the road and asked "which university?". By this stage I remembered that it was near the Army Museum - these are much easier words than "literature"! He knew exactly what I meant this time, and laughed at me - he said "Old university? No no no, not university any more. Tourist place!".

There is so much to write about after visiting the temple and museums, and of course photos too, but I need some sleep. I'll post all that tomorrow!