more on rīga

Like any country Latvia and its citizen's had their funny quirks. Most prominently was their Russian influenced accent. This gave us hours of amusement, it was like being stuck in the dodgier scenes of a Bond film (particularly when we went to Voodoo Nightclub!). The currency in Latvia is the Lat. The Lat is an abnormally large amount of money as a single unit. i.e. It's over AU$2.50, around euro1.7, and more than 1GBP. Said with a burly Russian accent, and being such an abrupt word (lat!), we endlessly amused by the demanding sounding way the locals would ask for payment. How much for a coffee? One lat! How much for a beer? Two lats! How much for a bus to the airport? Ten lats!

Early in the trip I was approached by a shady looking character in the street; he was selling postcards. I wanted a postcard, but when I asked how much, it was one lat for 12. I really only wanted one. As I had no idea what a Latvian "cent" was (Lonely Planet informed me later that it's a santīms - which is pretty much French for "cent" but anyway..) I wasn't really in a position to argue him down. Bugger it, one lat it was.

Lonely Planet also says the Latvians can be "standoffish". This was most evident on our last night in town. We were having a few drinks in the hotel bar. When it came to closing time, the bar staff closed the bar and turned off most of the lights. They didn't come over and inform us the bar was closing - they just closed it around us. We couldn't really be bothered moving so we just stayed there talking. After another hour or two of us sitting there and security watching us and saying nothing, security then turned off the rest of the lights. Again they could have just asked us to leave, but no, they didn't. We stayed and kept talking, by about 3 or 4 in the morning the security guards fell asleep watching us! See what I mean about it's like being stuck in the dodgier scenes of a Bond film?

Mind you, if we'd really felt like partying, the Latvian party drink is coffee with balsam (or.. Riga Black Balzams). No sugary red-bull and vodka for them, it's straight out black-as-tar and bitter-as-hell balsam and black coffee. In a word: awful. Though I'm sure like any good alcohol, you'd get used to it pretty quickly ;-)

Oh, and a note of warning to prospective partying tourists. Latvian bars and club impose "Face Control". A very Orwellian of saying, if they don't like your face, you're not getting in. Like normal really, but just a funny way to say it. Face Krontrol!! Far better than unimaginative "members only" anyway.

Finally I'm not sure why, maybe because they knew I was coming in from Sweden by my phone number? Maybe because vikings are cute... err... sort of.. below are the do-not-disturb and please make up my room signs in the Metropole hotel in Rīga! Bizarre.

I quite like the Latvian flag - it's not straight out red and white, it's a dark red or maroon and white. I've heard it called "Latvian Red" too.

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 :-)

a new year, a new continent

Europe? Yep. Sweden? Yup, for 6 months. A thank-you is first up. Thanks for work for sending me here (although, I still have to work ;-) but also in being flexible in allowing me to stick around until March so I could attend Lawrence and Michelle's wedding - which was an excellent event. Many best wishes for the future Lo and Shell.

Now I'm in Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden, which is approximately 15,000km from Melbourne. The furthest I've been from Australia to date! Realistically its about as far as I can go from Australia without coming back around the other-side of the globe! So, a new continent to visit: Europe.

Taking off from Melbourne I was apprehensive... I had an aisle seat! From my experience on Melbourne-Sydney flights, aisle seats were bad, as the food trolleys hit your arms and legs if they stuck out a little bit. Turns out that's just a Qantas thing, and I didn't get hit at all.

With a 25 hour trip ahead of me I planned to sleep, and sleep a lot. I didn't end up sleeping as much as I thought, maybe only half of the trip. I spent most of the rest of the time writing a document for my family describing how to fix the home network if a server or two died while I'm away!. Thrilling stuff. Gladly I had a business-class flight from Bangkok to København (Copenhagen). As we took off from Bangkok the pilot announced there were snow storms in København at the moment, but "these should clear up by the time we get there". These snow storms have not disappointed. It's been cold and snowy ever since! From København to Göteborg it's only 30 minutes by plane. We were shuffled onto a small-ish McDonald-Douglas MD-81 where the only difference between a business-class and economy-class seat was that you got a croissant for breakfast. We even had to walk across a frozen tarmac to get the flight. Before take-off the plane had to have its' wings de-iced by a special de-icing truck.

Now I'm going to get all fancy and multi-media-ish and have a video in the blog:

That's the landing at Göteborg. It looked very, very cool coming in over the snow. I also was able to take a few photos from the air of what might be considered to be a typical Swedish rural scene:

The snow is amazing. Being an Aussie, I haven't seen snow like this in a city before! Only on mountains and stuff. Of course the locals are ready for spring and are a bit annoyed with this cold snap - they'd already put their coats away for the season. Shops have also put away their winter stock (or sold out), which is a bit frustrating, I was hoping to buy some cold-weather gear here.

Due to the length of my stay I'm staying in a furnished apartment. It's very nice, and the location is great. It's located near the centre of town (approximately CBD to Carlton type distance in Melbourne terms). Göteborg has a wonderful public transport system including an extensive tram network. The town is small enough that there are no suburban trains, just buses and trams. I've got the choice of 5 different tram routes to catch to my place, and even more bus routes. My apartment is on the top story (the 5th) of the building and has a great view down towards a church:

As I'm writing this it's Good Friday holiday here and it's snowing again for the first time since arriving. The view up to the church looks a bit different when covered in snow.

This long weekend I'm heading to Rīga, Latvia, with a few other engineers from Melbourne. The engineers aren't in Göteborg, but I contacted them as I knew they were in Sweden and they already had this trip planned. It should be excellent. The entire centre of Rīga has been world heritage listed by UNESCO as the best example of Art Nouveau architecture. There's also cheap booze :-)

Sweden has a reputation for expensive booze. Now I'm not sure if the Australian dollar is unusually strong against the Swedish Krona, but really the prices are almost comparable to Australia. A pint in the pub on my first night in town was pricey at $10-ish dollars (but then in Melbourne it's not unusual to pay $8 these days). The bottle store was better $24ish for 12 bottles of beer. That's better pricing than Australia where a 6-pack is usually $15. Sweden has a tightly controlled alcohol market. The only way you can buy heavy beer, wine, or spirits is through a government owned chain of outlets called Systembolaget. The government says that "the monopoly is to lower the consumption and the damage alcohol does on the public health". Personally I think this is just crap, they run like a post offices: closing at 6pm on weekdays, 2pm on Saturdays, and not even opening on Sundays. Sure it might lower consumption but now they have to beef-up their customs operations to catch alcohol smugglers!

Anyway, it's Easter time, and sure these days you might be forgiven for thinking that Jesus was fluffy bunny that broke all biological rules to pop out a chocolate egg before being resurrected for a another public holiday (that makes sense right? :-) but here in Sweden, it's even more confusing. It still has little to do with Christian beliefs (*phew*). Children dress as witches because in Sweden witches flew off on broomsticks to dance with the devil at Blåkulla around this time of year. Nice eh? So now we have witches, broomsticks, chocolate, bunnies, eggs. But wait, there's more: they also add a liberal dose of brightly coloured feathers and cook heaps of marzipan. Yum Yum.

Did someone say Easter is a time for sober reflection? Not around me they didn't. *grin*

Oh yeah, better chalk up beer number 1 in the Swedish leg of the beer challenge. Well there was another one, but the photo didn't turn out well. I'll just have to drink that one again. Good times.

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.