36 Hours in Riga...

From Riga, Latvia

...but we did so much it felt like 36 days. My work colleague and I went over to Latvia this week for a marathon meeting to discuss a hotel / spa related project. The meeting alone was enough to fill the day but in addition to a 6 hour meeting, we managed to fit in, 2 nights of drinking mojitos, a business lunch, a business dinner (yum), a walking tour of Riga complete with a stop at the coolest Moroccan teahouse ever to drink sweet, minty, Moroccan tea, a record release party for a Russian teen singer wearing the tightest leather pants I've ever seen and a Nascar race (ok, it wasn't a Nascar race, it was a taxi ride from the airport, but it might as well have been a Nascar race!) Our guide for the walking tour was our client and a native Rigan who speaks five languages (Latvian, Russian, English, Spanish and Portuguese) and was very knowledgeable about his city (not to mention super generous with his time). He showed us all the most beautiful Art Nouveau architecture, the medieval old town, Swedish and Dutch influenced neighborhoods, a few choice bits of Soviet blockitecture, hidden statues on the tops of buildings (a boy reading, cats with arched backs, wolves, faces etc...), a canal and park bursting with brightly coloured flowerbeds, and a great Cuban bar where my workmate and I ended up drinking mojitos, listening to a great Samba DJ till 3am, and ogling the adorable and probably gay bar-staff (well, maybe that was just me...haha). Considering how little time we had in Riga, we definitely made the most of it... perhaps a bit too much as we nearly missed our flight home, since someone (who shall remain nameless and wasn't me) was hungover as a donkey and slept in... Next stop: Uzbekistan, I've heard great things from my new Latvian friend ande tour guide, Who's up for it?!