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March 21, 2005
Jen and Lisa's Baltic Adventure - Day Seven
I slept in this morning (ahh, bliss!) while Lisa was industrious and looked at some art nouveau apartments in a new neighborhood. We met back up around lunch, and then we ventured out an masse.
Today's adventure involved pig snouts, magnetized santimi, and old Latvian peasant women grooving to Whitney Houston. Also making an appearance: greasy "fish and chips", a ragamuffin group of young musicians, and multiple closed museums.
We started off by walking back to the bus station, where we purchased tickets for the bus trip to Tallinn tomorrow at noon. From there, we meandered over to the Central Market, which comprises an indoor and outdoor section. On the outside are rows of stalls with semi-fresh fruits and vegetables being sold by bundles with feet (I assume women were there somewhere under the layers). Occasionally, there was also a stall or table with giant underwear, plastic toys (of the five-and-dime variety), and Soviet-style fur hats. Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" was blasting from the loudspeakers and no one seemed to notice the bizarre juxtaposition of post-Soviet life with the Kevin Costner-esque soundtrack.
On the inside, cheese and meat dominated--with various pastries and chocolate options also available. My favorite part was the row of pig snout (quite reasonably priced, incidentally):
We got some fruit, cheese, and bread for tomorrow's bus ride, then made a hasty departure. We attempted to walk down by the river, but were repelled by the sewer-and-mud-soaked sidewalks, which drove us back to the inner part of the town. We tried to visit some museums, but Latvia has apparently decided that it's not enough to be holy on Sundays, but that everything should also be closed on Mondays.
Thwarted, we instead did some shopping (God apparently is fine with consumerism on Mondays) and I found a cute magnet of Riga to add to my collection.
Then it was back to our room to check email and out to dinner at the English pub around the corner. Bad idea--we were freezing and I think our brains had slowed to a crawl, because we decided that fish and chips was a good idea. A half-hour later, we were both feeling a little ill.
Thinking that maybe a little soda would settle our stomachs (ok, that's only partly true--we have both been craving Diet Coke, which is nearly impossible to find here), we managed to find a little shop that sold it. Armed with Diet Coke and a bar of chocolate, we went back to the hotel, narrowly avoiding a group of young men camped out on the sidewalk, playing music and asking passers-by for money. They are truly horrible, and even now, ensconced in our 4th floor room, we can hear their music wafting up through the night air.
Also, I've discovered that the Latvian penny (santims)is magnetized. It happened quite by accident, as I had slipped the Riga magnet into my pocket, where it attached itself to the loose penny. Thus followed a wide-ranging scientific experiment, where Lisa and I put the magnet up to all of our other coins (Swedish, Lithuanian, and Latvian) to find out the full impact of the magnet-coin connection. After much testing, I am confident in saying that the magnetized Lativian penny is an abberation--no other coins showed a similar tendency. And now you know.
For once, I think I may actually do some work on my thesis. I've been totally slacking this week and I'm starting to forget the premise of our research topic. Before that happens, I better finish the draft chapter!
Comments
Hey there, how did that phone interview go?
Posted by: La at March 22, 2005 04:34 PM
