Here I am, Friday night in Radom, and so ready for sleep. Still on a high from the Riga getaway, but also lacking proper slumber. However, I'm excited to share my stories, and as much as I love discussing grammar with Heather via Skype, I figure I might as well write now too.
I'm feeling the play-by-play style this time...we'll see how it goes!
Friday - we woke up (as opposed to waked up) early early early. You see, although our flight from Warsaw was at 1:30pm, we had to take into consideration time enough to enjoy a comfortable sit down at Coffee Heaven in Warsaw. We don't have the coffee shop luxury here. Remember our gas station situation? Anyways, we caught our 7am train out of Radom and set off to leave the country. It was a beautifully mild and sunshine-y day. Coffee Heaven and its patrons were a lovely start to the day. We were all giggles. The Warsaw airport was a fail in terms of food, but we survived. When we were boarding, they had to take our passes from us. Why? Because the seats we were assigned in row 15 apparently did not exist. We were on the TINIEST plane. It had 12 rows. And it definitely wasn't full. Despite the rocky take off, it was pretty smooth sailing. We got into Riga around 4pm (we lost an hour). We decided to pack super light so we didn't have any checked baggage. So we headed for the bus to get us into the old town. It was cooler than Warsaw, grey, and drizzling, but it didn't take away from anything. We found our hostel (THE NAUGHTY SQUIRREL...ONE OF THE BEST HOSTELS!), dumped our stuff, and went for food at Dada, a place one of the hostel guys recommended. It was SO yummy. It was Mongolian grill style - pick a sauce and fill your bowl. We also had our first Latvian beer (Alderis). All day we had been looking forward to an early night, so we headed back to our hostel. We sat in the common room and started playing Connect Four. Then we got the cards out. (Heather was on fire. I don't think I won a single game or hand...!) We chatted with some people then it got really crowded. Turns out that the pub crawls the hostel runs only goes on Fridays. Hmmm...to sleep or to take advantage of the great social situation and hang out with cool people from all over the world? I'll take the latter, no matter how exhausted I am. Come ON, Heath and I stuck it out in Radom for SIX WEEKS! Needless to say, it was a fantastic night out at some great venues...which resulted in me being awake almost 24 hours from our Radom departure. The guys on the pub crawl seemed quite concerned for Heather and me that we were the only females on the pub crawl, compared to the 30 or so guys. Actually, that's what the tourist ratio looks like too, mostly men. Fine by me! We still don't know why we're automatically dubbed "the crazy Canadians" even BEFORE people know us. Hahaha
Saturday - Heath and I were quiet going back to our hostel room, not wanting to wake anyone else. Turns out 4:30am is an early night in Riga, as we were the first ones back. Our roomies all came in between 6 and 7am. We were then disturbed out of sleep by the screamer in our room - this guy made noises that I didn't know were humanly possible. And we were both on bottom bunks, our heads facing each other. I blame him for not getting any real sleep the entire weekend. Anyways, Saturday morning we went back to Dada for breakfast. It was very delicious. Then we walked around old town to hit some highlights. Coincidentally, my grandpa's old address was about 200 metres from our hostel! We went to St Peter's church, and the Dome Cathedral (where my grandpa was baptized), and then we found a most delightful cafe. Napolean and espresso please! It was another drizzly day, but fabulous still. Our walk also included happening upon a caged bunny outside a restaurant - I named him Butterscotch. We made our way back to the hostel for a bit of a nap, and got to chatting with one of our roomies (Zach). We later went out for dinner to Lido, a cafeteria-style restaurant that serves traditional Latvian food. IT WAS SO SO SO SO SO TASTY. I will have to go back to Riga if only to eat here again. Another of our roomies was there so he joined us to eat and for a walk after. Then we went for a night stroll with Zach, to take some night pictures. We went to the Riga Castle, and walked along the river and saw the Vansu bridge. Heath and I then returned to one of the bars from the previous night. It had a completely different vibe - more relaxed and filled with locals. There was an awesome live band, so once again it turned into a bit of a later night than intended, but it was much more low-key. We sang, danced, and felt the music.
Sunday - We had sunshine!! Zach took us to a flea market of sorts...it sold Soviet Union and Nazi paraphenalia, among just about any piece of junk you could imagine. This was in Little Moscow, outside the old town. We also saw the Jewish memorial at the Great Choral Synagogue (which is really just ruins) and the central market. We then went back to our little cafe that we came to love. We parted ways with Zach and carried on. We rocked out and did our own freedom dance in front of the Freedom Monument (which we're sure the guards loved) and went to the Orthodox Cathedral. The colours of the interior were so vibrant and happy. We went at the right time because we got blessed with the Holy water by the priest. After that I found my Grandpa's old school. It's a very beautiful building. We ventured to a tea place we had read about, but it was closed. It was Easter Sunday, after all. So where did we end up? Back at our cafe for round three. (The first two times we went we saw the same trio of guys there...we're not the only ones!) We stopped at Dada for a late lunch, with plans to return to Lido for dinner. Are we creatures of habit or what? We got back to the hostel to relax for a little, only to meet a boisterous group of Irish guys in the common room. Before we know it, we're at an Irish bar with them, and Lido is a distant memory. We somehow ended up at a bar called Mad House, where we witnessed what we can only think is a pimp in a gold suit, kicking out a hooker who was dancing around with a chicken wing. What a scene!
Monday - we organised ourselves and made our way to the airport via bus, along with about half the hostel's population. It was a fun time at the airport - we were the cool people that knew everyone there. Haha. We made it back to Warsaw, and returned to Coffee Heaven before the final jaunt to Radom. Obviously I slept the whole train ride back.
As I said in my previous post, I would totally live in Riga. The people are so friendly and helpful and accomodating and lovely. We didn't have big ambitions for this trip - we just wanted to be somewhere new; hang out and eat and meet people and check out my grandpa's old stomping ground. I really do need to go back and see more. We met some fantastic friends, ones that we can be in touch with and hopefully reunite with in the future!
As a side note, I sang The Kinks "You Really got Me" for my power plant men students tonight. Yes.
Ok. Night night!!
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