Paco´s Life: Madrid

Easter Europe V: Riga y conclusiones / Riga and Conclussions

6 am and I just landed in Riga. I am tired, very tired. The aiport bus gets me to the center. Too early for calling the girl who is hosting me here, one thing is hospitality, a different one is to bother people. She had told me she was working till late so I will wait until her message. The problem is that is 7am and I am pretty fucked up. So I consider the hotel option… First try: 80 euros the night, second try: 95, third: 75… I think about it… bah, fuck it, I already spent enough money in this trip, I get rid of my luggage in the station lockers and eats this huge fried eggs, bacon plus potatoes breakfast after which the world suddenly looks brighter.

Let´s go for the sightseen then, map on my pocket and the whole city to walk around. 12 o clock and I am done with the city, nice place, full of parks, coffees and monuments. The weather, as it has been all over the trip, is on my side, sunny and hot. I beat the temptation of lying on the grass (later on I found out this is not allowed in Riga). So I end up in an internet place where I found out another person I had contacted in HC has invited me to a latvian party somewhere outside the city, some farewell party of someone, starting at 5 in the afternoon and lasting till the next day. Umm, promising… I seriously consider it but it is a too last minute plan, no idea how I am going to be able to be back in Riga on time for my plane and maybe I already did enough risky things in this trip, better to stick to the original plan. Besides, Eva contact me saying is already OK for me to get to her place. Great, I am not a homeless anymore. I just need to find her house, I gotta take some bus somewhere till the end of its route. No problem, it wasn’t so difficult in the end, Eva lives in an apartment in the outskirts of Riga and if she found strange that her Spanish guest could only say a few sentences before falling sleep slept in a sofa she pretended very well… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Two hours later, my host had to start working so I was in the street again, alone? Nooo, I still had another contact in Riga, Viktorija, another HC girl who had told me she couldn’t host me but she would happily take me out for a beer. Cooool At that point there was little for me to see in Riga but it is definitely better when you have someone local to tell you about the places, specially when is such an interesting person as Vicky (thanks!). So we spent the afternoon and got into the night, time to see what Riga´s nightlife was about. And same story as the Vilnius one, Vicky called another friend who called another one and I ended up partying with the three latvian girls. Well, better said, Russian – Latvians, Latvians or Russians, I wasn’t so sure in the end who was what. It seems that sometimes they were speaking Russian between them, some others latvian… Funny mixture they have. Anyway, what a “female” trip I have had, next one lets see if I can get in touch with local fellows, not that I was looking for girls, just that they were the ones replying to my messages.

So it ended up been a serious Riga’s nightlife tour, with different kind of places (of course some nargilee involved ;). And, specially remarkable was the last night club where I could see the way latvian guys try to hook up with girls. Uff! Terrible! After a minute been there, each of my latvian companions has a couple of guys dancing around and trying to approach her in a rather aggressive and persistent way. It was sort of surrealistic for me to be in the middle of that mess, absolutely sober and seen the carnage. One of them was so stubborn with one of the Latvians that he forced us to leave the place so he would not break her neck trying to get her mouth closer (not an exaggeration). I ain’t joking, Italians are shy people compared to these people. Funny to see but a bit pathetic and it also put an end to the night so I joined Eva who had finished work and went to sleep. It was 3 in the morning and the last and calm night of the trip was ending. And here I am, trying to find anything else about Riga to complete this post but there isn’t. The city is very nice, also the latvian girls and a bit less the latvian guys (at least the ones in the discos).

So let’s go straight to the last chapter. The eastern Europe Tour left behind important figures: 6 countries, 1500 km by car, 7 flights, two trains, one friend less, 5 friends more, 2 very drunken nights, 3 of fine party, very few hours sleeping and a lot walking, around 4 kilos more and, above all this the feeling of have lived a trip close to perfection. And it might sound unbelievable to use the word “perfect” when it had such a beginning but the fact is that, after that disgusting experience everything was just great. I felt at home in all places I was, the weather was good and the nights kept been alcoholic and funny but in the right measure. So, the way a trip has to be. And this trip has made me realize than I am starting to enjoy doing something I never really fancied before: to travel at my own, without depending on anybody and changing people from one day to the next one. It is not that I don’t like travelling with friends and of course I consider what happened with Giorgos a very unusual thing, I have travelled many times with different people without problems and I will keep doing that but, on the other hand, I am starting to feel very comfortable in this kind of “lonely traveler” situations. Specially if I get such a good welcome as I have had in all the cities I visited. So, I made it! Interesting or not, I wrote about the whole trip. I don’t know if this is funny to read but it definitely was to write it which is what it really matters