After almost a year has passed, memories of our three days in Riga in warm June have become a happy blur, and I have never been more glad to have hundreds of pictures as tokens of that time.
We both wanted to get away, me and Tija, anywhere. So we packed two bags and went on a bus for in the early hours of the morning, hoping our Couchsurfing host would turn out to be as accomodating as she sounded. Driving the shortest way through Estonia, the four-hour bus ride was half excitement, half impatience.
We had a lot of fun with a navigation app, because many words in Latvian are Estonian words with an S in the end.
I think this trip was what first made me love taking pictures of strangers.
Our lovely host, Auce's home. It looked like a dream, five friends sharing a flat in the centre. Complete freedom. Auce was learning here; she was from a small town a few hours away.
Tija, with blond hair and a goofy smile matching mine. We were here, right at that moment!
Latvian trolleybuses look exactly the same as the Estonian ones, but they have a much cooler colour!
Strangers.
With no clue how to navigate in Riga, a city of 700,000, we drove buses and walked for hours, hoping to find the zoo. The air around us was suffocating, and very suddenly, the bright sun turned into huge raindrops and we ran to a bus station where we could wait. We gave up that day and drove back to the centre, determined to see giraffes the next day.
We had next to no money, so our meals were made up of the cheapest food you could find in Rimi.
Counting our money the next morning, and cursing the Latvian valuta.
We made it to the zoo eventually with some help from Auce and her roommates. It was warmer than on the day before, but being there was so great that it topped any other thoughts. I think. I know we moaned a lot about the weather. That's the good thing. Only good things remain.
We saw this from the zoo, and longed to swim. We both had swimming suits with us, yet we hadn't checked if there was a place to swim in Riga. (There wasn't!)
Our first giraffes! I have never felt so humble. Their necks were so long. It felt like looking at a real-life Aunt Petunia.
I always demand doing the kid stuff, because I never grew out of it. Take pictures on all the statues, hug all the chef pigs, that's my motto.
A much needed cool-down. I wound up buying this ice cream every time we got ice cream -- which was four of five times. Because it was hot, okay?
Auce. I still cannot believe our luck. She was everything a host could be, and on top of that, she was an incredibly sweet person. Without her flat at Gertrudes iela and her map drawing skills, our days in Riga would never have come to life. Thank you so, so much, Auce!
"World's best buckwheat", as Tija claims it was. I don't remember. I do love buckwheat!
I remember planning to go to the cinema the next day, to see what a Latvian cinema looks like, but we stayed up late and then decided to sleep in instead. A long ride back to Tallinn was in front of us, but that one went quickly, and before we knew it, we were back at home, planning our next adventure.
