Riga, Latvia

Hey, I am in the present time!

My last day in Moscow was very mellow. I took an early walk to a Cathedral of the Holy Savior. It is built on the scale of the great Italian Duomas. It was originally build around 1820 to commemorate Russia's victory over Nepoleon. It is enormous. But in 1935 Stalin tore it down. Then he built a community swimming pool on the spot. - Unbelievable! Then in about 1990 some people started to raise money to rebuild it and they did.

After that walk I found a French cafe, of the type we were trying to find in Paris- great coffee, great expresso (I had one of each.) and wonderful bread- I had something called a flute that had those hazelnuts and raisins in it, Also a Danish- spelled in Russian with those exact Cerrilic (sp) letters. I found out that they are a chain and my waitress thought that there was actually one in Los Angeles. I am certain that a cafe like that would do well almost anywhere.

I took the 9 PM train out of Moscow last night. It was great. I purchased one of those tickets with a sleeper. It is a typical Russian train, except in this case it was a Latvian train. All of the bunks are open. Basicly the train is nothing but sleeping sections and there is someone sleeping next to you, above and across the corordor. I was lucky enough to have a Russian young woman who spoke English as my neighbor. We chatted in the train for about two hours, then lights go out and everyone gets into their bunk and goes to sleep. I slept well but awoke at 6 AM. She is both a student and works for the statistics office of the Russian government. She is a smart cookie. Her mother and father are both Russian but grew up in Latvia and she was visiting her grandparents in Riga. I even met them. It is remarkable how much you can find out about a person after 16 hours on a train- really only 8 hours because I was sleeping for about 8. She has a boyfriend she met at her office. She loves him very much. He is shy and 12 years older. He just had an operation on his brain because of an annurism, but he is OK. Her mother lives in Malta, and married a man from Tunisa who is not so strictly Muslim. But according to Katya (her name) her mother has a terrible accent when she speaks English. I could go on an on. Because she was quite a talker, but I enjoyed it and it was a great way to spend a long train ride. I could tell you her life story but maybe you don't want to hear it and the time is running down on my Internet.

I am in Riga, Latvia now- beautiful little town and I am staying at a nice hotel. It is pouring rain on and off. I just had a nice tour of the city- just one to one because I was the only one to show up for the tour at 6 PM. It was a nice way to get a feel for the city which is very walkable- at least in the "old city". The city originated in 1201 but most buildings were built later because the city has gone through any number of attacks, from Poles, Swedes, Russians and Germans. The Germans bombed the whole center square in 1941, so building and churches that were 600 years old were destroyed, but most have been rebuilt.

I visited a museum dedicated to the Soviet occupation. There is still a prejudice against Russians here from the Soviet times. Yet more people speak Russian than Latvian- although I think that most speak both. The population is roughly equal between the percentage of Russians and the percentage of Latvian. This museum contains some Russian prejudice and I confirmed it with my guide today. I noticed that much of the text is in four languages, but when there are three- Russian is left out. The clincher was when I used the toilet and in three languages it said something like "Please do not throw paper in the toilet." or something like that. But there was no translation in Russian. So now when someone clogs the toilet, they can blame the Russians.

It nice to back to the Roman Alphabet again- but I only know one word in Latvian - OK, maybe I don't know one word in Latvian- I wrote it down "somewhere" now I can't find it. My guide was teaching me how to pronounce things- their c is like in Russian- most letters are straightforward- well "j" is like "h" like Spanish and their vowels have little squigglies in all kinds of places which change the sound- well maybe not so easy to read.

I am sorry, no deep insights tonight.