Photo courtesy of Ricardo Liberato, Wikipedia. My pictures are currently under edit.
My Peace Corps service ended un-ceremonially at midnight on the Monday evening of June 1st. I convinced three departing Group 32’rs (Andrew was heading home to Missouri, Greg was bound for the trans-Siberian and Eileen was soon gone for Thailand) and Ravi (a friend of mine from Group 33 who we were passing the torch of seniority on to) to grab a beer in a high-end Irish pub in a swanky area of Kiev. I got us lost, but we made it just in time before closing. Wheels up the next day above Borispol airport, I was happy and sad, excited and apprehensive all at the same time. It was a feeling all too familiar; a cognizance dampenıng all four emotions.
“AirBaltic” is the cataclysm of the low-cost carrier. Nowadays on some cut rate airbuses they even charge for a cup of coffee ($3). Charging for liquids in an artificial environment which boasts humidity approaching 20% borders on inhumanity, in my opinion. Nonetheless it was a clean, new airplane that bore me to Latvia – after all the cheapest fare to Istanbul. Besides, at least I’d get a taste of one of the Baltics, if only for an evening.
We arrived in mildly violent turbulence, the result of an approaching storm which would drench all 18 hours of my time in the tiny nation. A city bus and an hour after landing my things were stowed in my hostel and I walked around the colorful, clean and comfortable city of Riga. I avoid the adjective “charming,” even though it applies heavily as I heard Europeans are sick of Americans thinking their continent cute or applying adjectives comparable to stuffed animals and Ethan Allen furniture.
The first thing I did when I arrived was eat a giant salad. The next thing was to order a great big frosty Baltic beer and imbibe my pallet in a tasty brew that was nether Chernihivsky nor Obolon nor Roghan. I walked the town in the rain, and enjoyed the sharp tall spires of a handsome city smelling vaguely of salt and cheese. Latvians are an extremely attractive people, with light hair and clear complexions – a people who like other former countrymen had the audacity and daring to stand up to Soviet rule throughout fifty years. A somber museum stood in the center calling attention to the occupation. Russian is spoken by much of the population, and the Russian ethnic minority consistently cries foul, but the Latvians are eager to move forward as Latvian-speaking, Latvian dominated EU nation. I asked a Latvian girl who I met at the hostel pub that night about a few billboards (I could read some Latvian because it has some words, although Romanized, which resemble Russian) calling attention to the shrinking ethnic Latvian makeup of Riga. She replied that it was a growing problem and that Latvians wanted their country to stop using Russian as a second language (perhaps to be replaced with English and German). We mused together on the painful bitter hangovers left over from the Soviet Union continuing to manifest themselves in political and ethnic strife in Ukraine and the Baltics.
I spent my late night in Riga reveling in backpacking tradition – in a cozy hostel pub arguing with an over the hill Australian complaining of Americans who throw their money around, giving advice to some young Brits just embarking on their first tour of Europe, and talking to an Indian businessman about his hometown of Varanasi. It was still light outside an hour before an aged traveler went to bed at midnight, whose frayed bag straps decayed with delight in the corner.
