Travel Week pt. 2: Latvia

Sooooooooo I totally wrote this post a couple weeks ago when I was sick and intended on posting it.  Then I got distracted and now it's the end of April and I should probably post the last two travel week posts before the month ends.  Anyway....Moving on to Riga, Latvia!!

Classic Baltic old town

In order to get to Riga, my group left the hostel in Tallinn and took a city bus to the bus terminal.  There, we ordered bus tickets to Riga and got on a coach bus to Latvia.

I've never traveled by bus before that, and I have to say, I was seriously impressed.  This bus had wicked comfy seats each with their own entertainment center - movies, music, TV, it had it all (they guy next to me was watching Top Gear).  There was also a drinks machine, free of charge, where I could get hot chocolate and my friends could get their morning tea or coffee.  During the drive the road wound through a patch of Estonia that had gotten snow the night before.  Everything was white and powdery and glittering in the early morning sunlight.

Downside of buses - the people you're stuck next to.  Airplanes are the same.  And this happens more often than I wish.  The guy next to me had zero idea of personal space.  He was not a big man by any stretch of the imagination, and yet he still managed to overflow his seat.  I was watching the countryside go by out the window with my headphones plugged in and I was getting elbowed in the ribs and my legs knocked aside as this guy shifted around and generally tried to expand his sphere of influence.  I am a small person, I don't take up all that much room, and that was ridiculous.

Seriously

Anyway, we finally arrived in Riga.  The first thing we did was walk to our hostel and check in (like normal humans).  I really liked the hostel in Riga.  It was an Aussie backpackers' pub, which, it turns out, was the first hostel to be built in Riga.  The pub functions on three floors, connected by a spiral staircase, and the hostel starts on the fourth floor.  You key in through a door covered with old book spines and has an old fashioned knocker on it.  The doors to the rooms were covered in postcards from all over the world.  In the morning, we had a choice of what drink we wanted for breakfast, free of charge.  It's marketed as "breakfast beer".

Kinda awesome, having a vintage car as the bar

Anyway, Riga: Day 1.  Once we were checked in and had dumped our stuff in the room, my group went out to explore for a bit.  And sooner than I would've liked, we were back at the hostel again.  Instead of sitting down to play cards, I took a short break, excused myself, and went to wander on my own.

I think this is the main church.  No idea. There are more churches around here than coffee shops and they all blend together

I spent over an hour wandering around the old town part of Riga just exploring and taking pictures.  I ended up at the end of my wanderings by the river watching the sunset.

Reminds me a bit of Boston.....

On the way back, I passed by a restaurant called the Key to Riga.  There was a guy out front trying to convince tourists to come visit and, seeing me checking prices on the menu out front, came over to chat.  He was super charismatic and gave me a flyer for a glass of wine (which was lovely, by the way), and I brought my friends back for dinner.  This place had the greatest names for their dishes.  We swear the restaurant owners sat around with a mug of something strong and wrote down the first things that came to mind.  Either that or it was group storytime and it just happened to become food titles.

Mine was called "Flirting with the lady of the court"

Aren't they great??  My group pretty much read the menu out loud and were dying of laughter.

The second day in Riga we took a free tour from the middle of the old town through the newer part of the city.  I liked how the Latvians just decided up front that the old town couldn't accommodate more, so they continued spreading out and modernizing as the centuries passed.

Sorry. I didn't take any modern city pics......

Our guide took us to this massive market just outside the old town, essentially the size of five zeppelin hangers (with five actual zeppelin hanger roofs to cover them), and stopped just behind it.  He pointed to a very pointy skyscraper a few streets over and announced that the building we were staring at was called "Stalin's birthday cake".

There is a story to go with this name.  There were several hills in Moscow with buildings in this same Soviet style - one of which is Moscow State University.  This hill in Latvia was supposed to be the last in the set.  Well, the skyscraper ended up being finished on Stalin's actual birthday.  It got the nickname "Stalin's birthday cake" and the name just stuck.  I have the feeling the Latvians were just like "Here is your damn birthday present.  Please go away now."

Yeah, like that

The builders also stuck a baroque style tower on the top, thinking that it might improve the look of the building.  Not quite sure if they succeeded or not, or if it really matters.  That skyscraper is pretty impressive as is.

ANYWAY the tour finished halfway between the old town and the new city, at this monument here.

The Freedom monument

My group backtracked to find a small market our guide told us about, that was described as "trash and treasure".  He wasn't kidding.  The whole front of this place was a mess of old cords and power tools and towers of broken VHS cassettes.  We found our own treasures in the back.  A duo in one of the last stalls was selling old WWII relics and coins.  I was super excited about the coins - I collect foreign coins, and I bought a handful off of the guy.  One of my guys and I were chatting up the stall owners (in Russian, of course) while other people in our group took a look and wandered about the crazy market.  Other things these guys were selling included WWII Soviet medals, gas masks, old Third Reich deutsche marks, old revolvers and knives, and old Nazi officer patches.  Slightly awkward, but kinda cool to see a piece of history just laid out on a beat up table for sale.

After a good amount of time chatting with the local stall owners, my group made our way back to the massive food market and bought dinner.  Then it was back to the hostel for the night, at least for the guys.  They had entered themselves into the pub beer pong tournament.  The three of us girls went wandering at night to see Riga all lit up.

Just a random alleyway here, nothing too special

As the light faded away, my camera had more and more problems taking pictures.  Ah well.  We got hot chocolates and cider on the way back and went to see how the guys were doing.  The answer was happy but tipsy.

Indeed

They did a decent enough job from what I could see.  I didn't stay long though.  I don't drink beer, I wasn't in the tournament, and the room smelled overpoweringly like my old dance bag after an intense class.  Nope.  No was was I gonna stay in there.  I also wasn't willing to go buy something I could drink just to stay down there.  Nope nope nope.  So up to hang out with a friend I went, away from the shouts and the smell and the beer.

Of course then those drinking didn't remember where each other went and mini panic attacks occurred.

Go to sleep, damnit!!

I had to go run around and find everyone and stop the drunk arguing and remind everyone we had an early morning bus to catch.

That was Riga.

Travel Week pt. 1: Estonia

Travel Week officially started with Lauren and I trying to catch a plane outta Moscow.  Russian airports confuse me.  It took more time to wait for the check-in ladies to be ready than it did to go through all the security checkpoints.  And all of that time combined was probably equal to the time I stood in line waiting for passport control.

I don't understand why this is a thing

But they let us on the plane and we soared off to Tallinn.  Also the airport in Estonia is SO COMFY LOOKING!!  There are chairs and couches with big cushions and bean bags and rugs and things everywhere and it looks like an amazing place to curl up with a book and read.  There was also a wonderful amount of purple everywhere.

But I digress.

Our hostel was the Feel Good Hostel, located at the bottom of the hill leading up to the old town center in Tallinn.  It was pretty nice, very clean, and the staff were friendly.  The rest of our party showed up later that night - in the meantime, Lauren and I wandered around the old town and farther on down to the harbor and back up.

The thing that struck me about Tallinn was how quiet it was.  It is the capital city of a country and there were parts of our wanderings where it was literally dead silent.  You could hear the wind and your footfalls on the cobblestones and that's about it.  And there was never very many people around.  Only in very touristy spots - like the overlook - had more than a handful of people.

Just look at that view.  So picturesque

There wasn't much to do in Tallinn, mostly because we as a group were still trying to figure out how to function as a group.  Where do we go, how do we get there, how long will it take, how much does lunch cost??  Those are very important things.  So Tallinn was mostly just wandering around and taking pictures and getting to know everyone (all five of us).

One of the interesting things we did do in Tallinn was take a walk inside the town wall.  There were three towers from which you could see both the old city and the new, and many arrow slits in the wall in general.

Like something outta Robin Hood.....

Aaaaaaand this was the square by our hostel, known as "Freedom Square".  The cross lights up at night.

The weather mostly held out for us.  It was sunny and cloudless when Lauren and I touched down in Estonia. The sky stayed mainly blue throughout our stay, with only a bit of bad weather on the last day - and even then, I don't particularly consider snow bad weather.  It added a soft layer of white to everything and made the city look even more adorable.

That's Tallinn.  Not nearly as exciting as the Moscow trip, but it was nice to spend the first few days of Travel Week in a city that wasn't going at a breakneck pace around the clock.

Moscow

HELLO I HAVE RETURNED FROM MY MAD ADVENTURES

Didja miss me??

Sooooooooo now's the time when I get to gush about my travels, yes??

Yes??

Wonderful.

My two week adventure started with the program trip to Moscow.  And it started with me trying to pack everything the day of while drugged out on cold meds.  As always, spring break comes after midterms, and I stress myself out so much every time that I can't help but catch a cold.  Unlike my normal colds where I'm hiding under blankets and winter hats with a plethora of soups, tissues, and juices covering every available surface around me, this one was relatively short and mild.  Almost all of the clothes I brought with me were squished into a tiny duffel bag and my backpack for the entirety of my travels - that's a little less than 2 weeks worth of clothes.  My host father made me soup for dinner (since my host mom was at her daughter's house helping out for the day) and he made sure to give me a bit of food to take with me on my overnight train.

Well, I got out the apartment door okay.  I ran into my host mom as I went out the building entrance on her way in.  Her reaction to my leaving, and my reaction to her reaction, looked a little bit like this:

Needless to say, my host mom freaked out.  She was absolutely shocked and slightly panicky that I was leaving for the train station at that particular moment and made me go all the way back up to the apartment with her - she insisted that I needed to have another 10 minutes.  I found out later that my program had written on her copy of my excursions that the train left the following day.  They neglected to mention that this was because the train left at 1am and that that would mean I would be leaving on the previous night to get to the station in time.  From talking to friends, about half of the host mothers had the same reaction.  Anyway, I went back up and Yulia Georgievna added even more food to my little bag of noms and wished me happy and safe travels.

Only once before have I ridden on a proper train.  Not a metro train, not the commuter rail into Boston.  I took the bullet train in France in high school and that was my only memory of what a real train was like.  This was an overnight train, and I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

Well, we did technically arrive at a castle fortress.  Just that Putin works there instead of Dumbledore

I kid you not, it reminded my friends and I quite heavily of Harry Potter.  The corridors were narrow, you could wave out the window to people on the platform (which we did), there were compartments for small groups of people.  The only thing that was missing was the lady who walks the Hogwarts Express asking if people want anything off the sweets trolley.

This was my compartment.  It had two sets of bunk beds maybe about three feet apart with a small table in the middle.  Any luggage went either in the overhead shelf above the door or underneath the bottom bunks.  They were surprisingly comfy, and the bottom bunks had backrests to turn them into couches.  I and three friends stayed up a good chunk of the night talking and playing games and digging into the mountain of food our host mothers gave us.

And when I say "mountain".....

Kinda dark, but fooooooood

...I mean you couldn't see very much of the table under the farewell presents of our host mothers.  And we're pretty sure if they got the dates right, we would've left with even more food.  Also - the food in the dim picture above is only the stuff we were willing to share.  Each of us held some food back for ourselves to munch on later in the trip.  The program heads came around to share info with each compartment and their reaction to our food was priceless.  The excursion coordinator was telling us about how in the morning there would be free tea and coffee, and she looked at our table of food and said "...to go with your.......dinner??  Breakfast??  Umm......"  I said it was the goodbyes of host mothers and she just nodded sagely and continued on like this was normal.  Which, for Russia, I guess it is.

So yeah.  Awesome train ride.  It was somewhere between 3 and 4am when we finally went to bed.  By that time I couldn't breathe my head and lungs were so stuffed up.  For those who know me, you remember I used to get really motion sick as a kid.  I wasn't sure what an overnight train would do to me, but it was absolutely lovely.  The soft whir of the wheels on the track and the constant gentle rocking motion of the train lulled me right to sleep.

The morning dawned bright and early.  The train arrived just before 9am and we hauled all our luggage off the train and stuffed it into two tour buses.  We then proceeded to spend the next five hours touring Moscow.  Eeesh.  I know why they do it, but a lot of people on my program spent the night drowning themselves in alcohol and having impromptu parties, so the bus was very quiet and full of sleepless students with bloodshot eyes and reeling heads.  Also Moscow is HUGE (and that's saying something, coming from the girl whose college is in DC).  Five hours was barely enough time to see the city and stop at a few places.

Places such as Red Square

Lotsa building. Very much square. Lenin's here somewhere

And a park with bronze ducks

 "Make way for ducklings" anyone??

And an overlook with fantastic views of the city and the 1980s Olympic complex

So of course I block your view of it.  I'm obviously more important.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it, yep yep

The day after the bus tour was our tour of the Kremlin.  Honestly, my favorite part of it was the one part where pictures were not allowed.  The word "kremlin" originally meant "fortress" in Russian, and like all good fortresses the Kremlin has an armory.  Yes, some weapons and suits of armor are still housed here.  However, the modern armory is a museum dedicated to the treasures of Russia and gifts from foreign powers and old carriages and the dresses of the queens.  The armory also houses one of the biggest collections of British silver in the world due to the amazing amount of gifts that the British monarchy gave to the tsars.  Included in the displays are the tsars' crowns, Faberge eggs, and old jewel encrusted Orthodox treasures.  All the foreign gifts were beautiful, and from the weapons area I was kinda surprised that Russians passed on suits of armor in favor of more lightweight chainmail.  But it makes sense, in a way - it's much easier to move in chainmail than in heavy, clunky suits of armor.

Inside the Kremlin complex are several churches, including the one where ALL the tsars were crowned.

Assumption Cathedral

It doesn't matter where the capital of Russia was at the time, whether it was in Moscow or in St. Petersburg, all the tsars were crowned here.  The only exception was Catherine the Great's husband - he was technically crowned posthumously and in St. Petersburg after his wife died and their son finally took the throne.

While we were in one of the churches, our tour group could hear the sound of a helicopter outside.  Without missing a beat, our guide announced that Putin was either returning or heading out for the day.  It didn't really matter that we were still inside a cathedral, everyone started looking around trying to spot Putin.  Like we could magically see through buildings and choppers to spot the Russian president as he went about his day.

You know, being his badass self and all

So yes!!  Kremlin tour.  Afterwards, my friends and I wandered around Red Square and went inside one of Russia's most famous cathedrals - St. Basil's.  You know.......THE Russian church.

This one here.

Out of all the cathedrals I've visited here in Russia, this was was by far the most labyrinthine.  There are MANY different places of worship inside this one cathedral, each with their own icon stand and possibly with their own alter behind it.  The ceilings were also huge, as quite obviously St. Basil's has the domed turrets.  In the very center of the cathedral, a group of four men were singing a capella.  I've heard the singing before when I went to the cathedral in Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.  If church music in the states sounded like that, I've been more willing to go as a kid.  These men and their ability to blend all the voice ranges so that both the lowest and the highest notes in the human register are hit is phenomenal.

After Red Square and the Kremlin tour, we were free to do whatever we wanted.  So my friends and I went to the pedestrian street of Arbat to check it out, and then searched for a souvenir market on the outskirts of town.  Arbat was kinda cool - it was a lot of shops and vendors and cafes lining a street with no cars.  Two of my friends and I flipped out and screamed when we saw one of the cafes, much to the shock and fear of the rest of our group.

Can you tell we're New Englanders??

There was also this cow in front of a store.  I can't remember what the store was selling, but it's now become a thing here in Russia that whenever we have to stop and take a picture of statues I mimic the faces.  It makes my friends laugh (my host mom too, when I showed it to her), and I have fun with it.

........moo??

The following day I took a metro tour around Moscow.  I remember waaaaaay back in high school that Madame told us that Moscow had some of the most beautiful metro stations in the world.  She showed us pictures of stained glass and fancy chandeliers and marble.  At the time, I doubted that was actually the metro stations.  At the time, my comparisons were the Boston T and the DC metro - neither of which are pretty and half the stations are kinda dingy with a weird smell.

I stand corrected.

One of two stained glass panels to commemorate the two Great Patriotic Wars in Russia's history, this one being the Napoleonic Wars

These

 Second Great Patriotic War, the war against Hitler and Nazi Germany

Stations

This station - комсомольская - is considered one of the most beautiful in Moscow, located on the ring road line

Are

One of many bronze statues depicting the everyday people of the Soviet Union. It's good luck to rub the dog's nose or the guns of the soldiers

Gorgeous.

.......I don't remember which station this is.  Sorry.  It's pretty though

Also Moscow gets kudos points for making the Mendeleev station's chandeliers look like molecules.  Well done, Russia.  I very much approve.

SCIENCE

Post-metro tour, we actually did find that market we were looking for the previous day.  It was pretty big, and about 80% was matryoshkas (the nesting dolls).  I ended up wandering around and acting as a translator for one of my friends.  That was fun - it turns out that I speak well enough that if I know the vocabulary, the vendors just assume I am Russian or from a former Soviet country.  Also my haggling skills are quite terrible.  If it seems like a discount in America and a good price in USD, my first reaction is to just pay.  If I don't wanna pay that price I feel guilty asking for a lower one, since in the US prices are almost always fixed and no one argues it.  There was one guy though that I tried to haggle with and he must've been the only vendor in the complex to refuse to haggle.  He had a pin I liked, but I wasn't willing to pay $6 for it and I asked for something closer to $2, which is currently under 100 roubles.  The guy just looked at me and said (in Russian) "Did you hear me??  You pay 150 roubles."  Fine, sir, keep your pin.  I got a better one elsewhere for cheaper.

Take that, sir

The final day in Moscow started out with a museum tour.  I went to the museum of Soviet history - I like history much better than art, and I'm a little bit museum'd out at this point.  It was a little disappointing.  I had already been to the museum of political history here in St. Peterburg, and this museum was like a poor replica of it.  The curator himself conducted our tour, and I liked him - he obviously knew a lot about the exhibits in his museum and he went into great detail with everything.  However, he kinda droned.  I felt bad for the poor guy - by the end of the tour, only myself and two other people were still following him and listening (regardless of how much we were actually paying attention), and another three people not from our group had joined our tour.  Everyone else, including the program staff, had gone on ahead and completely abandoned the curator's tour.  I thought that was incredibly rude, seeing as he's the curator and he took the time out of his day to personally show a bunch of Americans around his museum, but that's just me.

At night, as the last excursion in Moscow, there was..............ANOTHER BUS TOUR!!  Red Square was particularly pretty at night.

This is ГУМ ("goom"), the massive shopping mall on Red Square

Lots of lights.  And spotlights.  And of course, St. Basil's.

All the colors pop against the black sky

We even went back up to the overlook by the Olympic complex to get a view of the city all lit up.

Lauren and I on the overlook.  Thanks to Nika for the pic!!

Not gonna lie, I don't like Moscow as much as I like St. Petersburg.  St. Petersburg is smaller, their metro doesn't need a rocket scientist to figure out how to get from pt. A to pt. B, and (in my opinion) it's prettier (the palaces and different architectural styles and myriad of monuments and buildings isn't overwhelmed by Soviet blocks).  But I will admit, I love the nighttime skyline of Moscow.

That's my Moscow trip!!  From the bus, Lauren and I went to our hostel for the night (which was in a sketchy back alley but turned out to be surprisingly clean, nice, and safe) and on to Travel Week in the morning.

On to the next adventure!!