Fine dining in Latvia with Valerie

Well, here we are in Latvia! Look at that scarf I am wearing – crocheted especially for me by my OAT-designated tour buddy – she’s supposed to make sure I always show up on the bus and don’t get left behind, but she’s gone above and beyond by trying to keep me warm and fashionable.

It’s freezing here – high of about 48 today and rain and some hail. Although Ron is usually our problematic shopper, I am the guilty party on this trip. I am freezing. Back in Nuremberg, I bought two vests at the Gudrun Sjoden store. Then, yesterday, Aida gave us 30 minutes in a mall before a dinner reservation and I purchased a green sweater, some thick black leggings, a two-pack of gloves, and an entire thick black sweatsuit. We’re flying RyanAir from Helsinki to London in a week and my bag cannot weigh more than 22 pounds – and it weighed 21.7 when we left home. I’ve acquired at least 5 pounds of clothing, so far…well, you do the math.

Pause to embarrass Ron with this feline symbol of Riga – there is cat art everywhere – before I get down to business and embarrass myself:

I tried to take a couple of our tour-mates out to dinner today. I found a nice little Italian place, mapped it out – 950 meters from the hotel – and walked us over there. The hostess looked thoroughly shocked that we arrived without a reservation and sent us right off. Trying to recover, I found a nearby pizza place on my phone – 40 meters from where we were standing – and yet, I could not locate it. We stopped an UberEats biker, we walked into a movie theatre for help, walked in circles for that 40 meters and never found the back-up pizza place.

These travel failures are stressful enough with just Ron judging me – but with two others? Well, I’m mortified. We decided to just head to the restaurant right across from our hotel. Aida said it was good – but a little fancy.

And here is where things really went wrong. The restaurant is called SNOB, so I guess I should have seen this coming.

When we entered, the Maitre d’ insisted on taking our coats, and after trying to explain I was just going to wear my coat while I was dining, I gave in and handed over my North Face. It was clear it was going to be slow service (tip off: waiters in full suits, serving the food while wearing velvet gloves). So, to pass the time, I looked around at other tables and wondered if they were going to bring around some free bread. I saw some other OAT travelers at other tables and they seemed to have bread and so, with some of my wait time, I went over from our fancy table to their fancy table to see if they indeed had a basket of bread that we were being shorted.

They’re partially to blame here, I think, because I was merely asking about their bread situation and they – no longer being hungry, I guess – placed their bread basket and containers of butter in my hands and sent me on my way back across the dining room. And I was pretty excited…foraging for food for my tribe!…until I sat down, and saw my table mates were nearly choking with laughter, and I realized that all the fancy waitstaff was going to wonder what I was doing with a basket of bread and butter when they, clearly, had not served it to me with their velvet gloves.

As everyone laughed, I realized the only thing I could do – short of walking back across the dining room with the bread and butter – was to eat the entire thing – as fast as I could – before the wait staff came back.

To protect the privacy/dignity of our dining mates, I’m not naming names, but Ron shoved one of the rolls down in an effort to help me.

Pause here for a picture of the lovely park outside our hotel before we delve into more difficult subject matter:

I feel like we’ve been traveling long enough for me to see the dominant theme of this tour and I’m sorry to say that it’s Russia. We had another OAT speaker this morning – Sintija Broka, who is a researcher at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs. She has a bachelor’s degree in International Economics and a master’s in International Relations and Diplomacy. She’s a PhD fellow studying Arabic studies. She’s amazingly knowledgeable – and there’s a important point in itemizing the depth of her training – because after she spoke with us, we OAT members were allowed to ask questions. During the Q&A session, Sintija made it clear that she believes that Russia plans to take the Baltic States back in the future – it’s a when situation, not an if situation. She is expecting an invasion and she says that if Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia fall, then even Poland is in grave danger.

Sintija said that the only chance for protection lies with NATO but that it’s not clear if that protection will last. Latvia – in addition to giving over 2% of its GDP to NATO – is giving an additional 1% right to Ukraine – that is 370 million euros. (Compare: the US gave 76.8 billion in total aid to Ukraine in 2022 – military, financial, and humanitarian. But that figure is .33% of our GDP).

These are astronomical sums, aren’t they? They were interesting for me to seek out but didn’t make me feel any better – especially since, after we heard Sintija speak, Ron and I went to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia: https://okupacijasmuzejs.lv/en. It’s maintained in an old Soviet-era brutalist building right in the old town:

Touring the museum really helped me understand what’s at stake right now and walked me through the two Soviet invasions and one Nazi invasion. I finally understand how Latvia was – briefly – happy to have the Nazis come in and kick the Soviets out in 1941 – they mistakenly thought that being free of the Soviets would be better.

But look at these numbers: on June 14, 1941, the Soviets deported 15,443 people to Siberia. Then the Nazis soon took over. Later that same year – 1941 – the Nazis sent 20,000 citizens to German work camps AND killed 70,000 Jewish citizens of Latvia. Back come the Soviets in 1945 and – on March 25, 1949 – 42,125 Latvians were deported in another single day event.

I’m stopping here. I left the Occupation museum in tears – I have never so deeply understood the menacing threat these people are living with.

We just strolled around Riga for the rest of the day – information overload – and saw some of these important cultural sites.

Here is a store called KiloMax that sells clothing by the pound:

Here are a few architecture pics – the top two are not mine. The first is an aerial view of the Old Town and the second pic is the main square:

Riga also has a lot of art nouveau buildings:

And then here’s three churches for you. The first is Riga Cathedral, from 1211:

Then this one is the Russian Nativity of Christ Orthodox Church from 1884 (pic not mine) (used as a planetarium by the Russians, but better than the cathedral used as a warehouse back in Vilnius!)

And St. Gertrude from 1869: (pic not mine)

Tomorrow’s going to be a whole new kind of travel day! OAT is taking us to a goat farm for something they call A Day in the Life and I am aiming to milk a goat so that you can see I have some innate skills, even if fine dining is not one of them.